Self Disembark

[luvmy2kids]

Hello. We will be on the Fantasy on 5/22. (hurray!:D ) and I have a question about self disembark or regular. What time is self disembark usually? What time can I expect to get off the ship with both methods? We live in Kissimmee and have to get my dad up to his dialysis appt. at noon. Its about 45 min to an hour from the port to our city. (depending on traffic of course). So I'd love to hear everyone's facts and opinions. Thanks in advance.

 

(I tried to do search, but didn't find anything)

[luvmy2kids]

anyone? :confused:

[cruisenk]

I'm not sure about self-debarkation on the Fantasy, but last month on the Liberty it started about 6:45 and last call for self-debarkation was called around 8:30. If the Fantasy has a similar system, it looks like your dad's appointment time will be fine. We chose regular debarkation and were off the ship at 9:30-ish.

[ExilePA]

On the 3/26 Fantasy sailing there wasn't an "early" self disembark. They just gave everyone the option to carry their own luggage off it they wanted. The whole ship was cleared to get off at 0815, you can imagine the chaos of 2000 people trying to get off the ship at once...half of them with luggage in tow.

[Lady Hop]

Self disembark was a nightmare in my opinion. We didnt utilize it but we did sit in a library and look at all of our pictures and talk about our trip. It was a group of 8 couples. But the people who did self disembark stood in long lines with thier luggage. Not even lines just like masses of people. I'm not sure how your dad is health wise but it may be too much for him to stand around waiting to get off.

 

And in the event they cant locate passengers as was the case on our cruise they will hold the whole ships disembarkation. I dont know what was going on but they kept announcing names over the loud speaker to come somewhere and until they showed up that whole ship was on lockdown.

 

And another note. If you are scheduled to meet in the auditorium sit in the back. The people who were there early and up front were the last ones out!

 

Good luck

[shipty2]

We tried the self disembark only once and never again. We inched along with luggage in tow with the other couple thousand people who also thought this was a great idea. It was so crowded and slow my dh stating mooing as we went along.

[stevec999]

We gave it a try a couple weeks getting off of the Glory. They called deck numbers and ours was the second deck called. From the time we left the cabin to the time we were back at our car at the Raddison was around an hour. We werre on the road home by 9:10AM.

[MrPete]

All depends what time the ship is cleared, and how many people wish to do it.

 

It used to be a cinch, when very few did it. My last cruise, it was a PITA. Stood on line for an hour. Those first in line stood for three hours.

 

8 AM was the earliest, and 9:30 was the latest for me.

[cruising forever]

Might be worth a shot to ask at the Purser's desk once onboard (bring some proof of the appointment, maybe?) and then have a backup plan in case.......

[LeAnn0506]

Did the self disembark last month from the Liberty and it was smooth. The only problem was the wait for an elevator, other than that no problem. We were off by 7:20am.

[Kittybork]

If you can arrange your luggage so that each person has one free hand, you can use the escalator. It's much quicker than the elevator and no waiting.

 

We did it on the Conquest in December: it was easy, fast, and no confusion.

[LandOfBeaches]

for me anyway, cause I don't have to deal with the "sea of luggage" before you go thru customs. Had my suitcase and off the Legend at around 8am. True.... there was a very long line of people with the same idea but saw nobody upset, in fact the couple I was talking to was happy that they were able to leave the ship at an earlier time.

[Wennfred]

The the Valor out of Miami, we did self assist and it started at 6:45am.

[luvmy2kids]

hmmmm, maybe i will ask on the ship what's the fastest way. my dad will have an electric scooter so that must be taken into consideration. i think that as long as we are in the car by 10 AM, we will be more than ok for his appointment. thanks for all of the advice and stories. keep them coming!

[Kittybork]

I have NO IDEA if this is possible, but perhaps, a note stating that he needs to get off of the boat for dialysis would help you to get off first.

[Wennfred]

I have NO IDEA if this is possible, but perhaps, a note stating that he needs to get off of the boat for dialysis would help you to get off first.

 

Yes thats a great idea, get a note from the doctor, the night before you disembark, go to the pursers office there they will give you the TBA Tags so that you can leave first. These are normally given to people with earily flights but I dont see a problem due to a medical appointment.

[luvmy2kids]

i knew my cruise critic folks would have great ideas!

[lgmtseawa]

We did not do this ourselves (2 kids including one not walking, too much stuff -- though in the end we managed to connect all our bags into three pullable things, so we probably could have done it...) but here is what I observed:

 

The Conquest nudged up to the dock around 6:20, and they started calling early self-debark at or before 7, IIRC. (Of course, the previous week it was 2-3 hours late even arriving, so all bets are off then.) They went from top down, and called 2 or 3 decks (or half decks, past the first 3 or so) at a time. I looked out from our balcony and saw people moving through the covered gangway, but it didn't look too crowded at first. About an hour later we were heading to a leisurely breakfast and saw hoards of people with all their luggage clogging the forward stairwells -- didn't look like much fun. Later we got the same (long long line not moving very fast for a long time, then suddenly surging a long distance, then stopped again in the terminal halls for a long time) but without as much stuff. (General debarkation was also called by deck or half-deck from top down, even though the CD had implied it would be random -- of course, technically that order is as possible to draw randomly as any other, but I suspect it wasn't!) I think we were called around 9:30, and it took 1.5 to 2 hours to be totally done and to our rental car.

 

Bottom line: We certainly would have been off the ship sooner if we'd done self debarkation, but I'm not entirely sure how much time (of the actual process) we would have saved (other than looking for our bags in the baggage holding area and perhaps some other savings in the long line for immigration and not having to dodge quite as many people), and I think we would have been even more tired hauling all that stuff the additional distance with the two kids. Plus we would have had to breakfast earlier and faster, hard with the littlest one. So for us, it worked out fine (we also purposefully chose a late flight back, 7 pm, so time to do something on the way).

 

Carolyn (is my vacation already over? :( )

 

ps, for the terminology experts, is it debark(ation) or disembark(ation)? I think I've seen and heard both, and am having some cognitive dissonance disentangling which is better... I think I want to say disembark, but debark is certainly more parallel to embark... and I think I heard (or saw on the web site) Carnival use debark... gotta go make dinner else I'd research it for hours on the web myself! but surely someone here knows!