Boarding together

[river_raiser]

We're sailing on the Vista in the spring and we booked a suite, and we'll 4 days to platinum. We're going with another couple, they're Gold and will be in a balcony room. Can we all board together or will they have to wait, if it matters, our accounts are linked as sailing companions.

[nwo4life]

45 minutes ago, river_raiser said:

We're sailing on the Vista in the spring and we booked a suite, and we'll 4 days to platinum. We're going with another couple, they're Gold and will be in a balcony room. Can we all board together or will they have to wait, if it matters, our accounts are linked as sailing companions.

You can all board together at the other couples boarding time.

[Anyislandwilldo]

You will get priority boarding having a suite.  The other couple will have to board later unless they purchase faster to the fun.  Then you can almost board at the same time.  The order of boarding is weddings, suites, diamond, platinum and then faster to the fun.  With FTTF you will be able to sit together in the priory lounge.

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

This thread title got the song "Happy Together" sick in my head. 

 

You'll be able to pick an arrival time at 16 days out.  Other couple will at 14 days;, even if they purchase FTTF, and it's not known for sure if FTTF let's you arrive earlier than arrival time. 

 

If they get stuck with a late arrival time, early FTTF boarding call will not help as they won't be in the terminal yet. 

[klfrodo]

Can you just wait and board the ship with them? I’ve been able to do that when we travel with friends.

[river_raiser]

3 hours ago, klfrodo said:

Can you just wait and board the ship with them? I’ve been able to do that when we travel with friends.

So we'll be traveling with a toddler and a 6 month old. On our last two cruises, we were actually escorted to a separate, faster line because of our kid. If that were to happen again, I would hate to leave our friends, but wouldn't want to be in line if we didn't have to. 

[Mic101680]

2 hours ago, river_raiser said:

So we'll be traveling with a toddler and a 6 month old. On our last two cruises, we were actually escorted to a separate, faster line because of our kid. If that were to happen again, I would hate to leave our friends, but wouldn't want to be in line if we didn't have to. 

 

If your friends are in line with you and this happens, it's possible that whoever escorts you to the shorter line will allow your friends to go with you. It happened to me once when traveling with some elderly friends of mine - even though we were on separate bookings, the employee that let my friends go through the priority line let me go with them. But of course it's not a guarantee and your friends may have to wait.

[groundloop]

7 hours ago, river_raiser said:

So we'll be traveling with a toddler and a 6 month old. On our last two cruises, we were actually escorted to a separate, faster line because of our kid. If that were to happen again, I would hate to leave our friends, but wouldn't want to be in line if we didn't have to. 

 

That would have been to get through check-in and security, not for boarding the ship.  You board the ship based on the Boarding Zone printed on your boarding pass (with the exception of the aforementioned priority boarding groups).

[asalligo]

11 hours ago, Anyislandwilldo said:

With FTTF you will be able to sit together in the priory lounge.

FTTF is being sent to a priority lounge? This was not the case pre covid in my experience in Port Canaveral, Miami or Tampa. 

[quickrate]

12 hours ago, Anyislandwilldo said:

You will get priority boarding having a suite.  The other couple will have to board later unless they purchase faster to the fun.  Then you can almost board at the same time.  The order of boarding is weddings, suites, diamond, platinum and then faster to the fun.  With FTTF you will be able to sit together in the priory lounge.

This is not always true about sitting together in priority lounge. All depends on how many diamond and Platinum on the sailing and how big lounge seating area is.

[quickrate]

11 hours ago, PrincessArlena'sDad said:

This thread title got the song "Happy Together" sick in my head. 

 

You'll be able to pick an arrival time at 16 days out.  Other couple will at 14 days;, even if they purchase FTTF, and it's not known for sure if FTTF let's you arrive earlier than arrival time. 

 

If they get stuck with a late arrival time, early FTTF boarding call will not help as they won't be in the terminal yet. 

I don't think this is true as FTTF boarding pass will have priority FTTF on it.

[ABQrobin]

We are platinum and our adult son is gold... the last cruise when he was able to join us (on the Vista BTW) he had to go thru the longer line, we went thru the Priority boarding line... guess what.. he met us in the lobby, he got there first.  So you never know.

[Gamecock_Cruiser]

Sure, you can wait and board later with the friends. I doubt they are going to let the friends board with you though.

[ldubs]

6 hours ago, ABQrobin said:

We are platinum and our adult son is gold... the last cruise when he was able to join us (on the Vista BTW) he had to go thru the longer line, we went thru the Priority boarding line... guess what.. he met us in the lobby, he got there first.  So you never know.

 

That's funny.  I've seen that sometimes the line up for priority boarding seems to be longer than the regular (whatever you call it) line.   I've been tempted to go for the shorter looking line, but always just follow where the person points me.  

 

On a couple of other cruise lines, they just waved our travel companions along to join us in the priority boarding.  Might vary by how busy they are, IDK.   

[Eli_6]

In my experience, they allowed my husband and my minor son to board with me when they were in an adjoining balcony room to me and my other minor son who were in a Vista Suite. However, this was probably at the discretion of the port authorities and husband/wife with two little kids in adjoining rooms is a little different than friends.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Eli_6

[klfrodo]

11 hours ago, ABQrobin said:

We are platinum and our adult son is gold... the last cruise when he was able to join us (on the Vista BTW) he had to go thru the longer line, we went thru the Priority boarding line... guess what.. he met us in the lobby, he got there first.  So you never know.

Yep, that's happened to us also. Our friends beat us onto the ship. We were Priority, they were not.

[Jamericannn]

Easy solution. Give them the kid so they get escorted to the faster line and you can use your priority boarding