Sunshine Boarding Problem Norfolk June 4

[cruzeluver]

For some reason whenever Sunshine re-positions from Charleston to Norfolk or vice versa some thing goes awry. Last November we were due to board the ship in Charleston. It was coming empty of passengers from Norfolk and was delayed. Boarding did not begin till nearly 7:00PM and we sailed around midnight. And as much as I love where I live, the employees at the port of Charleston are mediocre at best. For smaller ships like Ecstasy they do ok, but are completely overwhelmed by anything larger. Having FTTF did not help either. Our ten night cruise had so many Platinum and higher folks that those with "priority" boarding actually had a slower check in process and longer lines than those without. We have sailed Sunshine twice from Charleston. Love the ship but dread the embarkation process.

Edited June 12, 2017 by cruzeluver
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[onegroundcafe]

We were on this cruise. Apparently the ship was supposed to be in port by 4 am and they were to start embarkation around 11:30. However the ship did not get in until 12 noon. They did not even allow people inside the cruise terminal at all.

 

We are platinum cruisers and usually go at 10:30 am but saw that the ship wasn't even there at that time so we waited until 11:30 to head to the terminal. They let us up the stairs to the terminal but no one was allowed in. It was very hot. The people handling check-in were not trained properly and kept being given different direction-ie we are going by check in time, priority must go by check in time, priority can go whenever they want. I felt bad for them.

 

They were turing people away that did not have the proper boarding time. Finally around 12:30 the opened the terminal but it didn't get any better.

 

The security screeners checked EVERY bag-as in physically went though every bag-not just send through the X-ray scanner-that REALLY slowed down the process-I've never seen anything like it-especially since they were running behind in the first place.

 

The computer systems were down as well and they had to go on the ship to print out sign and sail cards and check people in-they couldn't use the terminal computers. At one point people just started boarding even though they said they weren't boarding yet-there were enough people doing it the staff just gave up and let people start boarding.

 

Throughout the cruise the cruise director kept mentioning how bad the check-in process was. We were at the beginning-I can't imagine how bad it was in the afternoon.

 

About the list-it was explained it was like a 7 degree list-it was however very noticeable. We were in a cabin on the lido deck and at 4:30 we heard-crash, crash, crash as everything came off the shelf-wine, wine glasses, water bottles. We had to walk uphill to get out of our cabin. We were right by the pool area so we were able to go out and see what was going on-it was windy but not overly so and there were no whitecaps on the waves.

 

My DH thinks the ship lost a stabilizer and that caused the list-they ended up moving the ship sideways and that helped. The next morning there was no water pressure on the lido deck-servers were pouring water/juice/providing ice to all people and you couldn't wash your hands in the hand driers-there was no water.

 

The pool was drained as well-I heard it flooded some rooms- I am not sure about that.

 

The last day of the cruise most of the outside decks were closed due to wind issues.

 

It was an eventful cruise-but the crew made it awesome. I did not find it to be as rough as previous Atlantic Ocean cruises.

 

Debarkation was a breeze and it seemed like everything got straightened out for the next cruise-they left on time.

 

All that being said we would cruise out of Norfolk again.

[lelder1]

We just got off the 6/9/17 sailing and we had no issues with weather or wind or the ship rolling at all. Very smooth sailing. Departure time on the 9th was delayed and with Harborfest going on, we heard a lot of people complaining about how long it took to park and board the bus back to port. Luckily, we did the park and cruise package at the Courtyard and walked over so we missed those problems. We were supposed to board an hour late but went to check at our original 1:00 time and they let us right on. But no problems with weather or ship movement the whole week.

[EBFURR]

Glad to hear that the embarkation process was smoothed out and that the weather held up for you. The captain told us Thur. night that we would be delayed getting into port on Friday but the weather cleared and he put the hammer down. We were surprised to roll into Norfolk about 2 hours ahead of what he told us. We look forward to being on Sunshine again in the future and karma owes us some good weather. :)