Boarding assignment question

[LadyBerard]

We're cruising in 10 days on Nieuw Statendam and we finally received our boarding assignment of "C" which states 11:45 a.m.  We cruised on the Rotterdam this past March and had group A.  I remember it took about 2 1/2 hours to get on board.  Longest we have ever waited.  I definitely do not want a repeat of that.  I believe we'll arrive around 12:30 so hopefully the majority of people will have already boarded.  But my question is, how many boarding assignment letters are there?  A -  ? ??

[TableGirl]

I don't know how many boarding assignment letters there are.  However, I took 3 HAL cruises in 2022.  Never did they turn me away for arriving early.  I used the VeriFLY app every time (it may not be relevant now since they aren't requiring as much Covid testing) and I sailed through check in.  If you arrive too early, you will wait simply because they're still trying to '0' out the ship.  Only once of the 3 cruises was there an issue and it was because the ship had to participate in a US Coast Guard drill so it threw everything off and we waited in line 3 hours to board.  I find they generally can move people through fairly quickly depending on the port you are boarding in - e.g. Fort Lauderdale has it down like clockwork.  That doesn't mean everything works perfect every time though......  Good luck!

[Bick53]

We are currently on the Koningsdam and arrived at the pier in San Diego this past Saturday at  our 1:10 PM boarding time.

The place was a zoo. No one showed any interest in what time slot we were assigned.  People in front of us had been assigned 2:00 PM and had arrived about the same time we did.

Two hours later we were finally on board. 

[AFNavigator]

On 1/4/2023 at 12:11 PM, LadyBerard said:

We're cruising in 10 days on Nieuw Statendam and we finally received our boarding assignment of "C" which states 11:45 a.m.  We cruised on the Rotterdam this past March and had group A.  I remember it took about 2 1/2 hours to get on board.  Longest we have ever waited.  I definitely do not want a repeat of that.  I believe we'll arrive around 12:30 so hopefully the majority of people will have already boarded.  But my question is, how many boarding assignment letters are there?  A -  ? ??

We just cruised the Nieuw Statendam Dec 10-17 out of Port Everglades.  We had an 11:00 boarding time and were on the ship in under 20 minutes.  Ship was somewhere around 85-90% capacity but boarding still went rather smoothly.  For full openness, we had Club Orange which came with priority embarkation.  That said, the non-priority line didn't look overly long--probably 15 minutes more than our line.

[Ipeeinthepools]

9 hours ago, AFNavigator said:

We just cruised the Nieuw Statendam Dec 10-17 out of Port Everglades.  We had an 11:00 boarding time and were on the ship in under 20 minutes.  Ship was somewhere around 85-90% capacity but boarding still went rather smoothly.  For full openness, we had Club Orange which came with priority embarkation.  That said, the non-priority line didn't look overly long--probably 15 minutes more than our line.

 

So with Club Orange can you just show up at anytime?  Does your Boarding pass actually say Club orange?

[AFNavigator]

2 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

So with Club Orange can you just show up at anytime?  Does your Boarding pass actually say Club orange?

The boarding pass did have a set boarding time.  It didn't say Club Orange but it did have a large  "Priority" banner.  We just had to show that to the line agent who then directed us to the priority line.

[scooter6139]

1 hour ago, AFNavigator said:

The boarding pass did have a set boarding time.  It didn't say Club Orange but it did have a large  "Priority" banner.  We just had to show that to the line agent who then directed us to the priority line.

Do you get the same Priority boarding if in a Neptune suite?

[Ipeeinthepools]

2 hours ago, AFNavigator said:

The boarding pass did have a set boarding time.  It didn't say Club Orange but it did have a large  "Priority" banner.  We just had to show that to the line agent who then directed us to the priority line.

 

Does the Priority Banner allow you to show up whenever you desire?

[AFNavigator]

2 hours ago, scooter6139 said:

Do you get the same Priority boarding if in a Neptune suite?

I believe it's the same priority for suite guests as well as 4 & 5 star mariners.

[AFNavigator]

2 hours ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

Does the Priority Banner allow you to show up whenever you desire?

Considering we were assigned Boarding Group A, 11:00, I assume we could have showed up anytime after that up to the final cut off time (early enough to process and be onboard no later than 1 hour prior to ship departure time).

[Dutchman48]

4 hours ago, scooter6139 said:

Do you get the same Priority boarding if in a Neptune suite?

Yes, have used it multiple times, priority boarding comes with Neptune suite. Usually there is a sign indicating what line to use, but if not just go to the 4- & 5-star line. That is what we were instructed to do when we did not see a line that included Neptune Suites.