Anybody Off Adventure 11/09/2008 ?

[bilyclub]

I am curious if customs was done, at San Juan, (not St. Thomas as in the past) and if it was chaos at the pier, as some cruisers have reported.

[Cruisewombat]

I am curious if customs was done, at San Juan, (not St. Thomas as in the past) and if it was chaos at the pier, as some cruisers have reported.

 

I went off AOS yesterday in San Juan.

Customs was done in San Juan and not in St Thomas. There were no immigrations in St Thomas, but they were very keen that you had both your sea pass and photo ID with you, when you came back to the port area. The security person at the gate to the harbour area said that immigrations controlled them from time to time during the day to see if all showed both the seapass and photo ID to enter the ship area.

 

San Juan was very easy. I think there was less than 10% non US persons aboard (me included) and as we have our own line through immigration, it went very easy. Being just a normal cruiser, it took less than 40 min from we left "the lyrics" until we was in the airport.

The baggage area was crowded, but it was easy to find the suitcases. Outside the building was one big chaos, but despite that we had a normal taxi at a fixed rate to the airport in something like 5 min, so all in all a very pleasant experience in San Juan. Much better than last time i arrived in Miami and spend somehting like 3 hours trying to get away from the ship and find a taxi.

[love2cruiseseattle]

I am curious if customs was done, at San Juan, (not St. Thomas as in the past) and if it was chaos at the pier, as some cruisers have reported.

 

We were on the cruise that departed on 10/26/08. I believe the cruise before us was the first to do the customs in San Juan. We got to the pier at about 11am to board and waited outside for about 20-30 minutes before we were let in the terminal, make sure you drop your bags off before you get into the line to get into the terminal. We didn't think there was very good direction on the RCCL part outside the terminal as to where to put your bags. Once in the terminal the check in process was fast, but then we were seated and ended up waiting a couple of hours. The story was there wasn't enough custom agents, but who knows because we saw TSA, DEA, FBI and DHS agents and at least 5 dogs. Once we were allowed on the ship we were on within 10 minutes. Now for the people that got to the pier after the terminal seats filled up were stuck outside in the heat standing in a long long line. They were allowed to start checking in (I believe) after the terminal was cleared out of all us people sitting in there.

 

Now when we got off of the ship (we are platinum) so we waited in a special area and were led off by the loyalty person and it was the fastest ever. We walked off of the ship at about 8:55am and were at our hotel by the airport by approx. 9:30am. Our luggage was laid out in color coded sections and you grabbed them and got into the customs line, gave the guy our form and off we went.

 

It was nice not having to wait up extra early in St. Thomas and present yourself to customs.

 

I hope this helps.

[uksimonusa]

Customs has always been done at San Juan, it is immigration that was done on the ship in St Thomas, as St Thomas was the first American port of call after visiting a foreign country

[bilyclub]

Thanks for the input... I'm more concerned about boarding. My last cruise out of Galveston on the Voyager we got the seapass quick enough, but had to wait a couple of hours to board. At least they were providing free champagne that time.

[bilyclub]

Here is a better question. How long did it take to board once you got to the pier?

[love2cruiseseattle]

Here is a better question. How long did it take to board once you got to the pier?

 

We got to the pier at about 11:00am, let in the terminal at about 11:30am and then sat until about 1:30pm before we were let on the ship. Others that arrived after the terminal was full were left outside in the heat standing in line.