Charleston Carnival Sunshine departure 10-26-17

It seems this ship is arriving empty from Norfolk. According to the Carnival website, check in begins at 3:30, however, the Charleston Port Authority has posted this bulletin http://www.scspa.com/wp-content/uploads/guidelines-for-embarkation-carnival-sunshine-october-26-2017-only-bulletin-1.pdf saying that they will not begin the parking/check in procedure until 4:30.

I have never cruised from Charleston so I am a bit confused. Usually, the cruise company checks you in at the ship- is this different at Charleston? I am wondering if we can park somewhere other than the port and walk to the ship - we won't have any luggage to check. Any help would be appreciated.

following...we are on this sailing as well and plan to spend the afternoon in charleston. I was really hoping we could park the car and drop the luggage early and then walk to the terminal at check in time...ours says 330 so this bulletin is curious given that it was dated in january.

following...we are on this sailing as well and plan to spend the afternoon in charleston. I was really hoping we could park the car and drop the luggage early and then walk to the terminal at check in time...ours says 330 so this bulletin is curious given that it was dated in january.

We sailed out of Charleston June 2016...Charleston's setup is a bit different than I believe all other ports.

The ship was to sail at 4:00 pm parking opened up at 11:30 AM, parking is in this huge warehouse.

We where the first car inline to park and got on the first shuttle bus from parking to pier and check in was already very crowded.

IMO it is much better to stay at a hotel that allows you to leave vehicle there and either uber or shuttle from hotel to ship.. they will drop you off at the pier...

We had FTTF and it was still 1:45 or so before we made it aboard.