Disembarkation fiasco on Constellation

[Wandering Writer]

As we sit in the San Diego airport hoping to get a flight sometime this evening or tomorrow afternoon, we can't help but wonder what went wrong this morning with the disembarkation of Constellation in San Diego. We all understood that immigration was to come on board and we were all to report orderly at assigned times. That wasn't too bad. A few people didn't report and that held us up for a time but then any hope of an organized departure from the ship was lost as no one controlled the congregating in the atrium area and when it was announced at 10 a.m. that the ship had finally cleared, all you-know-what broke loose.

 

There was a mob of people trying to get off in order to make flights. There was no evidence of staff organizing any kind of line etc. except to push the wheel chairs in front of the mob. When announcements were finally made for departure according to luggage tag color, it was nothing more than a joke at that point.

 

Several things came to mind as we inched our way to the gangway. Why was there only one small exit point? Why were not all of the security computers working? What would happen if someone yelled "fire!"? And most of all why wasn't the staff prepared for the already expected delay? They knew immigration was going to take a few hours. They had warned us of that.

 

This was our 44th cruise (most of those on Celebrity) and we have never experienced such absolute confusion and chaos. As I told one lady, don't judge the whole line by one ship but if it had been my first cruise, I'd be hesitant to return.

[jd1966]

Seems like you hear this kind of story more and more!! I know that customs and immigration cause alot of these issues but the cruise lines seem to exacerbate the problem. However, on our last cruise the Equinox had a unique method of disembarkation that worked really well. They give you a location to meet but tell you not to arrive more than five minutes prior to your scheduled departure from the ship. That means that you can stay in your stateroom until you need to leave! There was plenty of space available in the waiting areas and it took no more than ten minutes before we were cleared to leave the ship. This seemed to minimize the lines leaving the ship and in the customs and immigration area. It was by far the easiest disembarkation that we have ever experienced. Maybe they'll move the process to other X ships.

[ccletzgo]

We had this same experience in San Diego when disembarking (or trying too) from the Radiance of the Seas Christmas Cruise last year. (2009)

 

It was complete and utter chaos. People were taking the elevator and getting out in the front of the line. Honestly, it was horrible and if it was my first cruise it would have left a horrible taste in my mouth.

 

I wont blame the port because what was horrible is what was going on, on the ship. :eek:

[wg6530]

West coast custom and immigration-ugh. If even one person doesn't go where they are supposed to and when they are supposed to, the whole disembarkation becomes a mess. I am not trying to excuse Celebrity's role, but when people are worried about missing flights, some will try to hang out at the gangway. that draws more and more people to the area and it becomes impossible to control the anxious passengers. I was in the same position as on a Princess cruise debarking in San Francisco- worst mess I have ever seen. sorry you too had a bad experience

[ccletzgo]

Seems like you hear this kind of story more and more!! I know that customs and immigration cause alot of these issues but the cruise lines seem to exacerbate the problem. However, on our last cruise the Equinox had a unique method of disembarkation that worked really well. They give you a location to meet but tell you not to arrive more than five minutes prior to your scheduled departure from the ship. That means that you can stay in your stateroom until you need to leave! There was plenty of space available in the waiting areas and it took no more than ten minutes before we were cleared to leave the ship. This seemed to minimize the lines leaving the ship and in the customs and immigration area. It was by far the easiest disembarkation that we have ever experienced. Maybe they'll move the process to other X ships.

 

I hope this will be celebrity's way on all there ships. After our last experience on RCCL I have been thinking HAL just for the stress free final morning.

 

I dont think it has to do with West coast because I have had two of my fastest, smoothest debarks from west coast cruises also. Its the way the cruise-lines handle what is going on, on board that makes the difference.

[wg6530]

I too had a good disembarkation once using this system- it was nearly all US passengers, and the foreign nationals were all compliant.

 

If enough immgration officials are sent on board in a timely fashion and IF all guests report on time, the west coast system works very well. If the last port prior to diembarkation was in US, disembarkation goes well. On the other hand, if a guest or two or more do not report to immigration as directed, the process is delayed. If they are not in their cabin and do not respond to attempts to contact them, the process is more delayed. there may be other resons for the delays, but I think it is a process issue imposed by immigration. My take away lesson, book a late flight and chill.

[Boatdrill]

Just FYI, when immigration is done onboard, many of the non-US citizens who are late coming say it's because they didn't want to wait in line, get up early, or what have you. So they wait until they are finally paged, and then go to immigration.

 

Irritating, to say the least !

[Project_gal]

Seems like you hear this kind of story more and more!! I know that customs and immigration cause alot of these issues but the cruise lines seem to exacerbate the problem. However, on our last cruise the Equinox had a unique method of disembarkation that worked really well. They give you a location to meet but tell you not to arrive more than five minutes prior to your scheduled departure from the ship. That means that you can stay in your stateroom until you need to leave! There was plenty of space available in the waiting areas and it took no more than ten minutes before we were cleared to leave the ship. This seemed to minimize the lines leaving the ship and in the customs and immigration area. It was by far the easiest disembarkation that we have ever experienced. Maybe they'll move the process to other X ships.

 

This process will only work if passengers do as asked. The OP spoke about the crowds in the central atrium. If people hang around there rather than where they are asked to, what can the ship do about it?

 

Sue

[biker1972]

People cause the problems.

1: See airfare at low rate for early flight. Yeaa, save money.

2: Something goes wrong. Have to be off the ship now!

3: Jam the doorway to be first off.

4: Everything now in extra slow motion.

5: Miss flight, blame cruiseline.

Answer: you are still on vacation until you are home; book later and relax :). Or give guns to cruise security who will arrest or shoot line cutters :eek:.

[kokimojo]

I spoke with my brother last night - he embarked the Connie yesterday and said embarkation was awful...probably the worst he's had. They were told that there was a missing passenger on disembarkation that morning and that person had to be located before anyone could leave the ship. The person was located but everything got delayed...the ship left San Diego an hour late last night. (Please note that this is heresay but it does make sense.)

 

I know that when you disembark you just want to get home......just remember that the sun will rise tomorrow and focus on the nice cruise you just had! The Connie is a nice ship, I think.

[BroncosFan2010]

Hope we have better luck in Ft. Lauderdale in April... if not, no big deal as we have an early evening flight. No rush!

[hcat]

San Diego is a very interesting port--- embarkation is very disorganized street event.... & the key for us at this port after our cruise on Radiance of the Seas was to get a porter right away-- we were out the door in minutes while everyone else was still figuring things out.. not the best port, but not the worst either...we reserve that for Cape Liberty..

 

Celebrity does not have the getting on & off thing worked out well ,,they need to work on it a bit..

[boredprez]

Celebrity cannot pass off responsibility for the terrible disembarkation in San Diego Sunday on immigration. We never heard an announcement that the ship had been cleared by customs, and the "joke" announcement of the first disembarkation numbers/colors came an hour after people were getting off the boat. There were no ship officers in sight and the guests and security seemed to be running the show.

 

If this is how the crew of the Constellation handles routine disembarkation, how in the world can we trust them to handle an emergency evacuation? There is just no excuse for the poor performance of the ship's crew yesterday.

[wg6530]

Bored, aren't the early, self debarkation passengers and VIP passengers allowed off before the first luggage tag is called? while self debarkation passengers are allowed off, aren't the land personnel removing and organizing the tagged luggage? It is easy to find fault with the cruise line, but I'd be surprised if the first luggage tag were called as soon as the ship was cleared.:rolleyes:

[lombardbard]

We had the exact same problem getting off the Connie in FLL on December 4th 2010.

 

It's all due to the crappy (dell based???) pc's that are used for your sea pass scanner.

 

After 3/4 of hour crawling down the corridor from midship (where we were supposed to disembark) to forward what did I see? Only one machine in use for all passengers and the IT crew bringing computer equipment on board to get the second machine working.

 

The Connies IT staff are "Munters".

They had to fix the sunset bar computer 4 times on our cruise and on one occasion I saw them changing out the whole unit without a "STATIC STRAP" to be seen any where!!!

 

On embarkation we were held up for 2 hours because the sea pass machine was not working.

 

Good luck getting on and off the Connie for the foreseeable future. :rolleyes:

[natshala]

Excuse my cynicism, but I've heard the story of the "missing passenger who is still on the ship" more than once when embarkation is delayed. I don't buy it. Furthermore, has anyone been on a cruise where the Sea Pass readers work consistently? This technology has been around for a long time, should be routinely tested, and be reliable by now. I am a big fan of Celebrity, but this is unacceptable.

[lombardbard]

Excuse my cynicism, but I've heard the story of the "missing passenger who is still on the ship" more than once when embarkation is delayed. I don't buy it. Furthermore, has anyone been on a cruise where the Sea Pass readers work consistently? This technology has been around for a long time, should be routinely tested, and be reliable by now. I am a big fan of Celebrity, but this is unacceptable.

 

You are probably correct that the "missing passenger who is still on the ship" excuse, is just that.

 

At least they told us the truth on our embarkation.

[Esprit]

My daughter is currently working on "Connie". I'll ask for her side of the story.

 

Having experienced disembakation from Connie myself last November in Ft Lauderdale my biased opinion regarding this incident is that there were too many inconsiderate passengers loitering in the atrium when they should have been waiting elsewhere. What are the crew supposed to do then? Fire shots in the air to make them see sense!

 

If people book flights too early then its their stupid fault. The ship only stops once is San Diego so the likelihood that the disembark/embark will run smoothly is most unlikely. She same situation happened when the ship crossed the Atlantic to Ft Lauderdale having spent six months in Europe. The US port authority caused no end of grief for the crew that day.

 

I looked at the San Diego cruise terminal webcam a number of times during the day and the scenes port side looked pretty chaotic too.

 

Peter

[Jade13]

I hope this will be celebrity's way on all there ships. After our last experience on RCCL I have been thinking HAL just for the stress free final morning.

 

 

We have never had this problem on HAL. We stay in our stateroom until it is time to leave.

[Jacky01]

If people book flights too early then its their stupid fault. The ship only stops once is San Diego so the likelihood that the disembark/embark will run smoothly is most unlikely. She same situation happened when the ship crossed the Atlantic to Ft Lauderdale having spent six months in Europe. The US port authority caused no end of grief for the crew that day.

 

 

Peter

 

That same day we got on the ship after waiting for hours. Because the ship came TA, all kind of inspections took place. Also a crew change of 200 took place, which means that immigration had quit a job to do. We were also told that there was a malfunction on the elevators, repairs had to be done.

[bellybutton530]

That same day we got on the ship after waiting for hours. Because the ship came TA, all kind of inspections took place. Also a crew change of 200 took place, which means that immigration had quit a job to do. We were also told that there was a malfunction on the elevators, repairs had to be done.

 

In addition to what Jacky has posted, there was a malfunction of the credit card verification system during embarkation on Connie on Nov 20th. This caused the boarding process to be shut down for at least an hour. When they resumed allowing folks to board, there was a long line and everyone had to stand in that line.

 

Disembarkation was a total fiasco. No announcements; no crew around to keep the flow of people in check. In FLL, the customs folks are in the terminal. You leave the ship, claim your luggage, and then check out with customs. I like this process better, but feel that the ship did a POOR job of crowd control.

 

Disembarkation was

[CelebrityMan]

We've had long, frustrating disembarkations on both US coasts, and on a variety of ships.

 

While I agree, it seems that Celebrity could be better organized and better equipped in the atrium/Grand Foyer for crowd control and electronic check-out/clearance. I more heartily agree that much (if not nearly ALL) of the blame rests with passengers who willfully disregard their given departure instructions and purposefully try to subvert the system and get off the vessel in their own manner.

 

I even MORE suspect that US immigration officials often play a major role in mucking up the works.

 

Our worst departure was in May, 2005 in San Francisco. It was an absolute zoo!! And I will forever blame the lazy and unproductive, unconcerned INS agents for the fiasco. I could review the angry, frustrating encounter I had with an agent standing around doing nothing, but I won't. The encounter just convinced me that the INS in San Fran didn't have a clue how to expeditiously clear a ship, nor have the ability to send adequately trained personnel who could actively participate in the process.

 

 

CM

[el344]

We disembarked from the Constellation last Sunday in San Diego. We were in no hurry, since we were flying out the next day, so we just found a comfortable spot to sit and wait and watch the fiasco unfold. We finally got off around 11:45.

 

At about 9:45 they began making announcements asking passengers from about 10 cabins to report to the theater for Immigration. At 10:15 -- fifteen minutes after passengers were supposed to be allowed to start disembarking -- they were still paging two passengers to report to Immigration. People actually started getting off the ship shortly after that last announcement. No announcement was ever made that the ship had been cleared. Eventually they did start calling colors and groups.

 

When disembarkation actually began, passengers were leaving the ship at a rate of 25 per minute (so my husband the bored statistician says), except when a wheelchair passenger left, which cut the rate to about 10 per minute. If you do the math, that's a minimum of 90 minutes to get people off the ship.

 

I don't understand why it was so difficult to get accurate information about the disembarkation procedure beforehand -- I got several different answers about how it would work from several different people.

 

I don't understand why only one gangway was used. I don't understand why the passengers in wheelchairs were not allowed to disembark from a separate gangway (and a gangway that was safer for wheelchairs).

 

I don't understand why Celebrity has not developed at least some line management / crowd management techniques to avoid the crush in atrium.

 

I don't understand why Celebrity doesn't tell you clearly when you book your cruise that you should not plan on making a flight anytime before 3:00 pm.

 

And I don't understand how 2100 people can be held hostage to a handful of inconsiderate passengers who don't bother to report for INS as scheduled.

 

Surely the cruise lines and the Customs and Immigration people could devise a way to let people clear and walk off immediately. The current system is clearly dysfunctional.

 

But it truly was a wonderful cruise despite all that.

 

Elise

[Leesie6351]

Hi Elise-- my name is Elise also- see my comments below

 

We disembarked from the Constellation last Sunday in San Diego. We were in no hurry, since we were flying out the next day, so we just found a comfortable spot to sit and wait and watch the fiasco unfold. We finally got off around 11:45.

 

At about 9:45 they began making announcements asking passengers from about 10 cabins to report to the theater for Immigration. At 10:15 -- fifteen minutes after passengers were supposed to be allowed to start disembarking -- they were still paging two passengers to report to Immigration. People actually started getting off the ship shortly after that last announcement. No announcement was ever made that the ship had been cleared. Eventually they did start calling colors and groups.

 

When disembarkation actually began, passengers were leaving the ship at a rate of 25 per minute (so my husband the bored statistician says), except when a wheelchair passenger left, which cut the rate to about 10 per minute. If you do the math, that's a minimum of 90 minutes to get people off the ship.

 

I don't understand why it was so difficult to get accurate information about the disembarkation procedure beforehand -- I got several different answers about how it would work from several different people.

 

I don't understand why only one gangway was used. I don't understand why the passengers in wheelchairs were not allowed to disembark from a separate gangway (and a gangway that was safer for wheelchairs).

 

I don't understand why Celebrity has not developed at least some line management / crowd management techniques to avoid the crush in atrium.

 

I don't understand why Celebrity doesn't tell you clearly when you book your cruise that you should not plan on making a flight anytime before 3:00 pm.

 

And I don't understand how 2100 people can be held hostage to a handful of inconsiderate passengers who don't bother to report for INS as scheduled.

 

Surely the cruise lines and the Customs and Immigration people could devise a way to let people clear and walk off immediately. The current system is clearly dysfunctional.

 

But it truly was a wonderful cruise despite all that.

 

Elise

 

in your mouth. I agree with all the posters saying that X crew should be stationed in the atrium, around stairways and elevators to make sure the passengers are where they are supposed to be and to ensure orderly lines. On our last cruise on the Infinity, I was in a wheelchair, our cabin was on the 8th floor. We could not get in any elevators because they were jammed with people coming from the windjammer from breakfast. When there finally was some space, inconsiderate people rushed in so there was no room for us. When we finally got an elevator, when it opened on the gangway floor, people were lined up 10 deep to disembark and we literally could not get off the elevators and had to ride up and down multiple times before we could finally get off. There should have been crew stationed there to move the lines away from the elevators. I don't think that's unreasonable. It would also be helpful if elevators could be programmed to not stop on envery floor- have each elevator assigned to different floors. finally, there should be separate gangways for wheelchairs and people carrying off their own luggage with designated elevators (monitored by crew) because a large part of the crowd control problem is the luggage and wheelchairs which take up so much space. Finally, I agree that it is incomprehensible why everyone is held up because a few passengers have not been found. Since you have to scan your seapass card and show your passport at immigration, no one not properly vetted should or would be allowed off (at least in theory)

[nijh]

Think this may be one reason for the delay.

 

http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1331214