Does the ship leave later the first cruise after a transatlantic?

[bronzey214]

I'm on the Sky Princess the first cruise after it's trans-Atlantic in November and noticed that the first Arrival Group is listed as 1 PM - 1:30 PM which seems.... late.

The last one for group G is 4 PM - 4:30 PM but the ship is listed to leave Port Everglades at 4 PM.

Just trying to get ducks in rows and not be surprised with a sudden late departure.

[beg3yrs]

Well, it seems Princess is anticipating things taking a while when the ship returns to the States but maybe not enough. You can count on the Coast Guard to run inspections and maybe even some drills for the crew. Immigration will want to check the crew's documentation too. This takes time and I'd be amazed if everything was done by 1PM for passengers to start boarding.

 

Don't be surprised if departure is late.

[Sn0cruiser]

We’ve been on that first cruise after a TA before (2017) and boarding started around 2pm - very long line of people waiting before that.  Once started we moved very quickly though. I think the ship left on time around 5pm ish though.  We were told the difference in. Boarding time was due to the Coast Guard requirements for a ship docking in the US for the first time after being outside the country.

[SoCalTraveler]

We were on a TA leaving New Orleans, scheduled to leave at 4:00 p.m.  We figured to sit on our balcony sipping banana daiquiris and watching the Mississippi Delta slip by.  We checked in without difficulty at 11 or 11:30 and had lunch in the dining room. At 5:30 they ran the lifeboat drill with the ship still at the dock loading stuff; luggage, crates of food, etc.  From the rail we could see our bags still on the dock.  We sailed around 6:30 or so, and the Delta is so dark then the mosquitoes bump into each other.  

 

Our bags were delivered around 11 p.m.

 

Later in the cruise I went to the captain's talk.  Other passengers asked about the delay and the captain said that for a TA they need to load a lot of stuff so it took longer.  Folks asked if we were waiting for late arrivals and the captain said, "no."  So I asked, "When HQ scheduled this TA two years earlier, knowing we had 15 days ahead of us, do you think they could plan for the long turnaround."  The captain diplomatically noted that the ship captain has nothing to do with arrival or departure times.   (PS, it was a great cruise.)

[CineGraphic]

When a ship arrives in the USA for the first time after being across the pond, the CDC, Coast Guard, and Immigration will all want to check things out. The posted departure time may say 4PM, but don't be surprised if you leave several hours later.

Edited September 30, 2022 by CineGraphic

[capriccio]

We were relatively new to cruising when we first experienced this in January 2010.  We were boarding the old Royal Princess (680 passengers) in Fort Lauderdale for a cruise up the Amazon to Manaus, Brazil.  Boarding time according to all the correspondence from Princess began at 11 am.  We got there around noon and boarding didn't start until after 2 pm. There were multiple announcement during that time basically blaming the Coast Guard, Customs and Immigration (all crew docs had to be examined) and the Port.  Which was the truth.  The Captain announced we would be leaving about an hour late at 5 pm but that came and went.  Everyone was onboard well before 4 pm but the replenishment of the ship's foodstuffs and supplies for essentially a 4 week cruise (2 weeks to Manaus and 2 weeks back) was taking a very long time.  It was after 6 pm by the time we pulled away from the dock - the last ship to leave Port Everglades that day.  The ship we followed out was the brand new Oasis of the Seas.  All the Princess passengers and a large number of the crew were on deck as our little ship sailed behind the biggest cruise ship in the world complete with a climbing wall!