Off to a rough start in Lisbon

[travelingJimmy]

Just boarded Marina in Lisbon. This is our 8th Oceania cruise. Off to a rough start. First we had to stand in line with 3200 of our closest friends from the P&O Ventura. Both cruises were at the same dock and had to share the same line and checking counter.  Longest check in we have ever had.  Then all the stuff we did on the online checkin before we left, well forget about it.  The pictures we took had to be redone since they were not valid apparently in Lisbon.  Their scanners didn’t work so it was manual to put in our passport data.  Once we FINALLY got checked in, trying to find the way to the ship was well, let’s say interesting.  Signage was terrible but the good news is we got our steps in for the day and got a nice self guided tour of the docks and terminal. Ok. A nice glass of wine on the deck at the terrace cafe and I’ll be good as new.   Dinner tonight at Jacques.  

[PhD-iva]

Wow! Thx for sharing. Not a nice way to start your cruise, but hopefully everything will improve from here (how could it not?).

[kibutzer]

Unfortunately subject to the local custom port officials. Enjoy

[pinotlover]

It’s called Boardamania! I wonder what time the OP opted to show up for boarding?

 

A hint from a seasoned cruiser, always check the port schedule to see who else is embarking or disembarking on the same day as you. Some days merely getting a taxi can take hours! PPPPPP.

[jonthomas]

Hopefully all good things from now on. Let us know.

[anonymousegirl]

Wonderful to hear (not!) We're embarking from Lisbon June 2024, same day as Azamara Onward and (unfortunately) NCL Viva, so we'll be  boarding with 4200 "new friends". 

[basor]

Just saw. post from someone else that boarded today and they said they had no problems or lines so perhaps it was time of boarding...11AM can be crowded anywhere when the first onboard are anxious to start their vacation.

[pinotlover]

31 minutes ago, basor said:

Just saw. post from someone else that boarded today and they said they had no problems or lines so perhaps it was time of boarding...11AM can be crowded anywhere when the first onboard are anxious to start their vacation.

For those that desire to fully encompass Boardamania , 11:00 is a must do. For we others , a 3:00 or so boarding typically bypasses the hysteria and grants an easy peaceful non crowded Embarkment. It’s a personal thing. We’re not nearly enough enamored with lunch in the Terrace to battle Boardamania. For others no size crowd would slow them down. Enjoy what you enjoy.

[basor]

2 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

For those that desire to fully encompass Boardamania , 11:00 is a must do. For we others , a 3:00 or so boarding typically bypasses the hysteria and grants an easy peaceful non crowded Embarkment. It’s a personal thing. We’re not nearly enough enamored with lunch in the Terrace to battle Boardamania. For others no size crowd would slow them down. Enjoy what you enjoy.

Even just waiting until 12:30 - 1PM has resulted in a leisurely check-in and boarding 

[pinotlover]

1 minute ago, basor said:

Even just waiting until 12:30 - 1PM has resulted in a leisurely check-in and boarding 

Probably so. Lisbon is such a lovely town, and like so many a leisurely local lunch with local specialties and local wines takes us to 2:30 or so. Far surpasses the Terrace, which we’ll have multiple days later to explore, and completely escapes Boardamania. 
 

I have no problem with cruisers choosing Boardamania. Please spare us the handwringing with the results afterwards. Boardamania is a personal choice.

[basor]

6 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

Probably so. Lisbon is such a lovely town, and like so many a leisurely local lunch with local specialties and local wines takes us to 2:30 or so. Far surpasses the Terrace, which we’ll have multiple days later to explore, and completely escapes Boardamania. 
 

I have no problem with cruisers choosing Boardamania. Please spare us the handwringing with the results afterwards. Boardamania is a personal choice.

I was talking in general not Lisbon specific....we usually have a late breakfast, early lunch and head over to the ship, grab a cool drink and find a nice, quiet area to relax and celebrate the start of another wonderful adventure onboard Oceania..

[avalong]

34 minutes ago, pinotlover said:

Probably so. Lisbon is such a lovely town, and like so many a leisurely local lunch with local specialties and local wines takes us to 2:30 or so. Far surpasses the Terrace, which we’ll have multiple days later to explore, and completely escapes Boardamania. 
 

I have no problem with cruisers choosing Boardamania. Please spare us the handwringing with the results afterwards. Boardamania is a personal choice.

What do you do with your luggage?  

[pinotlover]

15 minutes ago, avalong said:

What do you do with your luggage?  

I leave it with the hotel concierge. After lunch we go back to our hotel, have them flag a cab, while we collect everything. Easily done in most all locations.

[the more ports the better]

We never check in before 3:00 and many times not until much later and there are never crowds. If we can sit on the ship or see an interesting city, the interesting city wind 100% of the time.

 

You can check out of your hotel and they will happily hold your luggage.  Also, there are always day tours where they end at the port and will keep your luggage in the trunk of their car while you see the sites.  

 

One more thing, there are left luggage’s all over Europe, usually smaller hotels in tourist cities who store luggage for a small fee.

 

You can google “left luggage” and whatever city you are in then enjoy the sites!

[osandomir]

Maybe we were lucky but for all of our cruises we never had to go through embarkation in the same line with the passengers of the big cruise liners. That being said, we also normally embark later in the day. It was one time I remember we were in the same terminal with the cruisers of 3,000+ NCL ship but the embarkations were separated. They had very long line and we were able to walk in with no waiting time. That was another benefit for sailing on the smaller ship. Besides, I just don’t understand how it was even possible like OP described to proceed with embarkation in the same line for two separate sailings. I believed that each line had its own embarkation protocol and it would be very difficult to mix all the passengers together.

[Mura]

Like many of others here, we've boarded several cruises in Lisbon in the past (not recently however) and never had a problem with "sharing" with other ships.  And we do tend to come in early or late ... especially tend to board late in Lisbon since it's one of our favorite European cities.

 

Mura

[LaCroisiereS'amuse]

7 hours ago, the more ports the better said:

We never check in before 3:00 and many times not until much later and there are never crowds. If we can sit on the ship or see an interesting city, the interesting city wind 100% of the time.

 

You can check out of your hotel and they will happily hold your luggage.  Also, there are always day tours where they end at the port and will keep your luggage in the trunk of their car while you see the sites.  

 

One more thing, there are left luggage’s all over Europe, usually smaller hotels in tourist cities who store luggage for a small fee.

 

You can google “left luggage” and whatever city you are in then enjoy the sites!

 

We disembarked Marina in Barcelona and arranged for our bags to be collected in the morning by a left luggage service to have them dropped back with us at the Grimaldi ferry terminal for our trip back to Civitavecchia that evening, leaving us to enjoy Barcelona for the day - I've only done it in Barcelona, but I'm sure the service would be available elsewhere in the Med with other companies.

 

https://bagsandgo.com/en/

[SellaVee]

Oh dear, P&O Ventura, following friends' experiences, not a ship I plan to sail in anytime soon.  Glad you took a positive, and humourous view of the situation.  I love being on deck at the Terrace Café.

[pinotlover]

Depending upon the port , the bottle neck can be immigrations. Think of an airport where one may go through their individual airline checkin, but then converge with everyone else going through security. Some of the cruise terminals operate the same way. In fact, it doesn’t have to be at Embankment. I’ve seen huge lines in certain terminals to get back through port security to get back to the ship from day tours. There are no fast lanes!

[slw207693]

Currently on Vista and found out yesterday that we will miss completely two Portugal ports, Lisbon and Oporto due to strikes by the equivalent of US TSA agents ant ports and airports  and many other labor groups supporting it.   Yesterday could have be the equivalent of a work slowdown preview.   Many flights from UK cancelled for the upcoming weekend.  

[halfapair]

On 5/23/2023 at 5:34 AM, travelingJimmy said:

Just boarded Marina in Lisbon. This is our 8th Oceania cruise. Off to a rough start. First we had to stand in line with 3200 of our closest friends from the P&O Ventura. Both cruises were at the same dock and had to share the same line and checking counter.  Longest check in we have ever had.  Then all the stuff we did on the online checkin before we left, well forget about it.  The pictures we took had to be redone since they were not valid apparently in Lisbon.  Their scanners didn’t work so it was manual to put in our passport data.  Once we FINALLY got checked in, trying to find the way to the ship was well, let’s say interesting.  Signage was terrible but the good news is we got our steps in for the day and got a nice self guided tour of the docks and terminal. Ok. A nice glass of wine on the deck at the terrace cafe and I’ll be good as new.   Dinner tonight at Jacques.  

Hopefully dinner at Jacques blotted out the memory of the boarding nightmare. Some wine and a couple of chocolate mousses would have done it for me.

Feeling jelly in WA.

[ak1004]

2 hours ago, slw207693 said:

Currently on Vista and found out yesterday that we will miss completely two Portugal ports, Lisbon and Oporto due to strikes by the equivalent of US TSA agents ant ports and airports  and many other labor groups supporting it.   Yesterday could have be the equivalent of a work slowdown preview.   Many flights from UK cancelled for the upcoming weekend.  

Same for us on the Riviera.

 

What dates you were scheduled to be in Lisbon and Oporto? I find it a bit strange because the strike was on May 21-22 and our dates were May 25-26.

[LHT28]

looks like more strikes to come

https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2023-05-22/sef-airport-strike-across-portugal/77845

[travelingJimmy]

So for whatever it is worth, Marina is in OPorto today but we didn’t dock in Oporto. We are currently docked in Matosinhos about an hour away from Oporto. Usually they will call that out but they didn’t. Seems kinda odd. We didn’t have a private tour today but if we did that might have been problematic. 

[Cruiseskier]

We are on the Marina also,checked in at 11:15 with no line. The P.O. ship was docked at the same port but it was only a stop for them not embarkation. We docked in the scheduled location for Porto. The free shuttle bus only took 40 minutes. Cruise has been great so far.