What Are The Perks For Neptune Suite?

[Krazy Kruizers]

OK, I'll bite. What is special disembarkation service. Is it an assigned place with coffee and doughnuts while you wait for your number to be called just like all the other lines.

 

 

Special Disembarkation simply means that all passengers staying in the PS and Neptune Suites can leave the ship between 8:15 - 9:30. You are usually assigned a time but can leave when you want to. The color of your disembarkation tags depends on what you filled out when you completed the disembarkation form.

You can have breakfast in your cabin, in the Pinnacle, Lido, Neptune Lounge.

You can stay in your cabin until your color and number is called. You do not have to go and sit in any lounge. We always stay in the cabin unless I am given a different place to wait since I have to use wheelchair assistance.

[DaveOKC]

I'd consider this perk to be of negligible value. Here's my reasoning, based on an SA on the Maasdam (Collector's Cruise) in 2012, and an SA on the Noordam (10 day Caribbean) in 2014.

 

Maasdam 2012 - We were assigned a number, Black 1 if memory serves. We ate room service breakfast and then reported to the Neptune lounge. By 8:30 am, our number had not been called. We asked the concierge to check in case we missed it. He phoned someone and told us that our number had not indeed been called. At 9:00 am, we were still waiting for our number. We asked the concierge again. It turned out that they had skipped our number. Net result: Neptune Suite self transit passengers were almost the last off the ship. On the plus side, it's really easy to find your luggage when yours are the only suitcases left in the terminal.

 

Noordam 2014 - After the stellar Maasdam disembarkation on our last cruise, we decided that we would simply leave as soon as they started calling numbers. The port side agents don't know anything about priority disembarkation - so they said. We were told to wait in a public room until our number was called. (We had Pink 1 this time.) We showed our room keys and were told that it doesn't matter.

 

Now I understand that other people might have had different experiences and that our experience isn't necessarily typical. However, based on what happened to us on two cruises in published fare SA cabins on our last two sailings, I would be inclined to say that the "priority disembarkation" in the brochure description is missing the word "low."

 

Not that I'm bitter.

 

We're only a few minutes from Port Everglades, so it's not a huge deal. In fact, I never mentioned it here on CC before. I would not attach a lot of value to the priority disembarkation. From what we've seen, it's not like the priority tendering - which actually is a benefit.

 

Interesting. When traveling in a Neptune suite we always have been the first color called, except for the cruise last month. They called Grey 1 first (we were Black 1). I was trying to standby for an earlier flight, so we wanted to get going, so I walked up to the cruise director to ask why we were not called and he told us to go ahead anyway. Our bags were waiting for us so that was not the reason.

 

 

DaveOKC

[kazu]

Interesting. When traveling in a Neptune suite we always have been the first color called, except for the cruise last month. They called Grey 1 first (we were Black 1). I was trying to standby for an earlier flight, so we wanted to get going, so I walked up to the cruise director to ask why we were not called and he told us to go ahead anyway. Our bags were waiting for us so that was not the reason.

 

 

DaveOKC

 

Similar experience - I have been told that we can go anytime after self disembarkation. They usually call our colour (pink usually) right away but even if it is not, you can go when you see fit.

[cruz chic]

Good to know. I swear my color wasn't called on the Westy and I was on until the bitter end. Annoying.

[POA1]

Interesting. When traveling in a Neptune suite we always have been the first color called, except for the cruise last month. They called Grey 1 first (we were Black 1). I was trying to standby for an earlier flight, so we wanted to get going, so I walked up to the cruise director to ask why we were not called and he told us to go ahead anyway. Our bags were waiting for us so that was not the reason.

 

 

DaveOKC

 

It was a mix up on the Maasdam. They simply skipped the NS self transportation color / number. On the Noordam, it was called fairly late. The shore personnel - the blue jacket folks who come on in Port Everglades - don't appear to know about priority disembarkation. We asked (nicely) when it became apparent that they weren't calling our color/number. We were told that there is no such thing and that we had to go to a public room and wait our turn. Since it seems kind of pointless to cause a scene over something like that, we simply waited. Fortunately, they remembered to call our tag this time. It wasn't what I would call "priority" though.

 

We never had that problem before. We don't cruise as often as many of you, so I don't claim that our sample size of two sailings in a 2 year period is representative. (Hence my disclaimer in my original post.) But given that 100% of our recent cruises lacked priority disembarkation, my expectations for the "perk" are really low. I'm lumping it in with the daily newspaper digest delivery and suite lunches on every sailing. It's just one of those things that we no longer factor into the value of an NS/PS.