Early Boarding

[Cruise a holic]

Back to Back and suites have early boarding- but as a previous poster said, because of the more rigorous cleaning and Covid protocols, the ships might actually sail  later and passengers told to arrive later.  Perhaps the ships might leave the piers at dinner time.  We can all speculate now.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Cruise a holic

[Fouremco]

4 hours ago, emmas gran said:

I really am amazed at some folks worried about missing a lunch. I would rather the ships are sanitized and safe than getting lunch.

 

Two separate and very different issues. Of course everyone wants the ship to be sanitized and safe, and no one has suggested that the time allocated for this task be shortened. Once boarding does begin, however, it makes sense to ensure that Concierge passengers are allowed to board in time to make it to their lunch. Pre-Covid-19, some were allocated boarding times too late to attend the lunch, while other passengers were allocated earlier boarding times. When these were only "suggested" times, it didn't pose a problem, but if the times are to be enforced in future, then Celebrity needs to ensure that the implementation of the new health and safety protocols isn't in conflict with their cabin category amenities and benefits.

[grandgeezer]

5 hours ago, Cruise a holic said:

Back to Back and suites have early boarding- but as a previous poster said, because of the more rigorous cleaning and Covid protocols, the ships might actually sail  later and passengers told to arrive later.  Perhaps the ships might leave the piers at dinner time.  We can all speculate now.

 

Just to clarify the first statement, for people who are considering a B2B but haven't did one yet.  The B2Bs are the ones getting back on the ship after the first leg, not the first week.

[Cruise a holic]

33 minutes ago, grandgeezer said:

 

Just to clarify the first statement, for people who are considering a B2B but haven't did one yet.  The B2Bs are the ones getting back on the ship after the first leg, not the first week.

Of course!

[Cruise a holic]

1 hour ago, Fouremco said:

Two separate and very different issues. Of course everyone wants the ship to be sanitized and safe, and no one has suggested that the time allocated for this task be shortened. Once boarding does begin, however, it makes sense to ensure that Concierge passengers are allowed to board in time to make it to their lunch. Pre-Covid-19, some were allocated boarding times too late to attend the lunch, while other passengers were allocated earlier boarding times. When these were only "suggested" times, it didn't pose a problem, but if the times are to be enforced in future, then Celebrity needs to ensure that the implementation of the new health and safety protocols isn't in conflict with their cabin category amenities and benefits.

The lunch shouldn’t be an issue.  Perhaps it would just be postponed or the cc guest might be offered lunch on another day or another special perk.  Surely not a big deal

[Blackduck59]

Yes preferred boarding is one of the only "perks" that makes paying for Concierge class worth while. The boarding day lunch is the other. If Celebrity is going to charge what they do for Concierge class it behooves them to ensure those who paid for the perk get it. We were booked in Concierge for our New Zealand cruise in January 2021. We decided to postpone that cruise until 2022 but our cabin was not available. Given the choices available in Concierge class and the price increase involved, we decided to go location over "class" and chose the veranda cabin 2 decks directly below our original choice.

I think that boarding times will be assigned and enforced in future so I guess we will find a nice cafe close to the terminal to wait our time. 

[Arizona Wildcat]

15 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

Yes preferred boarding is one of the only "perks" that makes paying for Concierge class worth while. The boarding day lunch is the other. If Celebrity is going to charge what they do for Concierge class it behooves them to ensure those who paid for the perk get it. We were booked in Concierge for our New Zealand cruise in January 2021. We decided to postpone that cruise until 2022 but our cabin was not available. Given the choices available in Concierge class and the price increase involved, we decided to go location over "class" and chose the veranda cabin 2 decks directly below our original choice.

I think that boarding times will be assigned and enforced in future so I guess we will find a nice cafe close to the terminal to wait our time. 

I totally agree.  Captain's Club points and the lunch are about the only perks for Concierge.  It would be a candidate for changing the time or?  Hope those perks and others are still in place when things resume.

Boarding is likely to take longer and the boarding times enforced.  The idea of a quiet cafe near the pier is excellent.

Edited September 12, 2020 by Arizona Wildcat

[GottaKnowWhen]

13 hours ago, emmas gran said:

I really am amazed at some folks worried about missing a lunch. I would rather the ships are sanitized and safe than getting lunch.

We cruised Princess out of Sydney 15 years ago Transpacific and were sat in the Terminal for 4 hours as they had a norovirus outbreak on the previous cruise. Lunch was supplied in the terminal a packet of potato chips, a sandwich and bottle of water. 

As one who has always traveled Concierge on Celebrity, I value that MDR lunch. The alternative is to join the mass feeding in the Oceanview, never pleasant, an even worse idea in today’s Social Distancing environment. The issue is not clean ship vs. lunch, the issue is that we are offered a perk, and so the assigned check in should allow us time to use that perk. The airline can figure out that their revised schedule has us arriving in ATL 30 minutes after our connecting flight leaves. Celebrity should be able to figure out when to board us so as to allow us time to enjoy the promised lunch.

Stan

[villauk]

No one knows at this stage exactly what will happen in the future, so all is speculation. 

[Fouremco]

21 hours ago, Cruise a holic said:

The lunch shouldn’t be an issue.  Perhaps it would just be postponed or the cc guest might be offered lunch on another day or another special perk.  Surely not a big deal

 

14 hours ago, GottaKnowWhen said:

As one who has always traveled Concierge on Celebrity, I value that MDR lunch. The alternative is to join the mass feeding in the Oceanview, never pleasant, an even worse idea in today’s Social Distancing environment. The issue is not clean ship vs. lunch, the issue is that we are offered a perk, and so the assigned check in should allow us time to use that perk. The airline can figure out that their revised schedule has us arriving in ATL 30 minutes after our connecting flight leaves. Celebrity should be able to figure out when to board us so as to allow us time to enjoy the promised lunch.

While perhaps not perceived as "a big deal" by those not effected, the lunch is certainly something that we enjoy and value too. The big benefit is having a relaxed meal while others are packed into the Oceanview; moving the meal to another day simply defeats the whole purpose of the lunch.  

[Pinboy]

While we did Concierge Class only once, we didn't feel the extra cost was worth it.

A few tips we received from more experienced cruisers than us--- that might not work in the future:

1- Arrive whenever you want and when they call for your Status Level to go on board, just walk on. Nobody checks.

2- Instead of racing up to the Oceanview Cafe, they have a very nice lunch at the Spa Cafe. We enjoy lunch there quite often during the cruise and avoid the " Circus " in the Oceanview.

 

 

[Pinboy]

21 hours ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

The idea of a quiet cafe near the pier is excellent

I don't think there is anything nearby at the pier in Ft Lauderdale or Miami. 

However, in Victoria, BC it's a short walk to several nice spots --  Fisherman's Wharf or the Empress Hotel as an example.

 

[Blackduck59]

1 minute ago, Pinboy said:

I don't think there is anything nearby at the pier in Ft Lauderdale or Miami. 

However, in Victoria, BC it's a short walk to several nice spots --  Fisherman's Wharf or the Empress Hotel as an example.

 

 

Fisherman's wharf is close the Empress not so much. Victoria isn't really an "Embarkation" port, Cunard was doing a couple where you could embark and disembark here but other lines not so much. There are quite a few places around Vancouver Port though. Our next cruise (the one where we have gone from having concierge class to Deluxe veranda) is out of Auckland. We will be staying fairly close to the embarkation point and will assess that situation when we get closer to the cruise.

[Pinboy]

7 minutes ago, Blackduck59 said:

 

Fisherman's wharf is close the Empress not so much. Victoria isn't really an "Embarkation" port, Cunard was doing a couple where you could embark and disembark here but other lines not so much. There are quite a few places around Vancouver Port though. Our next cruise (the one where we have gone from having concierge class to Deluxe veranda) is out of Auckland. We will be staying fairly close to the embarkation point and will assess that situation when we get closer to the cruise.

Quite a few of us are planning to winter in Victoria this year to get away from the cold since the US border is closed to Canadians

 

 

[Blackduck59]

9 minutes ago, Pinboy said:

Quite a few of us are planning to winter in Victoria this year to get away from the cold since the US border is closed to Canadians

 

 

 

I prefer to think of it as Canada has kept our border closed 😉 for our safety. Of course it's not Florida or Arizona or California but Victoria has the best winter weather in Canada.

[diamondintn]

On 9/11/2020 at 11:00 PM, jelayne said:

 Rather than sit in a hotel lobby we would:

request late check out and sleep in, or

leave luggage at the hotel and go buy wine, snacks to take onboard, and have brunch, or

book a 3-4 be tour with drop off at the  ship, or

rent a  car and explore the port city

go for a long walk to burn off a few of the martinis I’ll drink on day 1

Sitting in a hotel lobby for 2-4  hours waiting to head to the.port would start the cruise on a downer so we would find a way to make use of the time.

 

All good ideas, jelayne. When cruising does resume, there will be some changes. We as passengers are just going to think outside the box and roll with it. I for one will try my best to be compliant and will be grateful just to be there. 

[Arizona Wildcat]

3 hours ago, Blackduck59 said:

 

I prefer to think of it as Canada has kept our border closed 😉 for our safety. Of course it's not Florida or Arizona or California but Victoria has the best winter weather in Canada.

Hope it works out well for you.  Agree there is nothing close to where cruise ships dock in Victoria.

Arizona now showing almost 10% of the population have COVID antibodies.  Should help combined with a vaccine.  Winter visitors will be fewer. Yuma and Mesa have huge number of visitors from Canada.

Understand the border closing but Dr. Henry has said that the low prior level of infection is likely to cause problems when the border is eventually opened.  Hope not.

[dkjretired]

On 9/12/2020 at 2:07 PM, Blackduck59 said:

Yes preferred boarding is one of the only "perks" that makes paying for Concierge class worth while. The boarding day lunch is the other. If Celebrity is going to charge what they do for Concierge class it behooves them to ensure those who paid for the perk get it. We were booked in Concierge for our New Zealand cruise in January 2021. We decided to postpone that cruise until 2022 but our cabin was not available. Given the choices available in Concierge class and the price increase involved, we decided to go location over "class" and chose the veranda cabin 2 decks directly below our original choice.

I think that boarding times will be assigned and enforced in future so I guess we will find a nice cafe close to the terminal to wait our time. 

 

You do realize that Priority boarding really only means a separate line for Concierge.  Sometimes the regular lines are shorter.   

[vulcan1971]

I realize that we all are just speculating on what embarkation will look like when it comes time to return to a reduced capacity cruise (I don't think anybody thinks full capacity will happen any time soon). I get that people paying for perks certainly want to feel like they received the benefits that were inferred when booking the reservation. I've done Concierge once or twice, but only once was during the available embarkation lunch, which was definitely well received. However, there will likely be a need to focus on how the disembarkation process happens. I'm thinking that the long lines for self-disembarkation won't be permitted any more than people crowding on the lower decks waiting for a luggage tag number to be called. This needs to be well thought out and would equally impact how soon the embarkation process could start.

 

Now, back to our regular scheduled programming on "Speculation".

[Blackduck59]

1 minute ago, dkjretired said:

 

You do realize that Priority boarding really only means a separate line for Concierge.  Sometimes the regular lines are shorter.   

 

Yes I do realize that. We happened to meet some people my wife knew when we boarded the bus from Victoria to the Cruise ship terminal. Obviously we arrived at the same time. In Vancouver there were 2 lines, 1 for Concierge, Aqua, and Suites; the other one was for the rest. The couple my wife knew were in concierge and we weren't, their line 5 people our line about 300, they were through to Customs and border security in about 5 minutes. We were about 30 minutes behind them getting to customs. Of course there we 3 ships worth of passengers going through customs so our wait there was exponentially longer. That was why we went with the concierge class on the cruise we booked while we were on that cruise; of course we have cancelled that and re-booked a year later. We couldn't "Lift & Shift" so had to book a different but similar cruise with a different fare. We couldn't get the same cabin so opted for location and dropped out of "Concierge Class". We'll see what happens in Auckland.

[Langley Cruisers]

3 hours ago, dkjretired said:

You do realize that Priority boarding really only means a separate line for Concierge.  Sometimes the regular lines are shorter.   

 

Agreed but the Concierge greets you in line for CC class so best to go where you "should" go, I suppose.

 

Also wanted to say that, obviously priority check-in and boarding are not the same thing. We checked in at San Diego in Concierge Class, but were not given priority boarding. We were given a group number and waited our turn, first come first served. ~shrug~

[ipeeinthepool]

11 hours ago, vulcan1971 said:

...However, there will likely be a need to focus on how the disembarkation process happens. I'm thinking that the long lines for self-disembarkation won't be permitted any more than people crowding on the lower decks waiting for a luggage tag number to be called. This needs to be well thought out and would equally impact how soon the embarkation process could start.

 

Now, back to our regular scheduled programming on "Speculation".

 

I'm not so sure the cruise lines care so much about disembarkation.  They will still want you off the ship as soon as possible.  I keep thinking about the cruises I've been on when we had restrictions do to Noro.  No self-serve in the buffet, etc.  However on disembarkation day, all of those restrictions magically disappeared and it was self serve in the buffet.  Did everyone suddenly get cured of Noro on the last night?  Obviously not.  But as soon as we were off the ship we are no longer their problem.  

 

I'll suggest that there may be a wider implementation of facial recognition and other tools for passengers to clear customs by just walking through the terminal.  If you can eliminate the lines in the terminal, there won't be as much of a rush to get off the ship to "beat the lines".  

 

Now if we can find a way to get more taxis to Terminal 25 at Port Everglades....

[vulcan1971]

27 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

I'm not so sure the cruise lines care so much about disembarkation.  They will still want you off the ship as soon as possible.  I keep thinking about the cruises I've been on when we had restrictions do to Noro.  No self-serve in the buffet, etc.  However on disembarkation day, all of those restrictions magically disappeared and it was self serve in the buffet.  Did everyone suddenly get cured of Noro on the last night?  Obviously not.  But as soon as we were off the ship we are no longer their problem.  

 

I'll suggest that there may be a wider implementation of facial recognition and other tools for passengers to clear customs by just walking through the terminal.  If you can eliminate the lines in the terminal, there won't be as much of a rush to get off the ship to "beat the lines".  

 

Now if we can find a way to get more taxis to Terminal 25 at Port Everglades....

 

@ipeeinthepool - It's my take from your post when you say "I'm not so sure the cruise lines care so much about disembarkation." that this is your impression of how things were pre-pandemic. Your idea of facial recognition can be useful but not so much if passengers are required to be wearing a facemask. Do you really think that cruise lines will focus only on checking the health and well-being of cruise passengers and following health protocols when boarding but not when you leave the ship? That attitude of "its no longer my problem" once the passenger leave the ship is clearly not going to fly in our new normal.

[ipeeinthepool]

4 minutes ago, vulcan1971 said:

 

@ipeeinthepool - It's my take from your post when you say "I'm not so sure the cruise lines care so much about disembarkation." that this is your impression of how things were pre-pandemic. Your idea of facial recognition can be useful but not so much if passengers are required to be wearing a facemask. Do you really think that cruise lines will focus only on checking the health and well-being of cruise passengers and following health protocols when boarding but not when you leave the ship? That attitude of "its no longer my problem" once the passenger leave the ship is clearly not going to fly in our new normal.

 

You're correct.  I never thought about the effect of face masks on facial recognition.  Looks like we'll need to move to the retina scan.

 

And yes, I don't think the cruise lines will care as soon as you get off the ship.  

[kwokpot]

3 hours ago, vulcan1971 said:

 

@ipeeinthepool - It's my take from your post when you say "I'm not so sure the cruise lines care so much about disembarkation." that this is your impression of how things were pre-pandemic. Your idea of facial recognition can be useful but not so much if passengers are required to be wearing a facemask. Do you really think that cruise lines will focus only on checking the health and well-being of cruise passengers and following health protocols when boarding but not when you leave the ship? That attitude of "its no longer my problem" once the passenger leave the ship is clearly not going to fly in our new normal.

Generally with facial recognition and masks the way it would work is that you are asked to briefly lower your mask as you past by the cameras.