Brilliance from San Juan

[RJHNorthyorks]

We've just retuned home from back to back cruises sailing on 22 Dec and 29 Dec and had our worst experience of embarkation and disembarking.

We arrived at the terminal at 2pm,went quickly through priority registration but then had to join a queue and did not board until 3.30 pm. It was hot and uncomfortable, no information given and no where to sit after a long flight. Crew said later that the problems were due to immigration delays in clearing the ship from the previous cruise.

Embarkation on 29th Dec seemed ok - we went into San juan and had no difficulties or delays as passengers in transit.

Disembarking on 5th Jan was very poor. Our time was 10 - 10.15 but we actually didn't get out of the terminal until 12.30 and there were still lots of people behind us. For quite a while only citizens of the USA were being allowed off the ship which many us found particularly offensive. Many people were getting anxious about missing flights and the Royal Caribbean staff didn't seem to have a lot of influence. Once allowed off the ship we queued for over an hour to go through immigration in a shed with no air conditioning. There are fans but these are placed over the immigration staff desks.

Whilst we love San Juan we've decided that we won't be sailing from here again.

[alfaeric]

Very interesting. I hope another UK'er that we met can post if something similar happened.

 

We got on on the 29th- arrived at 1:15 or so, and was in our cabin with all of our stuff (we carried) by 1:45.

 

As for getting off, since our luggage was carry-on size, we carried off at about 8:30, and was out of the building at 8:40. We debated what to do longer than it took to get out. But we were US only, and saw that we had no line, but a line for the non US citizens. So if our friend had a similar story as yours, seems as if something was up for the non-citizens...

[NorbertsNiece]

So......

 

The thing about allowing US citizens off first is not at RCCL discretion but relates to the local Border Controls. I had first hand experience of this last month and is described in depth in my blog. Page 27 post # 370. I don't see how you can be offended by this. It's mighty inconvenient but it's their process.

 

I will never ever self disembark again. I slipped a disc and have been laid up since my return :(

 

Seems they have a problem with people not leaving the ship and hanging around for as long as possible. Until the numbers of pax are 0 they will not allow embarkation.

 

The Pan Am pier is a nightmare and you aren't the first to refuse to sail out of there again.

[Aviator of the Seas]

In my opinion the problems at the Pan American pier began when Royal Caribbean stopped using it year round after moving the Adventure to Europe for the summers. Until then, the people who ran the pier had the operation down pat. Then they were all laid off.

 

The other problem is the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP). They are the ones who hold up each and every debarkation. They couldn't care less about customer service. They also suffered a cut in their personnel after RCI dropped San Juan, for a while anyway.

 

Hopefully with at least one ship year round at that pier the situation will improve. You don't hear the same type of complaints about Carnival's embarkation pier in Old San Juan. That's a well oiled machine.

 

To illustrate my point, I was on the Adventure's first transatlantic return to San Juan after it's first summer in Europe. I had a port balcony as I always enjoy the entry into San Juan harbor. When we got to the dock there was a total of ONE dockworker there to meet the ship and handle the lines. ONE.

 

Then we had several people die during the trip (of natural causes), and we all had to wait for the local authorities to clear out the bodies first.

 

Then the CBP decided to screen each and every crewmember before they even started with the passengers and that delayed everyone for two or three hours.

 

So, while we all agree that RCI should boost and improve its shoreside customer service (there's not much the ship crewmembers can do about any of this), and so can the Puerto Rico Toursim Company and Ports Authority, the most serious problems lie with the United States Customs and Border Protection agency. That's where the bottleneck is. Unfortunately, due to our political status, we have virtually no power or influence in Washington D.C. to light a fire under the CBP Head's butt over there.

 

My two cents.

[alfaeric]

So......

 

The thing about allowing US citizens off first is not at RCCL discretion but relates to the local Border Controls. I had first hand experience of this last month and is described in depth in my blog. Page 27 post # 370. I don't see how you can be offended by this. It's mighty inconvenient but it's their process.

If you are talking to me, I had no issues with your US Customs/disembarkation issues. There's apparently an issue with non US Citzens, since we didn't have a problem what so ever on Saturday.

 

The issues I had were the ones about one cruise having parandas in the MDR, so that you also didn't want to sail in San Juan. I really was hoping to have a paranda on board-but didn't get it.

 

If your probem is US Customs in San Juan- so be it. If your problems are the customs of Puerto Ricans that you saw on one cruise that nobody else had seen weeks before or after, or you've seen on previous San Juan cruises, well...

 

Either way, I guess the chances of running into you on a cruise sailing out of San Juan is basically zero. Fine with that.

[melbur]

Seems every cruise is different . . we disembarked AOS on the 30th and were off at 8:15, right after the self assist and early flight departure people. We were the only ones in the non US line!