Westbound Immigration Process (Port Canaveral)

[geleisen]

So some friends and I are looking at the NCL Getaway in June from Copenhagen to Port Canaveral. (Or Orlando, as NCL calls it)
One question I am curious about is the immigration process on arrival. Our group has a mix of US citizens, ESTA (visa-waiver) nationals and visa-required nationals. Would we all be split up on arrival, or would we be able to all go through together in the non-citizen or whatever other section they might have. I have only done Eastbound TA before, and the arrivals in Schengen were painless, but I have seen some horror stories about the other direction. Actually even the round-trip US cruises seems to be quite burdensome sometimes. (I have not done one of these, so I am not familiar)
Is the process the same as for the round-trip US cruises? Is it quicker and easier these days than in the past? (Some posts talk about facial recognition, etc.) 
We are planning to head down to Miami for a few days before heading home, so not so worried about a flight, but just curious if this would be a massive pain at the end of the holiday, etc. 

Obviously, if everything works like clockwork, people are less likely to bring it up, so I am curious what the 'normal' immigration process is like on these trips, particularly when US citizens and non-citizens are travelling together. Thank you all so much for your assistance. 🙂 

[Heidi13]

We have never found any consistency for US Immigration, even seen different processes in the same port. Other than US/Canadian citizens, everyone else will require finger printing/photographs, so I have seen ports that have separate desks for foreign nationals, as they take longer.

 

Might even depend on the ratio of US nationals to foreign nationals.

 

On our first World Cruise, we docked in NY and went through the same desk as friends from the US, but as Canadians we didn't require finger prints/photograph, and about 95% of pax were NZ/Aus

[Surfguyxxx]

On my TA recently from Barcelona Spain to Orlando last October, 2021, upon arrival, there were signs for US citizens to the right and everyone else to the left on seperate lines.  Things may have changed in the 6 months since but can't verify that for you.  Good luck

[geleisen]

On 4/12/2022 at 11:59 AM, Surfguyxxx said:

On my TA recently from Barcelona Spain to Orlando last October, 2021, upon arrival, there were signs for US citizens to the right and everyone else to the left on seperate lines.  Things may have changed in the 6 months since but can't verify that for you.  Good luck

When you went, was it a long experience? Or fairly quick? Few minutes? Hours?