San Juan Disembarkation

[stive1]

Does Princess offer the walk off option in San Juan? If not how early can we get off the ship when back in port. Would like to get a 10:30 flight and am curious if we have a chance to make this. Thanks.

[mollyanne]

Does Princess offer the walk off option in San Juan? If not how early can we get off the ship when back in port. Would like to get a 10:30 flight and am curious if we have a chance to make this. Thanks.

 

They did not offer this on our repo cruise in October - possibly since it was the first trip of the season into SJU. Perhaps someone who has been on a subsequent cruise will respond.

I personally think 10:30 is a little early since things move a bit slower in San Juan...it took us 4 hours to get off the ship but once again it may just have been that we were the first cruise of the season.

[Philip217]

San Juan is one of the very few US Ports where the US Customs and Border Protection people will not allow you to carry your own suitcases off the ship.

No cruise line is allowed to do it there.

[Colo Cruiser]

Wow thats strange, we just did that. :confused:

[Sunny AZ Girl]

You did self-disembarkment in San Juan? If that's so, I'm encouraged. We have a noon flight that I am concerned about after reading so many late departure stories. I would definately not try a 10:30 flight!

[marie61]

Please clarify: WHY would you not be able to walk your luggage off the ship? It has absolutely nothing to do with customs--you still have to pass through all official channels. The only difference is that Princess doesn't have to haul your luggage off the ship in time for you to disembark early--you are saving them the trouble.

 

I am sailing Mar 15-22 and intend to disembark first thing as soon as the ship docks--we have an early flight.

 

I've done the"wait for your colour" business before and it's a complete waste of a morning--not doing it again.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

There have been many previous posts stating that Princess does not allow self-disembarkment in San Juan. Colo Cruiser's post is the first I have seen indicating otherwise.

[Colo Cruiser]

There have been many previous posts stating that Princess does not allow self-disembarkment in San Juan. Colo Cruiser's post is the first I have seen indicating otherwise.

 

I have never heard this before??

I have not seen any posts saying that it is not allowed. :confused:

 

Maybe it has changed.

[Darcy8]

We were there in April, I am thinking that people carried luggage off. We did not, we let Princess know we had an early flight and were in one of the first groups off. We made our 10:40 flight with no problem.

 

darcy8

[IUFAN]

We have done the cruise out of San Juan 3 times. I love that cruise, but I can't stand that airport. All 3 times it was a fiasco trying to check in. I believe there was an additional runway being built. Is it up and running yet?

[Philip217]

We were there in April, I am thinking that people carried luggage off. We did not, we let Princess know we had an early flight and were in one of the first groups off. We made our 10:40 flight with no problem.

 

darcy8

 

The CBP in San Juan - better known as the "American Gestapo" - has many bizarre regulations that the rest of the world does not have to follow.

 

When disembarking at the Panamerican Terminal:

-No passengers can leave the ship until all suitcases have been off-loaded from the ship.

-Only 100 passengers at one time are officially allowed to be in the terminal. This really slows down the debark process.

-No self-debark (with luggage) is permitted. This really slows down the debark process.

-The BAGS program, where your bags are automatically taken to the airport, is not allowed.

 

The Officials there are perpetually late in getting started. They work as slowly as possible. They all must take a long coffee break together at peak times - stopping the entire process.

 

Passengers disembarking at this terminal are informed that they cannot take their own suitcases off the ship. But since many passengers do not read any of the debark instructions, we always have a few dozen showing up at the gangway with their suitcases. CBP tells us that anyone trying this will be detained, but we rarely see it happening.

[kkpcruiser]

The CBP in San Juan - better known as the "American Gestapo" - has many bizarre regulations that the rest of the world does not have to follow.

 

When disembarking at the Panamerican Terminal:

-No passengers can leave the ship until all suitcases have been off-loaded from the ship.

-Only 100 passengers at one time are officially allowed to be in the terminal. This really slows down the debark process.

-No self-debark (with luggage) is permitted. This really slows down the debark process.

-The BAGS program, where your bags are automatically taken to the airport, is not allowed.

 

I have twice cruised out of san juan but on RCCL. While we did not carry bags off , we did use the airline transfer both times on American..and never saw our bags through customs .

 

so i am not sure about the accuracy of the rest of this post.

[beckyjohns]

IF the above rules are true, that makes me think that passengers cannot carry anything off. I usually do self disembark, but last time did not. I gave my big suitcases to the cruise the night before and kept my small carryon suitcase for the morning. According to the above rules, does that mean I can't keep my small carryon with me to carry off? I'm just not sure how they would enforce the "all bags off the ship first" policy. What constitutes a "bag"? A backpack? A duffle bag? A purse?

[Colo Cruiser]

When we left the ship it was in the normal droves of passengers as usual not 100 at a time.

[MXGirl]

Stive1

 

We were just on the CB in December in San Juan. We had a 10:00 am flight. We went to the pursers desk and requested the earliest disembarkation tag numbers available. We were in the 3rd group of off the ship, the 1st group without Princess transfers.

The picked our luggage up the night before disembarkation. We met at the scheduled disembarkation (the Casino for us) at 8:00 am. We were off the ship, collected out luggage, went through customs, got a cab and were on our way to the airport by 8:15. Made it to the airport around 8:30, sent our bags through Agricultural inspection.

We then proceeded inside, obtained our boarding passes and were sitting at the gate by 8:45.

 

They told us we could not carry our own bags off, but there were numerous passengers doing so. I do not see a need in taking your own luggage off as all of the luggage was in the terminal when we got off, even the latest disembarking passengers luggage.

 

Also, check with your airline about their standby program.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

 

I know how you are feeling about the return flight time, we were doing the same. We just could not justify spending an additional $300+ per person for a noon flight, so we took our chance with the early flight and for us it worked out just fine.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

I get too nervous about catching my flight to risk a early flight. Noon is risky enough for me! I did notice yesterday that flying out would be $300 cheaper. Live and learn. Next time we will plan on spending that extra day & spend the $300 on a hotel room & a nice dinner. I'd rather spend the $$ extending my vacation by a day!:D However, this time DH feels he cannot take that one extra day off of work.:rolleyes:

 

Colo Cruiser - there have been numerous posts regarding the self-disembarkment policy. It seems there were many times it has been enforced this season.

[Nebr.cruiser]

We disembarked from the CB in December. We did not take all our own luggage with us, just our carryons, and their was no notification that we could, as there usually is if it's allowed. I don't know if others did or not.

 

However, the whole process was very smooth and fast. We had a 12:30 flight, so our color was at 8:30. Within 15 minutes we were off the ship and picking up luggage, another 15 minutes, tops, and we were through customs and on our way to the airport. We actually would have been better off taking our time on board since we had lots of wait time at the airport. We could have easily made a 10:30 flight, but, of course, this all depends on not having some delay in the process due to some problems with the inspection, customs, etc.

 

I don't know if the San Juan airport construction is done or not, but our check-in was fast and easy, little waiting anywhere, lines weren't bad. We were flying American.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Good to know! We'll be flying American, too.:)

[Philip217]

The CBP in San Juan - better known as the "American Gestapo" - has many bizarre regulations that the rest of the world does not have to follow.

 

When disembarking at the Panamerican Terminal:

-No passengers can leave the ship until all suitcases have been off-loaded from the ship.

-Only 100 passengers at one time are officially allowed to be in the terminal. This really slows down the debark process.

-No self-debark (with luggage) is permitted. This really slows down the debark process.

-The BAGS program, where your bags are automatically taken to the airport, is not allowed.

 

I have twice cruised out of san juan but on RCCL. While we did not carry bags off , we did use the airline transfer both times on American..and never saw our bags through customs .

 

so i am not sure about the accuracy of the rest of this post.

 

kkpcruiser,

 

I have done about 125 debarks from 4 different vessels belonging to 2 different cruise lines at the Panamerica Terminal in San Juan over the past three years.

About one year ago, they stopped allowing self-debark and the BAGS Program.

That's how it worked for us those 125 or so times.

How many debarks did you say you have done in San Juan?

[Sunny AZ Girl]

 

kkpcruiser,

 

I have done about 125 debarks from 4 different vessels belonging to 2 different cruise lines at the Panamerica Terminal in San Juan over the past three years.

About one year ago, they stopped allowing self-debark and the BAGS Program.

That's how it worked for us those 125 or so times.

How many debarks did you say you have done in San Juan?

Wow! I'm not questioning your post, just wondering if you're a cruise line employee to have done that many debarks in three years? If not, I want your job - to have both the time and money to cruise that often!:D

[dcl1710]

Princess said you could self disembark but maybe they confused the ports. Since this sounds like it could be a messy disembarkation, has anyone recommended getting a limo? I experienced crowd chaos at Galveston one year and it got UGLY fast.

[Philip217]

Princess said you could self disembark but maybe they confused the ports. Since this sounds like it could be a messy disembarkation, has anyone recommended getting a limo? I experienced crowd chaos at Galveston one year and it got UGLY fast.

 

The CBP is difficult to work with in many US Ports. Give these people guns and a union card, and they become cowboys very quickly.

 

The exceptions are New York (the best), Honolulu, and Ft Lauderdale. The CBP Officers in those ports are the best public will ambassadors those cities could ever hope to have.

 

But San Juan is a very special case. These people go out of their way to make your visit to their island a nightmare. They change all the rules nearly every week, doing everything possible to make your visit an unpleasant one.

It really doesn't matter what the cruise lines tell you they can do there. By the time your cruise happens, all the CBP rules have been changed again.

 

As of this week:

No passengers can disembark until all suitcases have been off-loaded.

The terminal elevator that has been broken for two weeks is still broken.

No self-debark.

No suitcases allowed to be carried by passengers (carry-ons are OK).

No B.A.G.S. program allowed.

[Nebr.cruiser]

I guess we got really lucky in December--our debark was so easy in San Juan. Maybe the easiest ever.

 

Phillip217 does work for a cruise ship, right? He always has great advice about every aspect of cruising as well as reporting on some very funny incidents. I love your 'complaint of the week' posts, Phillip!

[marie61]

What I'm getting from the previous posts is that it is a good idea to:

 

a) hand off the luggage the night before disembarking

 

b) go early in the cruise and request early disembarkation.

 

No matter how ugly it gets later, if you're in the first group off the ship, there will be enough taxis.

 

I'm not going to sweat it--I've booked combination cruise/air package with a vacation company--if I miss the flight due to port ineptitude, I'll gladly stay an extra day in San Juan! :D