disembark southampton

[tucker1865]

How much time should one figure on when disembarking city dock for customs, leaving the ship, and getting through terminal. Thanks

[jocap]

I often self disembark at 7.30am., walk straight through the terminal to a taxi or to where our car is parked, and away. We catch the 8.15 train, or are driving out of town by 8.15am.

We once self disembarked NCL Jade at 5.30 am, picked up the car and were out of S'ton before 6am.....drove to Oxford and had breakfast before some people would have left their cabins.:rolleyes:

The one time we were held up was when we travelled with a vast party in 3 coaches. The ship had been to Gibraltar, so customs were out in force to catch the cheap baccy people....around 1 in 5 was being stopped, so it made for a very long, slow queue. We didn't leave the ship until 9.45 that day, as the coaches weren't going until 10 30am. It wouldn't have been too bad earlier in the day, as not so many people self-disembark....but more chance of being stopped, I suppose!

Jo.

[DEEDIA]

When Sailing out of Southampton on RCI we always take our own Transport. We disembark under our own steam after a Breakfast, drive upto Mansfield and are often home before some of the Coloured Tags even get of the Ship, that is a 4 Hour Drive, So I guess its a quick process.

[John Bull]

Jo makes a very valid point about cruises which have been to Gib, Canaries or other ports with duty-free smokes. These cruises are targetted by Southampton's finest, since smuggling cigs is obviously a much more serious offence than smuggling illegal immigrants, drugs, weapons, explosives etc.:rolleyes:

 

My favourite news story on the subject involved a flight from Canaries to sleepy little Bournemouth airport, where there are often no customs staff at all.

That particular flight was targetted by a hit squad & everyone's bags were searched - thousands of cigarettes were seized.

Eventually the queue died down, the last passsenger left the baggage hall & the place was empty.

............ except for a dozen or more suitcases still going round & round on the carousel :D:D:D

 

JB :)

[tartanexile81]

It is difficult to put an exact time on it, but here is my example from a couple of months ago. I fon't know if you've cruised before so hope I don't repeat things you know.

 

Everyone is assigned a time to disembark and they seem to be very strict about this on P&O. It took us about 20 mins from our group colour being called until we arrived in the building because of a very slow moving queue. Your luggage is set out in long rows by the deck you were on and it is in a vast warehouse. It can take quite a while to find your own luggage so we always 'decorate' it to make it distinctive.

 

After that you make your way through Customs. Sometimes there aren't many on duty but there were a lot of officers when we got back as we had been in the Caribbean........I suppose they were looking for drugs?? We were lucky enough to go straight through though but a lot of people were stopped and had their luggage searched.

 

From our group getting called to getting on our Eavesway coach, it took just over 35 minutes. BUT we sat on our coach for a further hour and a quarter waiting for one couple who were in the same colour as us. Very frustrating!!!

[tom_uk]

P&O do allow you to self-disembark (I'm sue other lines do as well). This means we've got to manage our own luggage off the ship, but we can do that. As another poster said, we can be off the ship and on our way home by eight o'clock, which is what we want on that morning: we don't see any point in hanging around for 'last looks'. Too mournful....

[blackpool belle]

Fred Olsen & I think Cunard disembark deck by deck starting with the higher decks leaving first.

[lydnsyd]

Just returned on RCI IOTS and people who wanted to carry their own luggage off the ship were assigned a time of ... 0630. We had too much baggage to do this but asked to get off ASAP and were assigned.... 0645. There was a 10 min delay so we eventually got to the baggage hall at approx 0700. It took about 5mins to sort out the suitcases. Thankfully there were lots of trolleys for everyone's cases:) There were LOTS of Customs officials but we weren't stopped and eventually got to the Car Park at around 0715 which was really quick! All in All if you count from the assigned time & slight delay - to arriving at the carpark it took approx 45mins. Hope that helps:D