Just recd a phone call when to arrive

[ColdinOH]

So this would suggest if you are assigned a boarding time at 3:00 and your hotel checkout is 11:00 that you will need to store luggage and find a land based restaurant to have lunch rather than enjoying lunch on the ship. We also enjoy exploring the ship and taking pictures soon after boarding. We will follow the recommended guidelines, but it certainly takes away from the excitement and the enjoyment of the first day? I guess we never thought the embarkation process was an issue unless there was a customs or norovirus issue which is certainly understood.

[Sparky333]

Well, I don't mean to be negative and hopefully this doesn't happen to anyone else, but last December we had the same situation sailing out of Ft. Laud. Got a last-minute email that we couldn't board until a certain time. So we waited until our scheduled time and took the hotel shuttle over - maybe 1:30 - and when we got there it was a zoo. There was a line stretching forever. I don't think everyone obeys the request to wait until a certain time so that the staggering can actually work.

 

To make it worse we could see a sign for a separate line for suites but the greeter (he had a Celebrity name tag but I think they work for the port not actually Celebrity?) would absolutely not let anyone go to that line but made us go to the very end of the loooooong line and you supposedly could then only divide off into the suite line when you got up to that point - which would've taken hrs.

 

I called X from the end of the forever-long line and they could do nothing of course. Don't know what I really expected but it was just such a bad situation - the expedited boarding was part of why we paid extra for that category of cabin and he was illogically not letting us get in the proper, way shorter line.

 

Finally another employee with a Celebrity name badge came through checking people's boarding passes and sending the suite guests up to the other line. That helped immensely but the hour we stood in the hot sun barely moving forward in that wrong line was very annoying!

 

OK, that probably never happened again after that date - just be prepared if you get herded to the wrong line to make sure you get up into the right one!