What happened to delay Meraviglia embarkation on Oct 16th?

[Greenhopster]

My friend met me for lunch to brief me on his Oct 16 - 23 Meraviglia out of Port Canaveral. He said it was a nightmare. 11am boarding time. He said the port was a total standstill. finally boarded at 3pm. Half his party was separated when they shut down the stairs. They couldn't board together. He said police, sheriffs, ambulance, and firetruck. He heard a rumor that people were not getting off. Does anyone have the facts? I'm scheduled for the Dec 23 to 30 Western Caribbean on the Meraviglia. I already suffered in Feb 2020 boarding the Meraviglia in Miami. That took 4 hours.

Regards,

Jim

[JAGR]

There's been quite a few posts on this, Jim.  Cliff's Notes version:  Meraviglia came into Canaveral on the 13th after a transatlantic crossing.  This is where the chain of events started.  The13th was the the start of a 3-day cruise.  It was fully booked at 4400 passengers.  There was the inevitable delay boarding since the ship had to be inspected and cleared fro travel.  Some new crew members scheduled to board were not allowed on board due to a paperwork snafu.  I'm not so sure that the delay in debarking was not that passengers would not get off, but that they couldn't get off, since your account has to be settled in order to get by ship security.  So, you have a ship that went from 1100 passengers to full, and boarding was delayed.  There were system glitches with billing that caused delays in debarkation.  That carried over to the 16th and the 7-day cruise, which had the delayed boarding.  Passenger count was back down to less than 1500, and after the hectic first day, things turned around.  We were on the week after, and everything was fine.  Check-in to on board was less than a half hour.  You should be all set when it's your time.