Carnival Liberty 9/29 -- 1 hr delayed boarding?

[Pellaz]

Got an email advising that boarding for the Liberty's sailing on 9/29 will now be from 1:30-3pm, and not to arrive at the Port of Miami before 1:30.

 

Wonder what's up?

[bumbleklutz]

I received the same e-mail, however, I still intend to arrive earlier. I'm flying in the morning of the cruise and am unable to reschedule my flight to accomodate Carnival's last minute changes. I doubt that Carnival is going to deny boarding to anyone if they arrive early.

[kelkel2]

They send these emails asking people to arrive to port later like this all the time. Unless thy stated there is an unplanned emergency that is delaying the ship I would go anyways. They are trying to get the crowd more spread out so that not everyone shows up at the same time in the morning. You can still go when you would like.

[bunny1954]

They may be having a special or monthly Coast Guard inspection that morning. No one will be allowed to board, regardless of the time they arrive at the port, until the ship has been released if that is the case.

[Pellaz]

Ahh, I see. Sensible. Devious, but sensible.

 

I'd hate to be the Carnival phone rep who has to handle the call from an irate cruiser who was denied boarding because they arrived at 3pm, as the email stated was okay, and yet the sailing manifest was closed at 2:30pm, ninety minutes before sailing!

[Pellaz]

According to MarineTraffic.com, Liberty is not at the pier, and is not even within range of the AIS transponder system yet. :eek:

 

(Don't see her on the PoM webcam either, but Valor is there.)

[vacruizer]

According to MarineTraffic.com, Liberty is not at the pier, and is not even within range of the AIS transponder system yet. :eek:

 

(Don't see her on the PoM webcam either, but Valor is there.)

 

If you pull up the Liberty webcams, it does look like she's in Miami.

[Pellaz]

Yep, she's there, but her transponder must be off. One of our roll-call members can see both ships from her hotel window. Whew!

[Scott34787]

Liberty is coming back from a Western itinerary right?

 

There was talk last week about ICE doing more

thorough inspections on ships that come back

from western carib ports, esp. Belize.

[Unknotted]

We've gotten those messages on our last 2 cruises and found out after we got to the port at 1:30 that almost every other passenger did too. Boarding is a worse fiasco than ever now because so many people show up at 1:30. Those messages won't work on us any more.

[vwrestler171]

Valor has it's transponder off a lot too, wasn't sure which ship was in port with Liberty a cpl months ago. US Customs have been doing more thorough inspections of ships from belize lately for some reason

[soccersharon]

Liberty is coming back from a Western itinerary right?

 

There was talk last week about ICE doing more

thorough inspections on ships that come back

from western carib ports, esp. Belize.

 

 

Exactly. This was confirmed by a friend who was on the Western itin cruise.

[dotshub]

Liberty is coming back from a Western itinerary right?

 

There was talk last week about ICE doing more

thorough inspections on ships that come back

from western carib ports, esp. Belize.

 

Thats exactly what happened to us when we came back from the western ports (Belize) on 9/15. Whatever customs was doing extra took so long that the last passengers didnt get off the ship til after noon and the first new passengers didnt get on board til 1pm.

[kpatrick74]

When we came back from our November cruise (Belize) it took forever to get off the ship that day.........

[misguidedangel]

Yep, it seems ships coming back from Belize are getting more stringent checks. Alas, I was on the Sept 15th Liberty sailing and yes, we never left the lounge until shortly after 1230 to board the ship. I never got onboard until 1pm. They now take the S&S photo before you get on the ship to make it easier...

 

The ship didn't have all passengers onboard until after 430pm and muster drill was called not long after that. The ship started to sail away when muster drill was part way though....I noticed pretty quick we were leaving, and not many others noticed.....many were cheesed we left during muster drill, but then again, we did leave close to an hour late.....