Mariner 11 25 2012 worst

[ictnightowl]

Everyone I spoke with on board said what a disaster it was in and out of port. Delays, long lines, total confusion. Add to all that, every time I asked what the problem was and who was to blame, I heard a different answer every time. Royal's fault, Port of Galveston's fault, customs fault, etc.

 

Total chaos when we arrived on Sunday 11/25 the line outside the Terminal stretched all the way over to the other Terminal where Carnival Magic was at. At Carnival's Terminal everything seemed to be flowing smoothly. We waited in line for almost 3 hours before completing checking in. At 3:00 their were so many people inside the Terminal I had my doubts that they would actually all get boarded on time. We left the port only 30 minutes late to my surprise.

 

Leaving the ship was even worse than boarding it. Absolutely no reason to have a line from the front of the ship on Deck 4, thru the casino, thru the dinning room, out the back of the dinning room emergency exit, around the back of the ship, back around the dinning room outside on the deck, and then down the gangway.

 

I will mostly likely avoid the Port of Galveston, RCCL, or both all together from now on if I can't get any answers. I've called RCCL, and waiting to hear back from them.

 

I'm attaching 2 pictures I took at the back of the ship the day we disembarked.

 

Anyone have any "official" reason yet to the complete chaos that ?

[Darkwolfe]

Wasn't that the end of the TA? Those are ALWAYS a mess due to extra customs details that have to be gone through and ALWAYS cause some extra trouble for pax coming off or boarding.

 

RCI doesn't have any control on the terminal side of things. That's totally out of their hands.

 

FWIW, on a regular closed loop cruise from Galveston, they had things neatly in hand last January. They'll get back in the groove soon enough.

[Beachin2]

Wasn't that the end of the TA? Those are ALWAYS a mess due to extra customs details that have to be gone through and ALWAYS cause some extra trouble for pax coming off or boarding.

 

RCI doesn't have any control on the terminal side of things. That's totally out of their hands.

 

FWIW, on a regular closed loop cruise from Galveston, they had things neatly in hand last January. They'll get back in the groove soon enough.

 

That was NOT the TA. I was on the TA & we arrived on 11/18. FWIW the terminal at the end of the TA cruise was the worst I've ever seen. No excuse why it should take almost 2 hours once you hear that final "bong" noise off of the ship.

 

For one, I will not cruise in or out of Galveston again.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review! Sorry it was not very good.

[Darkwolfe]

That was NOT the TA. I was on the TA & we arrived on 11/18. FWIW the terminal at the end of the TA cruise was the worst I've ever seen. No excuse why it should take almost 2 hours once you hear that final "bong" noise off of the ship.

 

For one, I will not cruise in or out of Galveston again.

 

Ok I was off a week then, my bad. Wonder why it's so bad now when it was fine 10 months ago?

 

But, I stand by my earlier remark, RCI does not have any control terminal side. That's all US Customs there.

 

Oh well, have fun!

[xeriod]

Leaving the ship was even worse than boarding it. Absolutely no reason to have a line from the front of the ship on Deck 4, thru the casino, thru the dinning room, out the back of the dinning room emergency exit, around the back of the ship, back around the dinning room outside on the deck, and then down the gangway.

 

I will mostly likely avoid the Port of Galveston, RCCL, or both all together from now on if I can't get any answers. I've called RCCL, and waiting to hear back from them.

 

Anyone have any "official" reason yet to the complete chaos that ?

 

We ( two couples ) ran into the same issue in Feb. on this cruise out of Galveston. Lines snakeing make and forth and barly moveing inside the terminal on disembarking. We all agreed we'd never cruise out of that port again. Don't know what the problem is but don't want to take over 2 hours to get off the ship and through customs " after they call your color ".

[betsyl]

I don't know what took so long but one thing was that when we went through customs, it's usually show your passport and leave. This time we got in the wrong line. The customs lady was questioning each and every departing passenger. For me, she commented on my recent birthday. After pleasantries, I went ahead and it was my husband's turn. She decided to ask him about the $100 worth of souvenirs we declared. Of course he didn't have a clue what they were (ha) so I had to come back and tell her they were t shirts and bracelets. We were finally waived through. I thought I was going to have to dig through our dirty clothes to produce everything. Anyway, we finally made it through, but we missed our flight out of Hobby, not because of customs - we were on the bus at 9:30 am - but because of "transportation issues" with the transfer buses. Oh well. It's always something, as they say.

[Toodang]

We sailed out of Galveston last March and had absolutely no problem what so ever embarking or disembarking.

[Beachin2]

It may have been OK last year - but it is not at all acceptable this year. As others have also said, I will not cruise in or out of this port again if it isn't fixed.

 

The local Port Commissioner(s) should be taken out back & flogged.

[Darkwolfe]

It may have been OK last year - but it is not at all acceptable this year. As others have also said, I will not cruise in or out of this port again if it isn't fixed.

 

The local Port Commissioner(s) should be taken out back & flogged.

 

Well, I DID hear tell that something similar had to take place last year to get everything smoothed up. Seems kinda silly to have to repeat the process.. Get a pattern down and use it. You'd think experience would be a good teacher after all.

[ictnightowl]

I forgot to mention, this is my 4th cruise with RCCL, and 4th different port. But this trip has left such a bad taste in my mouth.

[TEXASMUNK]

Embarkation was a nightmare....Whether is was the escalator or whatever the problem, an e-mail blast would have eliminated much of the line if they told us to turn up 2 hours later.

 

Once onboard, the service levels were top notch, the entertainment was great, the various venues make the ship a great way to cruise. NO complaints!

 

Disembarkation......we got the call at 8:15a but were in our vehicle and on our way at 8:50a

 

And YES, customs was asking tons of questions, the port gets the blame, the ship gets the blame, corporate RCI gets the blame, but it turns out that it is often times customs.

 

We hav enot given up on RCI or Galveston, re-booked already for March 2013.

[Ladysilver]

Well, I hope we don't have these issues on Sunday but I'm looking at the forecast and thinking we'll have an issue with morning fog. :(

[wreckem2013]

It seems that it takes the port and customs a month or so every season to work out the kinks of debarkation.

[wreckem2013]

Well, I DID hear tell that something similar had to take place last year to get everything smoothed up. Seems kinda silly to have to repeat the process.. Get a pattern down and use it. You'd think experience would be a good teacher after all.

 

The problem is they don't necessarily have the same employees season to season.

[wreckem2013]

We ( two couples ) ran into the same issue in Feb. on this cruise out of Galveston. Lines snakeing make and forth and barly moveing inside the terminal on disembarking. We all agreed we'd never cruise out of that port again. Don't know what the problem is but don't want to take over 2 hours to get off the ship and through customs " after they call your color ".

 

The problem is not enough Customs agents to handle two large ships docking around the same time.

[klingoncruiser]

Wow, sure does not sound like my last cruise out of Galveston. Never had a problem. However, it is obvious that the OP did. Sorry for you problems. Don't give up on Galveston, it really is not that bad most of the time. :o

[CaribeDiver]

Everyone I spoke with on board said what a disaster it was in and out of port. Delays, long lines, total confusion. Add to all that, every time I asked what the problem was and who was to blame, I heard a different answer every time. Royal's fault, Port of Galveston's fault, customs fault, etc.

 

Total chaos when we arrived on Sunday 11/25 the line outside the Terminal stretched all the way over to the other Terminal where Carnival Magic was at. At Carnival's Terminal everything seemed to be flowing smoothly. We waited in line for almost 3 hours before completing checking in. At 3:00 their were so many people inside the Terminal I had my doubts that they would actually all get boarded on time. We left the port only 30 minutes late to my surprise.

 

Leaving the ship was even worse than boarding it. Absolutely no reason to have a line from the front of the ship on Deck 4, thru the casino, thru the dinning room, out the back of the dinning room emergency exit, around the back of the ship, back around the dinning room outside on the deck, and then down the gangway.

 

I will mostly likely avoid the Port of Galveston, RCCL, or both all together from now on if I can't get any answers. I've called RCCL, and waiting to hear back from them.

 

I'm attaching 2 pictures I took at the back of the ship the day we disembarked.

 

Anyone have any "official" reason yet to the complete chaos that ?

 

Really, 4 post in the last year and 2 of them were on this post with not one comment about the cruise itself? Have been on 8 cruises from this port with no problems. Please don't start something over a rare incident.

[Darkwolfe]

Really, 4 post in the last year and 2 of them were on this post with not one comment about the cruise itself? Have been on 8 cruises from this port with no problems. Please don't start something over a rare incident.

 

Hey CD, on a better note, can you grab some pics of the changes on Mariner when you sail? Be nice to see what all has been done. Thanks!

[CENTEX CRUISER]

The only problem we had on the Mariner last March was that a lot of people did self assist debarkation, and there was quite a line for that. Otherwise, customs zipped us right through. We are sailing again on the Mariner in April, so I hope all will be well..

[TEXASMUNK]

The motif has taken on a new look..Very Oriental. The dry dock was intended to prepare the ship to literally become a floating casino when it gets to the orient.

The cigar lounge will become the hi roller gaming center. Much of the art owrk and the wall motifs have changed to an oriental flavor. The wait staff has a higher number of folks that speak English and Manderin Chinese. Much the same with the transition of the Rhapsody when she was preparing to leave for the Orient...but this time the staff are onboard much earlier and getting used to the RCI way to do things.

The pool area looks totally different in that the pools, the surroundings were all updated and have a crisp, bright and attractive appearance.

[Darkwolfe]

The motif has taken on a new look..Very Oriental. The dry dock was intended to prepare the ship to literally become a floating casino when it gets to the orient.

The cigar lounge will become the hi roller gaming center. Much of the art owrk and the wall motifs have changed to an oriental flavor. The wait staff has a higher number of folks that speak English and Manderin Chinese. Much the same with the transition of the Rhapsody when she was preparing to leave for the Orient...but this time the staff are onboard much earlier and getting used to the RCI way to do things.

The pool area looks totally different in that the pools, the surroundings were all updated and have a crisp, bright and attractive appearance.

 

You're just making me want to see pictures more ya know! ;)

[Krazy4Kruisin']

I don't know what took so long but one thing was that when we went through customs, it's usually show your passport and leave. This time we got in the wrong line. The customs lady was questioning each and every departing passenger. For me, she commented on my recent birthday. After pleasantries, I went ahead and it was my husband's turn. She decided to ask him about the $100 worth of souvenirs we declared. Of course he didn't have a clue what they were (ha) so I had to come back and tell her they were t shirts and bracelets. We were finally waived through. I thought I was going to have to dig through our dirty clothes to produce everything. Anyway, we finally made it through, but we missed our flight out of Hobby, not because of customs - we were on the bus at 9:30 am - but because of "transportation issues" with the transfer buses. Oh well. It's always something, as they say.

 

What time was your flight that you missed? My daughter has a flight leaving there at 1:50 after our cruise.

 

Other than the boarding and unboarding, how was the cruise itself?

[welshrich]

You're just making me want to see pictures more ya know! ;)

 

 

I just got off the TA on 18th, have a look at the roll call for that cruise, some people have posted links to their sites with photos of the cruise.

 

We did self assist, in the queue at 0645 and it was already very long, but once the ship was cleared it moved OK and we were through immigration and out on the kerb at 0800.

[reney313]

I was also on the 11/25 cruise.

 

Out of my 14 cruises, 8 of them with RCI, this was an absolute disaster both ON and Off the ship.

 

The cruise itself was wonderful! The staff great, the experience wonderful. Getting on and off though was horrible and almost inexcusable.

 

Embarkation: We arrived early because of needing to get transportation for 9 to the ship. Me and my boyfriend were dropped off with all the luggage at approx. 10:30am. We knew we would likely need to wait for 30 minutes to a hour before getting into the building. No problem there. However, it was complete chaos. Starting about 10:45am a lot of people were starting to form lines, haphazard and no one around to direct. We got a good line going. then about 11:30am, many more people getting dropped off with no where to stand. About 11:50 they finally opened the door to start letting people in, but it appeared only a few at a time. About 12:00, they came down the line and tried to get all the Plat and up to the front of the line. We worked our way up, but then other passengers (who, I may add, arrived much later than we did, but somehow were able to get to the front of the line because they didn't notice the line that had already formed) started getting angry. It ended up being a disaster. There was a line about 100 people wide and 100 people deep trying to get into one single door! Once inside the building we were able to finally go through security and to check in. *Note: We did bring wine in our carry on and had to go to another table to declare our wine, have them mark down what cabin we were in and then sign it, slowing things down as well. They apparently abandoned this practice a little later as the rest of my family who all had wine as well were not required to go to that table.

 

After we checked in, they still had not started boarding yet. We sat in the chairs to wait. When they finally started with the priority tags, people were all trying to board because the workers did not announce to the crowd they were boarding "priority" only. Then another worker started directing Platinum and above to board, even though we had tags 1 or 2 which they hadn't started boarding yet, causing more confusion. It was just really poorly handled.

 

Total time: arrived at 10:30, was finally onboard at 12:50am and was among the first to board. The rest of my family who had arrived around 11:15 got on board at 2:30! Just to note, I did expect to wait at least an hour since we arrived SO early, but I thought it was crazy how that all occurred outside.

 

For disembarking:

 

We had tag #3 and were called shortly after the self disembarking line. It was approx. 8:50 (original time said 8:30 so not too bad in the scheme of things). Leaving was much easier, although it got much worse later. The bad part was getting the luggage and then going through customs. Because of our large family, we needed a porter. We had to stand in a "porter" line. It took over 45 minutes to get to the front of that line. Once with the porter, we quickly loaded up the luggage and then had to stand in line with him to go through customs, tying up his time and the cart. That was crazy. With Tag #3, we did not get out of the terminal building until 10:15! Then our party had to go get the vehicles, etc. Our flight was at 2:30 out of Hobby and we did make it in time, but I can only imagine people with tags 7 or later. By the time we were leaving, I saw the lines triple as long as what we stood in.... I know of some folks we ran into at the airport that had missed their flight. It seemed senseless to me.

 

I agree with others, I won't be going back through Galveston anytime soon. I felt bad for my family as it was most of their first time on a cruise. I think RCI could have been more organized and communicated better for the arriving passengers. In the whole time we were outside, I only heard from the employees 1 time. I did hear there were problems getting everyone off the ship from the previous cruise, which is no surprise after witnessing it myself. I could not imagine our cruise being cleared by 11:30 to board if I didn't get out until 10:15 with a low tag #.

 

This definitely won't make me not cruise with RCI in the future, but will make me think second about Galveston...or any ship that has only been back for a week or two from Europe. I have also sent an email to RCI to ensure they are aware of the disaster at the port in hopes they put something into place quickly for the upcoming passengers so they don't have to go through the same.