Melbourne embarkation questions

[LuckiePuris]

For Melbourne embarkation for a Princess Cruise can anyone please shed some light on the line up process.

 

We have been lucky to get Group A boarding time and with platinum priority priority, am I right to assume we’re permitted to be one of the first to line up to board?

 

Boarding time is midday however it’s very important to us that we’re onboard early as we want to book sanctuary for a specific day with great choice of lounger as well as register for chsfs table.

 

How early can you start to queue so that you’re at the front when boarding starts?

 

Can you queue inside the terminal building where check in is or is it outdoors either just outside elevators or way back at entrance near taxi drop off?

 

Is bag drop available straight away from mid morning?

 

We are planning on arriving at 10am and happy to wait, just wanted an idea of when/where they’ll start queues.

Thank you, have a great day!

 

[possum52]

1 hour ago, LuckiePuris said:

For Melbourne embarkation for a Princess Cruise can anyone please shed some light on the line up process.

 

We have been lucky to get Group A boarding time and with platinum priority priority, am I right to assume we’re permitted to be one of the first to line up to board?

 

Boarding time is midday however it’s very important to us that we’re onboard early as we want to book sanctuary for a specific day with great choice of lounger as well as register for chsfs table.

 

How early can you start to queue so that you’re at the front when boarding starts?

 

Can you queue inside the terminal building where check in is or is it outdoors either just outside elevators or way back at entrance near taxi drop off?

 

Is bag drop available straight away from mid morning?

 

We are planning on arriving at 10am and happy to wait, just wanted an idea of when/where they’ll start queues.

Thank you, have a great day!

 

At 10am, it is still likely to be busy around the entance to the pier, as disembarking passengers wait to be picked up. We have never arrived before 12pm and were dropped off close to the lifts where our luggage was taken from us. We were ushered straight into the lift and up to the check in area. 

[cruiser3775]

All the outgoing passengers have to get off the ship before a single incoming passenger will be allowed on.  The ship has to be cleaned.  They won't start boarding any earlier than the official start time, and you'll be in the way. The service desk won't be open.   Getting there at 10am is over the top.  Have a leisurely breakfast somewhere in Port Melbourne. Bay Street has some nice shops and cafes.

[LuckiePuris]

2 hours ago, cruiser3775 said:

All the outgoing passengers have to get off the ship before a single incoming passenger will be allowed on.  The ship has to be cleaned.  They won't start boarding any earlier than the official start time, and you'll be in the way. The service desk won't be open.   Getting there at 10am is over the top.  Have a leisurely breakfast somewhere in Port Melbourne. Bay Street has some nice shops and cafes.

I understand I can’t board and happy to wait until my boarding time but aiming to be a early so we are at front of queue when boarding does start.

 

[LuckiePuris]

4 hours ago, possum52 said:

At 10am, it is still likely to be busy around the entance to the pier, as disembarking passengers wait to be picked up. We have never arrived before 12pm and were dropped off close to the lifts where our luggage was taken from us. We were ushered straight into the lift and up to the check in area. 

Thank you

[getting older slowly]

on 4 th Nov arrived noon   waited in line until 12.30pm    arrived seat 12.35pm check in though customs sceening slow  12.55pm   on board in club class dining 1.05pm

 

Cheers Don on the Grand

[Essence08]

2 hours ago, getting older slowly said:

on 4 th Nov arrived noon   waited in line until 12.30pm    arrived seat 12.35pm check in though customs sceening slow  12.55pm   on board in club class dining 1.05pm

 

Cheers Don on the Grand

Lucky you - we have family on this cruise who arrived for their 1pm check in and were not on board until 430 - seems things went pear shaped pretty quickly.  Hope you're enjoying your cruise

 

[arxcards]

First day jitters, as they squared things away with port authorities and borderforce. The same has happened on the initial turnaround days for all the ships in Sydney, but much quicker for the following cruises.

 

10am is a bit early. If disembark is smooth and on schedule, check-in will open between 11 and 11:30.

Edited November 11, 2022 by arxcards
unquote

[LuckiePuris]

On 11/11/2022 at 9:55 PM, arxcards said:

First day jitters, as they squared things away with port authorities and borderforce. The same has happened on the initial turnaround days for all the ships in Sydney, but much quicker for the following cruises.

 

10am is a bit early. If disembark is smooth and on schedule, check-in will open between 11 and 11:30.

Thanks Geoff, we want to be close to front of queue when they start processing so thinking 10am ish should help us with this. We have group a boarding time so hopefully can get on quick.

[Johhno]

On board the Grand now,we left on the 4th Nov.

Assigned group A and arrived at 10.45am as we stayed overnight prior in the city.Upon arrival was told boarding wasnt open till 11.30 but we could drop our bags so we did and went for a coffee.Went back at 11.45am(bit a chaos in terminal)and in stateroom by 12.50PM. I believed it didn’t go well after this with people onboard saying it took some up to 3 hours+ to board.

Not sure what’s going to happen with boarding times for the next cruise on the 17th Nov as they might want to do a spring clean as we have Covid onboard.

 

[Cruisers47]

9 hours ago, Johhno said:

On board the Grand now,we left on the 4th Nov.

Assigned group A and arrived at 10.45am as we stayed overnight prior in the city.Upon arrival was told boarding wasnt open till 11.30 but we could drop our bags so we did and went for a coffee.Went back at 11.45am(bit a chaos in terminal)and in stateroom by 12.50PM. I believed it didn’t go well after this with people onboard saying it took some up to 3 hours+ to board.

Not sure what’s going to happen with boarding times for the next cruise on the 17th Nov as they might want to do a spring clean as we have Covid onboard.

 

Thanks for keeping us up to date.  So Covid is on the grand now!

we have not heard of any news on Royal Carribean ships or P and O or Carnival?   
 

they must have some Covid as well?

 

does anybody know?

 

EILEEN

[NSWP]

8 minutes ago, Cruisers47 said:

Thanks for keeping us up to date.  So Covid is on the grand now!

we have not heard of any news on Royal Carribean ships or P and O or Carnival?   
 

they must have some Covid as well?

 

does anybody know?

 

EILEEN

I would say every ship working this region has covid on board from a dozen to hundreds. Mask 😷 up people.

[Aus Traveller]

1 hour ago, Cruisers47 said:

Thanks for keeping us up to date.  So Covid is on the grand now!

we have not heard of any news on Royal Carribean ships or P and O or Carnival?  

they must have some Covid as well?

does anybody know?

EILEEN

We just got off the Pacific Encounter. There was no indication that there was COVID on board.

[subaru94]

1 hour ago, Aus Traveller said:

We just got off the Pacific Encounter. There was no indication that there was COVID on board.

I think P&O have the right idea by serving people in the Pantry, vs Princess where everyone helps themselves.

[Aus Traveller]

Just now, subaru94 said:

I think P&O have the right idea by serving people in the Pantry, vs Princess where everyone helps themselves.

Serving people in the Pantry has slashed the incidence of Noro virus. As you suggest, it has probably helped reduce the spread of COVID. At the moment, P&O aren't seating people at shared tables in the dining room, but they can share tables in the Pantry.

[cruiser3775]

3 hours ago, Cruisers47 said:

we have not heard of any news on Royal Carribean ships or P and O or Carnival?   
 

they must have some Covid as well?

 

does anybody know?

Eileen, the NSW Government publishes information on covid on cruise ships that are entering NSW ports. It is the only state that does this.

It is not true that there are outbreaks on every ship. Of the current 12 ships in NSW ports, four have minor outbreaks, called Tier 1, which is defined as:

No - Low Impact to Vessel
There are very few cases on board (less than 30 positive cases per 1,000 people), and there is no impact to critical services such as healthcare, engineering, cleaning, food and beverage.

 

It is disappointing that some people seem to enjoy making sweeping statements about Covid on cruise ships. You can find the current information for NSW at:

www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/travel/cruising-rules

 

[OzKiwiJJ]

4 minutes ago, cruiser3775 said:

Eileen, the NSW Government publishes information on covid on cruise ships that are entering NSW ports. It is the only state that does this.

It is not true that there are outbreaks on every ship. Of the current 12 ships in NSW ports, four have minor outbreaks, called Tier 1, which is defined as:

No - Low Impact to Vessel
There are very few cases on board (less than 30 positive cases per 1,000 people), and there is no impact to critical services such as healthcare, engineering, cleaning, food and beverage.

 

It is disappointing that some people seem to enjoy making sweeping statements about Covid on cruise ships. You can find the current information for NSW at:

www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/travel/cruising-rules

 

Given the increase in Covid cases in various states in the past week, especially NSW, I would be very surprised if there was no Covid onboard. Whether the ship knows about however number of cases there are is a different matter. Symptoms can be very mild and some people will just decide it's a cold and not get tested. 

Edited November 13, 2022 by OzKiwiJJ

[arxcards]

10 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

Given the increase in Covid cases in various states in the past week, especially NSW, I would be very surprised if there was no Covid onboard. Whether the ship knows about however number of cases there are is a different matter. Symptoms can be very mild and some people will just decide it's a cold and not get tested. 

That is pretty much our experience. It was evident for our early days on Majestic that something was going around. Turns out it was covid, but we only listed as tier 1 a couple of days prior to returning to Sydney. Had there been a need to test everyone, as occurred on Majestic on Friday, or for your cruise on Coral, the numbers would have been higher.

 

I will make a sweeping statement. Covid may not be on every ship, but you need to be alert to the possibility that it is on every ship. For Luminosa, Quantum, Encounter & Coral; you will no longer see a regular reference about their status on a government website - only when they visit other states on their cruise.

[OzKiwiJJ]

40 minutes ago, arxcards said:

That is pretty much our experience. It was evident for our early days on Majestic that something was going around. Turns out it was covid, but we only listed as tier 1 a couple of days prior to returning to Sydney. Had there been a need to test everyone, as occurred on Majestic on Friday, or for your cruise on Coral, the numbers would have been higher.

 

I will make a sweeping statement. Covid may not be on every ship, but you need to be alert to the possibility that it is on every ship. For Luminosa, Quantum, Encounter & Coral; you will no longer see a regular reference about their status on a government website - only when they visit other states on their cruise.

On our Coral cruise testing was required before going ashore at Fremantle, Busselton, Adelaide and Burnie. You had to take a photo of the result alongside a card with the current date printed on it and show the photo as you left the ship. I'm pretty sure that requirement weeded out a few people each time who were positive.

[arxcards]

59 minutes ago, OzKiwiJJ said:

On our Coral cruise testing was required before going ashore at Fremantle, Busselton, Adelaide and Burnie. You had to take a photo of the result alongside a card with the current date printed on it and show the photo as you left the ship. I'm pretty sure that requirement weeded out a few people each time who were positive.

That is true, but they only asked for those tests to be done because the ship had triggered tier 2. As with Majestic, it was the port mandated tests that took the ship from tier 2 to tier 3. If people like yourself had not come forward to be tested, the ship wouldn't have been tier 2, and the ports wouldn't have required testing before going ashore - pretty much how Majestic cruised under the radar until tier 2 was triggered.

 

Even though a ship may suspect the presence of covid aboard, they will only voluntarily test anyone presenting with symptoms, and it is only when there is a mandated port test that a true number is known. In the early days of restarting overseas, ships did not visit ports that had a mandated arrival test. None of the cruise lines will do any precautionary screening tests, kind of hoping that the cruise will be over before they can trigger an elevated response from their home port.

[LuckiePuris]

17 hours ago, Johhno said:

On board the Grand now,we left on the 4th Nov.

Assigned group A and arrived at 10.45am as we stayed overnight prior in the city.Upon arrival was told boarding wasnt open till 11.30 but we could drop our bags so we did and went for a coffee.Went back at 11.45am(bit a chaos in terminal)and in stateroom by 12.50PM. I believed it didn’t go well after this with people onboard saying it took some up to 3 hours+ to board.

Not sure what’s going to happen with boarding times for the next cruise on the 17th Nov as they might want to do a spring clean as we have Covid onboard.

 

Thanks for the feedback! Can I please ask were there many in front when you came back 11.45am? If you didn’t feel up to going for a walk was there an option to stay there and start a queue? Thanks

[LuckiePuris]

8 hours ago, Cruisers47 said:

Thanks for keeping us up to date.  So Covid is on the grand now!

we have not heard of any news on Royal Carribean ships or P and O or Carnival?   
 

they must have some Covid as well?

 

does anybody know?

 

EILEEN

No indication of covid on Quantum last week