disembarcation at port liberty...how long

[lovethoseships]

Help!

 

Airline schedule change now has me departing Newark at at 11:10am, getting off the Constellation at Port Liberty. The cruise schedule says they are getting in at 9am? My experience with ships is that usually they dock by 7am no matter what the schedule says.

 

Does anybody have experience with Celebrity docking times, or knowing what time they made it to Newark airport.

 

It looks like I can change the frequent flyer tickets to a 5pm departure, but I'm not that thrilled.

 

Karen

[samkmm]

That's cutting it really close. Newark isn't that far but it's a good 30-35 minute trip gangway to terminal if you don't have any hangups. Don't forget you need an hour at the airport to get through to the gateway. You do dock by 7AM but you have to clear customs and immigration. Some lines have a departure section where you take your own luggage and leave before everyone else on tours, have a limo picking them up or have parked their car there.

[RenaeinPA]

I just got back on 9/22 from a Transatlantic trip on the Constellation. We were scheduled to arrive at 9 am. We actually arrived in Cape Liberty at about 6:15 am. They began customs/immigration lines at 6:20 am and proceeded deck by deck approximately every 10-15 minutes. The disembarkation process was very smooth and organized. We were given colored and numbered tags and told where and when to report based on those. The departure process was not crowded or full of lines. They do obtain your flight information ahead of time so that they can organize who needs to leave the ship first to catch an early flight.

 

The terminal is a few minutes from the pier where the ship docks. We had to board a bus that transported us to the terminal (approx 2-3 minute ride). We then were able to access the taxis, buses, private arrangements, etc. from there to the airport. The airport if very close (approx 5-10 minute ride) to the cruise terminal. You should be fine in catching that early flight pending any major delays with immigration on the ship.

[Jim_Iain]

We also arrived on Constellation 10/22. We were in the first group to depart the ship and were off the ship at 9:30. Celebrity had advised my driver not to expect me off the ship until 10:00 so ended up waiting about 15 minutes. There were plenty of cabs available - I would be nervouse with your schedule if Ihad to wait on a celebrity connection bus.

[Irishwhiskey]

Having had a similar occurance on one of my criuses a couple years ago i was stopped at the secuirty screening area where they unloaded my carryons and took apart all my cameras to see if i was hiding anything.I don't need to tell you what my blood preasure was that day but it probably showed on my face.I've changed the way that i plan a trip as a result of that experience.Have a nice cruise!

[Bev]

Hi

 

We also arrived at Bayonne on 9/22 on the Constellation Transatlantic cruise. Based on our experience, we'd suggest you take the later flight.

 

The ship did indeed arrive at 6:15 AM and most passengers did proceed though the customs procedure. However, some didn't and there was one couple in particular that were paged many times. As a result, the ship was not promptly cleared for disembarkation and that whole process was delayed. We were scheduled to disembark at 10:20 AM but weren't able to do so until close to 11:00 AM.

 

There were buses ready to take us to the cruise terminal. We easily found our luggage and a porter to help us. But we could see that many were finding it difficult to find luggage and had to wait for porters.

 

We thought the transfer process from the pier to the airport was chaotic and disorganized.

 

The buses provided were NJ Transit buses - they don't have large luggage holds and the driver was finding it difficult to find room for all the luggage. Even though we were one of the first to arrive at our bus, our luggage wasn't getting loaded on - DH finally had to go back outside to help the driver find room for it and make sure it got loaded. Several on board, including us, had to bring one or two pieces on the bus and put them in the aisle.

 

There was no attempt to separate people onto different buses depending on which terminal they needed to go to, none of us knew which terminal we needed, and we didn't know for sure that the bus driver would take us beyond Terminal 1.

 

When we did get to Terminal 1, it was chaos again as the driver tried to find and offload luggage only for people that were getting out there.

 

All this took time. Don't erase the enjoyment of a great cruise with the stress of wondering whether you'll make your flight.

 

Bev