Who do the porters work for?

[georgigirl]

Hope someone can help direct us....If we have someone driving us and dropping us off at the pier and we have appropriate carry on luggage - (1 each) plus I will have 1 large purse or tote - can we - carry these on at pier 88? What are the steps with dealing with the porters. Do we just bypass them and walk (to where?) What do we look for? Thank you so much.

[luddite]

They work for the passengers.

[Sauer-kraut]

Hope someone can help direct us....If we have someone driving us and dropping us off at the pier and we have appropriate carry on luggage - (1 each) plus I will have 1 large purse or tote - can we - carry these on at pier 88? What are the steps with dealing with the porters. Do we just bypass them and walk (to where?) What do we look for? Thank you so much.

 

Hi Georgi

You might have been better off starting a new thread for your question instead of opening one that is 4 years old. :)

 

You can carry on as much as you want. BUT who wants to? Your cabin won't be ready until after 1:30 or so and you'll have to deal with the screening etc.

 

Yes you just walk past the porters, go into the terminal building and wait in the line for scanning, check in and then for your boarding group number to be called.

[Barb Nahoumi]

We never had a problem with handing our luggage over to the porters. It has been delivered to our cabins in timely manner and we were able to retrieve it from the luggage room at cruise end.

[roger001]

However, no, if you don't have anything you want to check, no problem. The porters aren't aggressive, just helpful. They do work quickly. If one offers to take you bag to check, just say it's a carry on. That's it. If you do check one with them, a $2 per bag tip is customary.

[sjbdtz]

They work for the passengers.

 

 

I like that you sing the same tune, 4 years later.

 

 

:D

 

 

.

[luddite]

I like that you sing the same tune, 4 years later.

 

 

:D

 

 

.

 

Shewt. I dint know it was an old thread until you posted.

Nevertheless.......facts are facts.

[navybankerteacher]

They work for the passengers.

 

Ordinarily I agree with your posts, but in this case I must interject: the porters, like the members of any powerful union, work for themselves.

 

They are employed by the ports authority, who distributes their base salary, to handle the bags of passengers, who tip them because they fear damage, loss, or dunking - but, believe me: they do not "work for the passengers" as that phrases usually means.

[luddite]

Ordinarily I agree with your posts, but in this case I must interject: the porters, like the members of any powerful union, work for themselves.

.

 

Well, pretty much everyone who works, works for their self. That's a fair assess.

Being in the union probably serves to keep them from actually getting any work done. But...that's a different thread.......,

Edited October 5, 2015 by luddite

[Smiling Cruiser]

I tip because I appreciate the help. Never had a problem with any porter when leaving from the east coast ports (never left from the west coast.) as in any job, there will be someone who has acted unprofessionally but I've not witnessed it.

[sail7seas]

Those who take our luggage when we arrive at the dock are Longshoremen which I think are part of Teamsters Union.

 

Out of a great many cruises from a number of U.S. ports (East and West Coast), we never had any longshoreman/woman who was other than polite and took good care of us. We always found them as helpful as anyone could want.

Edited October 5, 2015 by sail7seas

[fshagan]

Those who take our luggage when we arrive at the dock are Longshoremen which I think are part of Teamsters Union.

 

Out of a great many cruises from a number of U.S. ports (East and West Coast), we never had any longshoreman/woman who was other than polite and took good care of us. We always found them as helpful as anyone could want.

 

That is our experience as well. We have never had one be rude to us in the ports we have been in, which include Miami, Port Canaveral, Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver. I usually tip a buck a bag unless there's some issue that I think requires more of them and then I might tip more. But I have seen porters stiffed and not tipped and there's no reaction by them. Even in San Pedro (which we have sailed out of twice).

 

I have never seen any bad behavior by them. Even so, I don't think the porters at the front of the building are the ones anywhere near the water ... they load them into crates which are then moved by forklift by another category of worker to the waterside area. Then, another worker moves them by either a little crane or a different style of forklift into the boat. At least that's the procedure I've seen when we've been able to watch the process from our balcony.

[Golfin55]

Hmmm. Who dug up this relic[emoji88]

[fshagan]

Hmmm. Who dug up this relic[emoji88]

 

Someone new who had a question in the same vein as the original question. They may have been told to "use search, this question is asked all the time" as is frequently said to new people. So perhaps they used search and found the closest thread but it didn't fully answer their question, so they asked again.

 

You can't win for losing here. If you ask a question, you're told to use search. If you use search and revive an old thread you are told to start a new thread.

[Demonyte]

You can't win for losing here. If you ask a question, you're told to use search. If you use search and revive an old thread you are told to start a new thread.

 

 

There is a big difference between not using an active thread started only hours or days ago and reviving months or years old thread.

 

When people are told that their new thread is unnecessary, there usually are already three more like that in the first few index pages here but people are too lazy to look through even those.

[TrumpyNor]

I just would like to share a short story:
A few years ago, my sister and her family (a total of 4) went on their very first cruise, with NCL out of Miami. When the porter came to pick up their luggage at the pier, he stated that "if they didn't tip him, something might happen to their luggage before it got on the ship..."! Since my sister and her family came from Europe, they had of course exchanged European money to US dollars for the trip. The problem was that the smallest bill they had on them at that moment, was a $50 bill. Needless to say that the threatening porter hit the jackpot that day, since my sister was too scared to not tip him and she didn't have anything smaller....

Remember that this was a family who was in the US for the first time, and also first time cruisers, and were not familiar with how things were supposed to work regarding their luggage. They didn't know that they could have reported the incident right away to NCL officials at the pier, and they didn't know if they were supposed to tip the porter or not. They ended up having a great cruise vacation and nothing "happened" to their luggage, but their experience actually caused me to ALWAYS tip the porter a few dollars, just to be on the "safe" side on my cruises since then....