Lesson learned I hope

[pc_load_letter]

4 hours ago, Alaskan Joe said:

I agree 100% there has to be more to the story. In fact, on our 2nd cruise we decided to fly in the day of the cruise. We were flying from Detroit to Seattle. Long story short, we had plane issues and was late taking off. We got to the port about 1 1/2 hrs after our check in time, and about 20 mins before final boarding. They were like we have been waiting for you, we boarded no problems. Now although we did get to board, my DW and I will NEVER fly in the day of again nor will we book a trip without insurance.

 

My wife does all of our booking and when I told her this story (the OP's story) she called BS as well. If the cruise line doesn't want you there before your check in time, how could they punish you for being 12 minutes late?

 

On a June cruise to Alaska, we saw dozens of people running across the gangplank getting on the cruise ship. I am fairly sure they were late as well.

[pacruise804]

22 hours ago, lbfluffy said:

Ok so I talked to her again. What happened was they pulled up to the drop off for the luggage and was told it was too late. They were told to turn around. So they didn’t even get through the door. They tried to talk to see if the manager would do anything, but they were denied. Her mom paid for all of them. I guess it was four of them. Her mom has cruised a bunch of times. Nothing worked. 

 

4 hours ago, Alaskan Joe said:

I agree 100% there has to be more to the story. In fact, on our 2nd cruise we decided to fly in the day of the cruise. We were flying from Detroit to Seattle. Long story short, we had plane issues and was late taking off. We got to the port about 1 1/2 hrs after our check in time, and about 20 mins before final boarding. They were like we have been waiting for you, we boarded no problems. Now although we did get to board, my DW and I will NEVER fly in the day of again nor will we book a trip without insurance.

 

I don't think the OP has ever referred to their co-worker's check in time, but always the boarding time.  While Alaskan Joe was late for their check in time they were still before final boarding and able to board.  I suspect if their plane issues resulted in an additional 32 minutes (making them 12 minutes after final boarding) Alaskan Joe would have also been turned away.

[sparks1093]

29 minutes ago, cb at sea said:

You could have paid to get to the 1st port of call....

It has to be the first foreign port of call and cruise lines appear to be less lenient about this than they have been. In any event I wouldn't do this on my own unless I had firm permission from the cruise line to do this (and then only if I happened to have the money to do take the last minute flight).

[Bert64]

I think they got their check-in time confused with the final boarding time.

 

I always take the very first flight out, the day before the cruise. I travel anticipating hiccups, so do what I can to prepare should something happen. If something happens with that flight, I have all day the day before and then also the following morning to get on another flight. Also, it's just good for you to get to bed early and rest up for getting on the ship the next day.

 

There are always cheap hotel deals you can find. You just have to do the research. Sorry for your coworker. But I don't blame Carnival for abiding by their rules and not bending them because your coworker and her mother did not plan well. Especially in this day and age, with travel not always being reliable. I also get scared they will lose my luggage, and I'd definitely want sufficient time to get that back to me before we sail.

[Kaszdad]

I had a Splendor cruise in September 2018 and in early June 2018 Carnival sent this letter, Splendor Departure Change.pdf ,stating that departure time had been moved to 4pm and that if you had an arrival appointment later than 2pm you should go online and select an earlier time. If they did not get or ignored the email, printed their boarding passes before June they may have had a later arrival on the boarding pass. This letter seem to be saying that the latest arrival appointment would have been 2pm which would give time to get every one checked in and on board by 3pm. The letter states "All guests must be checked in and on board by 3:00 PM".

I live 35 miles from Port of Long Beach and we leave the house by about 9:30 because as someone else above said I would rather sit and wait at the port than stress about missing the ship. I think it makes for a much nicer start to the cruise.

Ken

[pacruise804]

On 11/5/2018 at 8:48 PM, lbfluffy said:

. Well my coworkers car broke down on the way to the port. They managed to get to the port at 312, 12 minutes after their boarding time.

 

 

I have a hard time believing 3:00 was the scheduled check-in time and that a break-down would only delay 12 minutes.  My guess is the coworker left in plenty of time for their arrival appointment but was significantly delayed due to the break down, not that Carnival allows check-in appointments to run right up to final boarding.  Especially if you aren't allowed inside the terminal before check-in time but have to be on the ship before 3:00.

 

47 minutes ago, Bert64 said:

I think they got their check-in time confused with the final boarding time.

 

I always take the very first flight out, the day before the cruise. I travel anticipating hiccups, so do what I can to prepare should something happen. If something happens with that flight, I have all day the day before and then also the following morning to get on another flight. Also, it's just good for you to get to bed early and rest up for getting on the ship the next day.

 

Obviously they should have disregarded the advice of the mom who was frequent cruiser (and apparently paying the bill) and drove in the night before paying for the hotel room on their own.  Since they didn't and encountered these problems, it is a painful lesson for the family and nice of the OP to share it as a warning to others.

[Lottacruises]

If they would have arrived at 3:01 it should have been the same story. The ship decides when the doors are locked. You would have received a call from an agent in the port about 230 or so to see if you were still cruising and where you were. Was your phone number correct and accurate? The port agents, regardless of how tired they are, will let you in and onboard if the ship is still accepting passengers. 

Around  245-315 there is a lot of communication between the ship and the port agents, which have Carnival and contracted employees there, to determine the final time to lock the door. Make a scene and one of those police agencies that are outside the doors will give you a ride away from there.

3:00 is 3:00. If only they had left home 15 minutes earlier.......

[sfaaa]

Mom screwed up. If they didn't want to spend money on hotel and parking, they could just hang out at a 24 hr McD until the morning. 

[lbfluffy]

Yes the 3pm was the time the final boarding was allowed. I guess the way she said it was confusing. I know there are different boarding time. But the 3 pm time was the final time they could board. Her mom sister and niece were in different vehicle and had to drive up to get her since her car broke down.

 

 

 

[evandbob]

Maybe it was the porters who told these cruisers it was "too late" for them to take their luggage, since checked bag luggage service ceases 2 hours before sail away?  The cruisers misunderstood since they were frantic due to their car's breakdown, just maybe???

 

 

[Kaszdad]

I would think that when last time for checked luggage has passed that the porters would have gone home or be sitting at a bar by 3:12 on a Saturday afternoon.

Ken

[sparks1093]

27 minutes ago, evandbob said:

Maybe it was the porters who told these cruisers it was "too late" for them to take their luggage, since checked bag luggage service ceases 2 hours before sail away?  The cruisers misunderstood since they were frantic due to their car's breakdown, just maybe???

 

 

It's possible but this line from the original post makes me think that wasn't it- "They would not let them on. They begged pleaded, name dropped, but the agents at Long Beach said no."

[Saint Greg]

This is why I always get a room within an hour of the port the night before...and the fact that I don't want to lose a day of vacation due to being dead tired. I've never had a breakdown on embarkation day but I have had one on debarkation day. If it happened on embarkation day and I was 5+ hours from the port it would've been a bad situation.

[summersigh]

On 11/6/2018 at 4:01 PM, Elaine5715 said:

Carnival'sLeaving a port does not require a passenger manifest to be turned into Customs.  

Pre-cruise Procedures

Security checks begin the moment passengers receive a booking confirmation, since US authorities including Homeland Security and Immigration screen all names on the passenger list. Cruiseships must present their complete passenger manifests at least 60 minutes before sailing, so passengers should arrive for check-in no later than 90 minutes before sailing with all documents in order, including a valid passport and boarding pass. 

Elaine said it all when she posted this.  It's a government regulation and not Carnival's call to make exceptions.

[evandbob]

1 hour ago, sparks1093 said:

It's possible but this line from the original post makes me think that wasn't it- "They would not let them on. They begged pleaded, name dropped, but the agents at Long Beach said no."

 

Yes, that's what I read.  But this is a third party story, and we all know how details change in the re-telling.  Just raising another possibility.

 

Don't know why one car didn't go ahead to the cruise terminal when the other car broke down.  Could have, maybe should have piled as many into the working car with as much luggage to insure an on time arrival for most of them.

[sparks1093]

2 hours ago, evandbob said:

 

Yes, that's what I read.  But this is a third party story, and we all know how details change in the re-telling.  Just raising another possibility.

 

Don't know why one car didn't go ahead to the cruise terminal when the other car broke down.  Could have, maybe should have piled as many into the working car with as much luggage to insure an on time arrival for most of them.

Yes, anything is possible, especially with a third party story but as someone mentioned after a certain time the porters leave the area. Since I'm always onboard with a drink of the day in hand by the time that happens I have no first hand knowledge, but I would expect that they would shut down and leave once no more luggage can be accepted. Given that it still seems more probable to me that they were in fact talking to the agents inside the terminal and not the porters outside. (They likely thought that they still had time to make it to the port even with the break down.)

[lbfluffy]

On 11/6/2018 at 11:03 AM, lbfluffy said:

Ok so I talked to her again. What happened was they pulled up to the drop off for the luggage and was told it was too late. They were told to turn around. So they didn’t even get through the door. They tried to talk to see if the manager would do anything, but they were denied. Her mom paid for all of them. I guess it was four of them. Her mom has cruised a bunch of times. Nothing worked. 

[Anyislandwilldo]

We always arrive the day before.  We are platinum and I want to get on that ship as soon as possible and start enjoying my vacation.  Sorry they were turned away.

[Anyislandwilldo]

On 11/6/2018 at 3:15 PM, Crazy4Camping said:

We were told that since we booked our flights through Carnival, that we were guaranteed to get to the ship(like they would cover it if the flight was cancelled)even if it was at the next port.  Anyone have any experiences with this?  I truly hope that since we are landing at 1:30 and the last boarding is 9pm that we will be ok.

We have friends in Canada that book their flights with Carnival.  Everything has gone well for them through Carnival and they were told that Carnival will insure that they get on the ship on time.

[Cruiserbarbie]

We booked our Panama Canal cruise 2 years ago while living close to Galveston.  Now we are in Mexico and will have to fly out of Phoenix to meet the cruise in Galveston.   Having to cross the border, and fly from PHX to Houston we have to stay in either PHX or Houston overnight.  We opted to fly to Houston and stay in Houston overnight.  Better to be as close to the port as possible, so if anything went wrong on the flight portion, we still had almost a whole day to get to Houston.  And likewise, being in Houston the day the ship departs, we have a whole day to go a few miles.  About 65 days to go-Yeh!

[schazzy]

15 hours ago, evandbob said:

Maybe it was the porters who told these cruisers it was "too late" for them to take their luggage, since checked bag luggage service ceases 2 hours before sail away?  The cruisers misunderstood since they were frantic due to their car's breakdown, just maybe???

 

 

 

This is what I was thinking after the OP posted the update. Going out of Tampa back in May, the final boarding time was 3pm and we were to leave port at 4pm. I remember seeing something about they stopped taking checked baggage at some time close to the final boarding. We were lining up at the muster station and we saw there were still a handful of passengers boarding with all their luggage in tow. So, I believe these last minute arrivals are allowed to still board after the final boarding time, but they had to haul all their own luggage on themselves.  

[SadieN]

On 11/5/2018 at 9:28 PM, fyree39 said:

I've been on Imagination and Inspiration a number of times. I've seen passengers boarding at around 4:30 pm just about every cruise. This is so weird hearing about this happening to your coworker.

Those are port workers.  They get free parking if they work before boarding the cruise.  Some of them it's one of their guaranteed cruises, for others it's a standby cruise.

[GMRPHRN]

I flew in the day of a cruise one time and I was a nervous wreck until we boarded. Will not ever do it again. I find the the hotel price is worth it for me. The one time I drove, I found a park and cruise hotel option. 

[Treyatl2006]

I will say that this post has me thinking... I normally always arrive the day before embarkation. But I booked a little getaway trip for the Fascination in Mobile AL and it's only 3.5 hours away. So I  originally planned to leave 5am on embarkation morning and get there around 9am. Usually we drive 7 or 8 hrs to Port Canaveral so it make more sense to arrive the day before. 

 

But now I'm thinking I should go ahead and leave the evening before embarkation.

 

[sparks1093]

8 hours ago, Treyatl2006 said:

I will say that this post has me thinking... I normally always arrive the day before embarkation. But I booked a little getaway trip for the Fascination in Mobile AL and it's only 3.5 hours away. So I  originally planned to leave 5am on embarkation morning and get there around 9am. Usually we drive 7 or 8 hrs to Port Canaveral so it make more sense to arrive the day before. 

 

But now I'm thinking I should go ahead and leave the evening before embarkation.

 

Everyone has their own comfort level with this but 3.5 hours is the limit for us. When we drove to Miami our last stop the night before the cruise was 3.5 hours from the port both times. For our upcoming cruise we are taking a bus from Albany, NY to the port in NJ and Albany is just far enough away from us that we'll arrive the night before for the bus (and consider it an extra day of vacation, plus it keeps us from hitting the road around 3a.m.).