Emerald 3/30/18

[Nicky5fingers]

sitting for 4 hours waiting to board. They are still disembarking people and it is almost 1 in California

[pascalburns]

what was the problem?

[JF - retired RRT]

It happens.:(

Sometimes, it's because the ship hasn't "zeroed" (B2Bers or ignorant passengers don't get off when they should :eek:).

It can be due to an inspection that's taking a long time.

Noro may be a problem and they're doing a massive cleaning.

You'll probably hear some rumors, once you're on the ship.

[fishywood]

So you have been waiting at the pier in San Pedro since 9 AM?

 

This is Emerald's first call in the US after the South America season. Disembarkation delays are a guarantee. Crew immigration inspection, coast guard safety inspection, and sanitation inspection all likely happening today. Especially given that it is sailing the 28 night Hawaii/Tahiti/Samoa cruise as its initial USA embarkation of the season.

 

If Princess gave notice of a later than usual boarding time, this is the one day it should have been heeded.

Edited March 30, 2018 by fishywood

[CU64]

Disembarkation from Mexico at LA. Waited one hour in line: why? 2 passengers had contraband in their cabin.

Blame the passengers or customs.

Why were you there at 9?

[likeashrek]

My wife and I are two of those still waiting to get on the Emerald. Our journey began at 9:15 this morning at the LAX airport. Had to wait nearly 2 hours for transfer. Arrived at cruise terminal at 12 noon. Princess made an announcement that disembarking was delayed and embarking will be delayed until sometime after 2 PM. The natives are getting restless. There will be a mad dash to the buffet. I know we are hungry and so is everyone else.

[vantec]

We just got off the Emerald and are sitting at the airport. Our disembarkation time was 9:55, it was nearly noon before they let us leave - then we had an incredible wait to get through Customs. I knew to expect this, but it sure made for a long morning. Anyone without a US Passport had an even longer wait to get through Customs, we heard they were doing extra checking, including finger prints.

[satxdiver]

We just got off the Emerald in San Pedro. We had the Princess tour to Long Beach as our flight does not leave until 7:31 PM. We were taken off the ship as a group of course with the pax carrying their own luggage. We did not have a problem and were at the bus at 8:40 PM. We did notice that they had 5 agents checking IDs for foreign passports and only one checking US passports. We have GOES and the agent told us it would go quicker. He took our GOES cards and entered them into the system. If they did not change the single agent checking US passports, I imagine it went very slowly. I and the man behind me in line both complained about the ratio of foreign agents and US agents checking passports but were told that is how it is.

 

We boarded the ship in Santiago (San Antonio) on March 14 and the ship then headed north to LA. Since the ship had been in South America for 5 month or so, it was carefully inspected.