Port arrival time?

[Tinytinkmom]

We are going to be sailing on the Nieuw Statendam out of Ft Lauderdale on March 3rd.  This is our first Holland cruise, so please excuse the rookie question!!  We received an email today, indicating that our port arrival time should be based on the deck that our stateroom is on.  It starts at 1pm, and is staggered until 3:30pm, which is the scheduled time for our deck (1st deck).  With the other cruise lines we've sailed on, we've always been able to get on the ship around noon, so this was a bit of a shock.  In your experience, do we actually need to wait until our scheduled 3:30pm time slot, or do they allow passengers to board earlier than that?  If we can't board earlier than that, I'm not sure what we're going to do with ourselves (and our bags) all day!  Thanks!

[CruiserBruce]

Same answer from your other thread.

 

This is a trial system that HAL has done for the Koningsdam and the N. Statendam. Reports from Koningsdam was that it was not enforced...boarding starts around 11:30, which is the HAL policy for all the other ships. Haven't heard any reports from N. Statendam.