New Miami Terminal

[ramja96]

I know it's only been a week that the new Miami terminal has been open, but I haven't seen any initial comments on how boarding has gone there, so far. I'll be boarding Allure in less than 3 weeks and was curious to hear reviews. Anyone heard anything?

[dwayneb236]

wondering myself. not till February for me. 

 

[vacationlover_mn]

I am interested in hearing the earliest time one can board Symphony 🙂

Edited November 12, 2018 by vacationlover_mn

[taylorkia]

Boarded most cruises around 11am

[BirdTravels]

The terminal is complete and ready for service. (At one point we got yelled at because we took the wrong elevator and bypassed security). The infrastructure to get to the terminal, not so much. At one point, there was only a single lane being controlled by a flag man. 6000 passengers off. 6000 passenger and cargo on. All timeshaing a single lane. Read warning below. Hopefully with all of the VIPs on the two 2-day cruises and the Christening of the Symphony this week, they worked 24/7 to fix some of the problems. 

 

One note, the x-ray machines will take a standard airline roll aboard. If it is larger, you will have to check it. Lots of bags got refused at security. 

 

The Symohony started boarding suites at 11:00. 

 

 

 

Edited November 12, 2018 by BirdTravels

[mrsg00fy]

We sailed on the 11/5 Allure out of this terminal.  We arrived at the terminal later than we ever have due to our own logistics.  We caught an Alamo shuttle to the port and arrived between noon and 12:30.  

 

Theporters were available and quickly dealtwith our bags.  

 

We walked inside side but had to wait about ten minutes before being permitted to go up the escalator to checkin.  There were plenty of RCCL staff with tablets to scan our documents.  

 

We were onboard before 1 and cabins were ready. 

 

Disembarkation was not as smooth.  We were assigned group 32 out of 72 with an estimated departure of 9 -9:30 am.  Our group was called close to 10:30.  This was our latest timeever leaving a ship. Once off the ship we were separated into a line for US passport holders. The other line was massive. The issue appeared to be customs and their inability to handle so many people.  We were held upstairs for about ten minutes and then allowed to fetch our bags.  After that we were out in about 5 minutes.....but the international line was still way backed up. 

 

Hope that helps. 

[ramja96]

1 hour ago, mrsg00fy said:

Hope that helps. 

Very much so - THANKS!

[truffles2]

Haven’t embarked at the new terminal yet but did disembark there last Friday after the Symphony ta.  The taxi line was very poorly controlled and took at least 45 minutes.  Allow plenty of time.....

[BillOh]

4 hours ago, ramja96 said:

I know it's only been a week that the new Miami terminal has been open, but I haven't seen any initial comments on how boarding has gone there, so far. I'll be boarding Allure in less than 3 weeks and was curious to hear reviews. Anyone heard anything?

 

I've seen two reviews and lots of pictures, but both reviews I saw were from people in suites. I haven't seen anyone talking about the normal process check in wise. i did see a few people thought the Royal provided shuttle from the port to airport was disorganized, but I won't use that. 

[ramja96]

Yeah, we're driving to an offsite parking lot that has shuttle service, so that doesn't apply to us either.

[SamTimeDining]

1 hour ago, truffles2 said:

Haven’t embarked at the new terminal yet but did disembark there last Friday after the Symphony ta.  The taxi line was very poorly controlled and took at least 45 minutes.  Allow plenty of time.....

 

Or use Lyft/Uber

[BirdTravels]

15 minutes ago, ramja96 said:

Yeah, we're driving to an offsite parking lot that has shuttle service, so that doesn't apply to us either.

It looked like shuttles were dropping at the back side of the parking structure. To get from the back side of the structure to the from drop off curbs too over 1/2 hour on Friday. 

 

We we arrived around 10:30 and there were no lines at regular check in. If you have your credit card on file and uploaded your photos, they just snap a picture of your passport and stamp your set sail pass. 1-2 mins per person. 

[mcatmcat]

I haven't embarked yet but I live near the port so I have to visit it so we went on friday for the short sail, we were there by 1pm some of the lanes to get to terminal A are not ready and by not ready it means they have some barricades on the side but the pavement is perfectly fine. I am used to the layout of port of Miami but I was a little bit confused when I had the terminal in front of me, you need to drive all the way east past the terminal  that will be on your left make a u turn and the terminal will be on your right hand side. Porters were with a happy face and most people were happy about  their jobs. 

[ItTastesPurple]

BF and I were on the 11/5 Allure sailing. We had a check-in window of 11:30am, but arrived closer to 12pm due to the terminal being a hot mess. 

 

If you're planning on using Uber or Lyft, at least last week, the app didn't know Terminal A existed and therefore, it was impossible to input it into the app. Thankfully, BF speaks fluent Spanish and was able to get our Uber drive to drop us off. It took forever to get to the terminal since all the lanes merge into one lane. Definitely account for how long this will take if you're looking to meet a certain check-in window. 

 

Once we got off, the terminal itself is very pretty. Brand spanking new with new paint smell and all. We were ushered up the escalators and into the line for people with printed or phone seapasses. They had several people checking guests in with iPads. If your uploaded photo was OK, you're good to go after a quick scan. If you didn't upload or your picture wasn't good enough, they'll take it on the spot on the iPad. 

 

Only a separate line for suites. The couple behind us were Diamond + and was very, very upset that they did not have a separate line for them. They were in line with us regular folks :P 

Standard airport security lines... 

 

Then onto the ship! 

[ramja96]

12 minutes ago, ItTastesPurple said:

Only a separate line for suites. The couple behind us were Diamond + and was very, very upset that they did not have a separate line for them. They were in line with us regular folks

Oh, I would have had SO MUCH fun with this!!! 😈

[FLACRUISER99]

51 minutes ago, ramja96 said:

Yeah, we're driving to an offsite parking lot that has shuttle service, so that doesn't apply to us either.

You are braver then me, just make sure your insurance is paid.

[truffles2]

38 minutes ago, SamTimeDining said:

 

Or use Lyft/Uber

  Uber saved $10

[Culdesacmama]

We sailed on 11/5 as well and in an Owner's Suite.  Getting on board was pretty easy, aside from the bad traffic driving in...  They didn't like my profile pic (a headshot taken a month ago), and my son was assigned a separate reservation # because there were 5 of us in all, so that was another glitch.  No matter, it was probably 15-20 minutes at most from arrival at the curb to getting on the boat.  We didn't find a special line for suite guests but were fine with that. 🙂

 

Disembarkation was another story.  We had an early flight (10:45) and I had researched disembarkation day extensively because I was worried about the tight timeline.  We were assured that checking out express (carried our own bags) with the other Suite guests would be the fastest way off the ship.  We checked in to the suite lounge at 7:30 (to be in the earliest group), went down with our group of 25 at 7:45 escorted by the Concierges, but that's when things got very stressful.  Customs was totally full so they wouldn't even open up the lines forming with numbered groups from the ship.  We waited for 20 minutes or so, and then were escorted out.  There was no "express" line though, as the Concierges had expected, so we waited in line with the others.  It was extremely crowded and seemed to be understaffed.  There were other suite guests with us, seasoned cruisers, who had 10 a.m. flights and were super nervous as well.  (My husband needed to get back to get to work today...). We'd been told it would be 15 minutes out.  We were very grateful to have had the suite guest cushion of being walked to the front of the line, but I think it may have been faster to walk off at 6:30 just as we'd been cleared.  And it was definitely a case of this being the first time the ship had docked there.  

 

Once off, it was really hard to find our private transfer as well.  It took him a good 10 minutes to find us, as he had to battle pretty bad traffic and it was his first time driving in to the new terminal--although there seemed to be plenty of taxis, Ubers and Lyfts.  Wondered if we could have saved the $180 it cost us to get to FLL, but oh well.  

 

Good luck!  We got that sense that there were probably a few kinks that they just need to work out...and will.  But being first time cruisers, we had no idea that this was the absolute first time docking at that new terminal.

[SamTimeDining]

3 hours ago, Culdesacmama said:

 Wondered if we could have saved the $180 it cost us to get to FLL, but oh well.  

 

$180 for a car ride from POM to FLL?!?!?!? Lyft XL would of been less than half that!

[fielddreamer]

This is what to expect the first few weeks !

[little britain]

I’ve asked several times.. but no answer yet... so I’ll try again... are there any shops in the terminal where you can buy last minute items...and is there a bottle shop to buy wine? Thank you. 

[mo&fran]

10 hours ago, mrsg00fy said:

We sailed on the 11/5 Allure out of this terminal.  We arrived at the terminal later than we ever have due to our own logistics.  We caught an Alamo shuttle to the port and arrived between noon and 12:30.  

 

Theporters were available and quickly dealtwith our bags.  

 

We walked inside side but had to wait about ten minutes before being permitted to go up the escalator to checkin.  There were plenty of RCCL staff with tablets to scan our documents.  

 

We were onboard before 1 and cabins were ready. 

 

Disembarkation was not as smooth.  We were assigned group 32 out of 72 with an estimated departure of 9 -9:30 am.  Our group was called close to 10:30.  This was our latest timeever leaving a ship. Once off the ship we were separated into a line for US passport holders. The other line was massive. The issue appeared to be customs and their inability to handle so many people.  We were held upstairs for about ten minutes and then allowed to fetch our bags.  After that we were out in about 5 minutes.....but the international line was still way backed up. 

 

Hope that helps. 

We were on Allure B2B  from Fll in October. First week was Western with a stop in Roatan. Apparently this is an issue for CBP leading to additional screening leading to a lot of delays. For comparison,  the second week when we had to get off, we had a service scheduled to pick us up at 10, which in the past has worked well for use. We  actually were out to the curb by 8, called the service and were home by 930.  (we live 45 minutes from the port)

[truffles2]

1 hour ago, little britain said:

I’ve asked several times.. but no answer yet... so I’ll try again... are there any shops in the terminal where you can buy last minute items...and is there a bottle shop to buy wine? Thank you. 

  I did not see any.

[brillohead]

6 hours ago, little britain said:

I’ve asked several times.. but no answer yet... so I’ll try again... are there any shops in the terminal where you can buy last minute items...and is there a bottle shop to buy wine? Thank you. 

I've never seen anything like this in any cruise port.  

It's not like an airport terminal with shops and such -- it's just a big warehouse space to process and hold people on their way to/from the ship.

[little britain]

1 hour ago, brillohead said:

I've never seen anything like this in any cruise port.  

It's not like an airport terminal with shops and such -- it's just a big warehouse space to process and hold people on their way to/from the ship.

They have shops where you can buy wine in Barcelona!