Flight Jacket

Follow Travelers,

I want to give you a heads up about the airport in Barcelona, Spain (BCN). The security process is beyond slow. It is poorly run and can cause a major headache and missed flights for international travelers,especially if you don’t speak Spanish. No one in security appears to speak English, at least the ones we met. And the lack of proper staffing and proper training makes our TSA in the US look like a smooth running Swill watch. Read on.

We traveled on May 26, 2018 a Saturday from BCN to Chicago.So we expected a fairly smooth process. Since it’s not a heavy business travel day. Not so because apparently the security people don’t have to work on Saturday or their management can’t afford to properly staff, or they can’t forecast the travel load, or who knows what?

After the ticket counter and checking luggage, there was a huge back up at the initial screening location. It was either under staffed or incompetent both. I had a small 39 lb. mobility scooter (SmartScoot) that folds to the size of a baby carriage and has a lithium battery. The battery is approved for flight by the FAA and American Airlines allows this 288 watt battery to fly in the passenger compartment. It’s about the size of a Kleenex box. Anyway, apparently the BCN people had no idea how to screen this battery.

They had me put my carry-on bags into one conveyor belt scan machine and then moved me and my scooter into a different line that has a larger belt and scanner for baby carriages and other larger gate check items. My scooter had been approved by AA for gate check and was tagged. But now I was separated from my carry on bag which had the document showing FAA approval for my battery. It also left my carry on items just sitting at the end of the first conveyor for anyone who walked by to just pick it up. Fortunately my wife was standing guard on that belt line and my stuff was safe.

Anyway, Security took the battery off the scooter and disappeared for about 20 minutes leaving me standing beltless while others in the line passed me by. I had no problem with that; keep the line moving! 20 minutes later they returned my battery and reinstalled it. I then folded the scooter up and loaded it onto the belt for the large scanning machine and it went right through.

Now to give you a comparison, the ATC in Chicago (ORD) processed my scooter in about two minutes. They looked at the battery markings,knew that my battery was FAA approved (i.e. under 288 watts, non spillable,etc.) They used a wand on the scooter itself, and let us pass in about 2 minutes. 2 minutes in ORD, 30 minutes in BCN. BCN is untrained and appears incompetent. But wait, there’s more.

That scooter screening was the easy part. After being screened we moved into a huge crowd of people who were all jammed together in a hallway. Half of the people like me, were leaving the EuroZone and therefore had to go through passport control, straight ahead. The other half did not need passport control so they needed to cross our line at 90 degrees to enter an escalator going down. But there was no one from BCN security to direct traffic.So this huge mass of people was pushing and shoving and angry and trying to get to their destination but had no idea where to go. It was just a mass of humanity in complete chaos. It took about 20 minutes just to exit this jam which was past the escalators I mentioned earlier. Several people in this jam said they were going to miss their flights.

So now at this point, heading toward passport control, there began a line that looked like Disney World. It snaked around for at least 10 turns each turn being about 40 yards long. This looked more crowded than Disney on a summer holiday. This line lead to passport control and took about 30 minutes to get through.

So all in all it took us about 1.5 hours to get from theticket counter through security and into the hallway from which we could accessour gate. But that’s not all.

Somehow my wife got chosen for further screening. While walking to our gate, some goons walked out from behind a screen and said she’d been chosen for a random search. By now our flight had been called and boarding was about to begin. After a 15 minute search behind a screen which was all in Spanish and even more aggressive and invasive than our TSA, my wife was released. She was near tears and vowing never to travel by air again.

Fortunately we did make our flight. But others that we were in the line jam with said they were going to miss their flights due to the jam.There is no excuse for the level of incompetence and lack of organization and management by the BCN security team. Traveler beware!!

As a US citizen, if you are flying home from Barcelona, you will have to go through passport control. Beware! Barcelona airport security can take two hours to get through. I'm going to post a review of my experience in a new thread.

I have been trying to log on to my current reservation for a couple of hours and have not been able to get in. Any one else having the same problem???

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I've been having similar problems with the new RCL Dashboard that supposed to make every thing easy. After 30 minutes of frustration trying to check in, I called RCL for help. the agent said that the new website is NOT COMPATIBLE with Google Chrome, which I have used countless times with no issues. The new website only works with Windows Explorer. That would have been nice for them to post that on the page I was working on that I then lost due to the incompatibility. I'm diamond on RCL but their systems are very primitive compared to Carnival who is SO easy to do business with.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster. :eek:

Well I just tried to check in for my cruise and my new dashboard doesn't have ANY of the prior documentation that I had painstakingly created. In fact, when I click on the check-in page, that page is "not available." What???

After holding for a total of 40 minutes across two call attempts, I finally reached an agent. I'm guessing this system failure is generating a few calls. The agent said they were having a few "issues" with the new website. But not to worry. When it gets fixed the new dashboard is going to be really good and easy.

So far it's been nothing but severely frustrating and maddening.

when viewed from the cruise cam Carnival is seen first. If it's not in port, the RCCL ship can be seen behind it. if Carnival is in port, you can't see the RCCL ship unfortunately.

I recommend you check the cruise cam in Galveston. Google it. you can see if your ship has come in prior to leaving the house. also the first word usually comes from passengers on the delayed ship who post to CruiseCritic.

Oh, also. If we get stuck on the ship prior to d-bark, can we stay in our rooms? We're traveling with a few little ones. Waiting in a public place for 6 hours would be my personal hell (said like the best mother ever).

When we were on the Liberty in Feb and had a six hour delay in debark due to port closure, the cruise director requested everyone to just chill out in their room. They even ran a recent release movie to entice people to stay in their rooms. Dining room was open for breakfast. Windjammer was open for lunch since we didn't get the all clear until around 1PM.

The ship channel is a boat lane and if anybody is stopped or fishing in it should be fined. Like stopping on an interstate lane to watch the sunset.

I agree with you. One thing I like about the bulletin board is the ability to share ideas and facts about a problem. this has been very educational.

So let's say we made the Ship Channel equivalent to an interstate highway meaning no bicycle riders, no Sunday drivers, no pedestrian crossings, etc. And maybe a requirement would be that you can't operate without radar and gps and a digital path back to your home port (or some port you have access to). And there will be a digital path made available for specific cruise ships (or any one who will pay for a digital path such as a tanker ship). the digital paths would be maintained by some governmental authority and sold to those who want/need them, kind of like a landing slot at an airport that has zero vision landing capability. all non commercial boats with the required radar and gps would be required to return to their home port or an alternate port they have a digital path to if there was any fog, leaving the ship channel open to commercial traffic.

Would something like this work to solve the problem we are discussing?

That was a very informative reply. Thank you. I was not aware of the blind spot in the radar. So considering the massive confusion for thousands of travelers when the port is closed due to fog, what about the following option? First, this is the HOME port for these ships so the Pilots and Captains should be intimately familiar with the channel and surrounds. It seems technically feasible for a digital path to be created for the auto pilot (or Captain) to follow that would keep the ship in the deepest part of the channel and avoid all known obstacles. but that still leaves the blind spot and small boats. so why not have the Pilot Boat that delivers the Pilot to the cruise ship, get out in front of the cruise ship and follow the same digital "path" that the cruise ship is going to follow? The smaller pilot boat would not have a blind spot and could make frequent warning sounds so that every one who can't see is aware of their presence. and then, the Pilot Boat and cruise ship would proceed VERY slowly. I have seen cruise ships turn around on a dime when tendering. they have so many thrusters they have complete control at slow speeds. I doubt they lose control at slow speeds. I've seen the complete precision by which they dock at slow speeds and the digital displays that guide them. Likewise, the Pilot Boat going very slow with good radar could detect a fishing boat and bring the whole thing to a halt if necessary for the small boat to move out of the way. Maybe having more than one LEAD boat would help insure everyone is clear of this digital path to the cruise terminal. So, again, considering available technologies that can drive autonomous cars in the dark and rain, I can't imagine the cruise lines and port authorities can't come up with a better solution that just closing the port to ALL traffic during fog.

We are on the liberty of the seas and the port is fogged in.

 

 

The are saying it might open by noon it that still won’t get us tied up until 1:30 2:00

I was on the delayed debark for Liberty. I think we were delayed at least 6 hours. what I'd like to know is why a ship that can see in the dark with radar and GPS etc, can't dock without Port Pilots? according to an article in today's Houston Chronicle, Pilots won't pilot without being able to see. Yet they are on the ship with "see" in the dark ability. an airplane can land in fog at night. why can't a ship dock in fog in Galveston. they can to this at other ports I've read.

Does anyone happen to have a scan of the BACK of one these they can send me? What a PITA this is! I mailed them priority to the 'express" address listed on the back and they were attempted by the post office to be delivered. For some reason they couldn't be delivered and are now sitting at some post office in Miami!! UGH!

Never tried to attach a file to a post but here's the back if it works.

back of RCCL Gift Cert001.pdf

When you get the certificates call RCCL and verify where they want you to email them. Don't snail mail them. That's too slow and expensive if you want it quick. they'll tell you where to email your scanned certificates. You should receive an auto email saying they received the certificates. ask about the estimated time to apply. if it's too long talk to a supervisor or the corporate office to try to get them expedited. It's really a terrible and antiquated process.

I apologize for the length of this article but this is a complicated subject. We lost $1000 in on board credit and I want to help you avoid this problem.

We are almost Diamond with RCCL but have been cruising Carnival out of Galveston for the past couple of years. Then we sailed RCCL last fall and determined that we liked Carnival better. Carnival has come way up and RCCL has gone down in our experience. This is a case in point.

I’m comparing RCCL's gift certificate process with Carnival’s gift card process, all from third party vendors such as Verizon or AARP. If you buy gift cards or gift certificates, you can save 10% on the purchase and lower your cruise costs. Our conclusion after doing this on both cruise lines is, “beware of RCCL’s gift certificates”. Know what you’re in for before you buy. Here’s the comparison.

The RCCL gift certificate and the Carnival gift card are both sold on-line at Verizon Smart Rewards or AARP.org and maybe other places.They are found under the same heading on the on-line menu of Gift Cards, Travel.But if you’re used to using Carnival gift cards, you’re in for a rude awaking if you switch to RCCL gift certificates. Here’s why.

The Carnival gift card can be applied to a Carnival cruise reserved through a travel agent or through a Carnival agent. But an RCCL gift certificate can ONLY be used with a reservation made through RCCL. We didn’t know that until AFTER we bought the RCCL gift certificates. So we had to switch our reservation from our travel agent to RCCL and LOSE $1000 in on-board credits (we were booking 3 back to back to back cruises.)

The Carnival gift card can be applied to your reservation instantly by your travel agent or you can apply it on-line to your Carnival reservation (or with an agent). But, the RCCL gift certificate has to be scanned and emailed or snail mailed to a back-room operation in Miami that takes 2 to 3 weeks to process.

The RCCL agent promised us 7 to 10 days but when that didn’t happen we called in to complain. The solution offered was, “Wait longer. It now takes 2-3 weeks. We’re so sorry.” I agree.

You can use your Carnival gift card as down payment for your cruise. Not so with RCCL. Because of the lengthy delay in processing gift certificates, you have to make a charge to your credit card for a down payment on your cruise. Down payment is due at the time of booking. With Carnival, you can instantly apply your gift card as a down payment.

So if you want to use RCCL gift certificates for a down payment, you can end up making a short term double payment on your credit card. One payment is when you buy the gift certificates, which won’t be applied for 2-3 weeks. The duplicate payment is your actual required down payment with your credit card. That becomes just an extra cash payment to RCCL unless you specifically request a credit card refund when your gift certificates are finally processed. For us the double payment was $900 times two. That can cost you some expensive credit card interest if you don’t have enough cash when the bill comes due.

When your Carnival gift card is applied to your reservation you can see it on your invoice almost instantly on-line. You can’t see your RCCL invoice on line. You have to call RCCL, wait on hold for a long time and then ask them to email it to you. That’s a pain.

If there is a price drop on a Carnival cruise for which you have paid with gift cards, you still get the price drop up to two days before sailing (applies to Early Saver cruise rate). If you have overpaid, you get a refund or at minimum an on-board credit if you overpaid with gift cards. With RCCL, if you paid with gift certificates and the price drops, you get nothing.Your over payment with any gift certificates is not refunded in any way nor do you get an on-board credit. The RCCL rep just says, “That’s our policy. Gift certificates have no “cash value”. We’re so sorry.” I concur. (We did take our complaint to the corporate office and they were very helpful in getting our certificates processed. Thank you.)

I’m really disappointed that RCCL has fallen so far behind the technology and customer service curve. RCCL used to be our cruise line of choice out of Galveston. But now Carnival is. So if you cruise RCCL and want to save 10%, use gift certificates. But beware of the pitfalls.