Boarding time question

[tring]

1 hour ago, Megabear2 said:

I take the bear out for photographs and return him to the cabin.  I've been taking him round the world for photographs since 2011 when my friend who gave him to me was seriously unwell and asked me to take him on my travels so that she could live vicariously through him..  He had a blog until the pandemic.  He's quite well known in places I visit regularly.

 

I wish you and your bear many happy future travels.  We have a bear at home who sometimes waves "bye bye" to either of us if going out alone, especially if going off for something like medical treatment, which has happened over recent months.  Never taken him away yet, but thinking of it 🙂

 

Regards disembarkation from Cunard,, do they always the let people stay in the cabins until disembarkation?

 

Edited May 8, 2023 by tring

[Leelou270]

11 hours ago, Megabear2 said:

Never mind, maybe next time.  I did break cover at breakfast one morning to help three solo travelling ladies who were having insurance problems from a previous P&O cruise when one became very unwell.  Apart from that I stayed pretty much incognito although a lady I'd dined with on my WC in 2019 came rushing up to me at the Coronation Fayre as she recognised the bear, not me mind you! We had a good laugh about that and enjoyed a nice chat. The bear is famous not, it seems, his esteemed travelling companion.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed my all time favourite ship.

It was good to meet you Friday lunch in Britannia and your insurance advice. The disembarkation system of staying in the cabin was seamless, but no doubt a problem for the Housekeeping changeover. (I am from the Hospitality industry aware of the military operation required). Enjoy Aviva. Louise

[Selbourne]

6 hours ago, Leelou270 said:

It was good to meet you Friday lunch in Britannia and your insurance advice. The disembarkation system of staying in the cabin was seamless, but no doubt a problem for the Housekeeping changeover. (I am from the Hospitality industry aware of the military operation required). Enjoy Aviva. Louise

I agree that the disembarkation process was absolutely brilliant on QM2 and took away all of the hassle that puts a downer on your last few hours on other cruise ships. It’s a shame that P&O don’t adopt it.

[Megabear2]

8 hours ago, Leelou270 said:

It was good to meet you Friday lunch in Britannia and your insurance advice. The disembarkation system of staying in the cabin was seamless, but no doubt a problem for the Housekeeping changeover. (I am from the Hospitality industry aware of the military operation required). Enjoy Aviva. Louise

Hello again Louise! Thanks for your good wishes for Arvia, I'm looking forward to it, albeit a totally different experience this time.  

 

The disembarkation as you say was seamless as ever. Speaking to my cabin steward he told me it actually works better for them.  Instead of everyone in his block of cabins having one coloured label and leaving at the same time they are staggered to facilitate a certain number of cabins being vacated in steps to allow them to be made up in batches.  Looking along the line of cases on my corridor I saw 6 different coloured labels on luggage in the immediate vicinity of my room.  I had offered for my room to be stripped early as I was going to breakfast but he told me it was better to leave it while he worked on completely setting up the already vacated cabins. Apparently they work in pairs, one stripping and one coming in once that's complete to set up.

 

I'll be interested to compare with my upcoming Arvia experience which I am facing with great trepidation for disembarkation from recent reviews.  Fingers crossed.

 

I'm glad you found the insurance information on companion cover helpful.  I hope you and your group of travelling ladies find some more deals soon, you never know we might bump into each other again very soon! I couldn't resist and booked two more trips onboard so combined with my June Iona cruise and August Britannia I now have September Queen Victoria and a winter transatlantic on Queen Mary 2 after visiting my friends in Dallas.  What an irony the last is after the tragic weekend events there.

 

Happy cruising to you.

 

 

[Leelou270]

You will enjoy Arvia. The pre booking for restaurant can do on the ship I’m sure as we did on Iona. Disembarkation was fine. They didn’t issue coloured tags but just found cases per decks. I found the first week taken up with getting used to the new systems and layout but by the 2nd week I loved it. Loads of deck space and I really liked the deck 8 promenade balcony. Even had a jacuzzi outside my room. Was able to socialise like over the garden gate. 
how fortunate we are to experience different styles of cruise lines and ships. Keep cruising ….  (We did find the lack of choice of drinks and different stock per bar frustrating though)

[AndyMichelle]

Please excuse me if this has already been answered. 

If we arrive at our allotted time, can we expect to go in reasonably quickly without joining the queue outside? 

The reason for asking is I have just seen a YT post from a family claiming they turned up at their allotted time for Britannia recently and had to queue outside for 3 hours behind the ones who arrived early... 

If true, doesn't seem fair... 

Andy 

[happy v]

56 minutes ago, AndyMichelle said:

Please excuse me if this has already been answered. 

If we arrive at our allotted time, can we expect to go in reasonably quickly without joining the queue outside? 

The reason for asking is I have just seen a YT post from a family claiming they turned up at their allotted time for Britannia recently and had to queue outside for 3 hours behind the ones who arrived early... 

If true, doesn't seem fair... 

Andy 

If you arrive on time you will be waved through. The only reason would be if all boarding was delayed for some reason. Even then you would be called in the correct order. 

[Selbourne]

1 hour ago, AndyMichelle said:

Please excuse me if this has already been answered. 

If we arrive at our allotted time, can we expect to go in reasonably quickly without joining the queue outside? 

The reason for asking is I have just seen a YT post from a family claiming they turned up at their allotted time for Britannia recently and had to queue outside for 3 hours behind the ones who arrived early... 

If true, doesn't seem fair... 

Andy 

Sounds like a misunderstanding. As I understand it, the people managing the queues are not P&O staff. If they tried to stop me I would be politely but firmly telling them that I know that I am not early and that I will be entering the terminal now and not joining the long queue with those who have arrived early. I don’t think they would physically restrain me!

[terrierjohn]

1 hour ago, AndyMichelle said:

Please excuse me if this has already been answered. 

If we arrive at our allotted time, can we expect to go in reasonably quickly without joining the queue outside? 

The reason for asking is I have just seen a YT post from a family claiming they turned up at their allotted time for Britannia recently and had to queue outside for 3 hours behind the ones who arrived early... 

If true, doesn't seem fair... 

Andy 

I suspect that they probably joined the back of the queue, rather than showing their boarding pass to one of the staff on duty and then being directed to go straight in.

[Son of Anarchy]

3 hours ago, AndyMichelle said:

Please excuse me if this has already been answered. 

If we arrive at our allotted time, can we expect to go in reasonably quickly without joining the queue outside? 

The reason for asking is I have just seen a YT post from a family claiming they turned up at their allotted time for Britannia recently and had to queue outside for 3 hours behind the ones who arrived early... 

If true, doesn't seem fair... 

Andy 

Last month at Ocean Terminal we had a boarding time of 12:00.  Bellied up to the terminal at about 11:10 after dropping the car off with CPS (CPS didn't start processing cars until 11:00).  There was already a queue for those who turned up early, but a separate area for those who were on time.  No queue there.  Someone looked at our boarding passes and we let straight into the terminal.  Check in was already open. 

[Selbourne]

17 minutes ago, Son of Anarchy said:

Last month at Ocean Terminal we had a boarding time of 12:00.  Bellied up to the terminal at about 11:10 after dropping the car off with CPS (CPS didn't start processing cars until 11:00).  There was already a queue for those who turned up early, but a separate area for those who were on time.  No queue there.  Someone looked at our boarding passes and we let straight into the terminal.  Check in was already open. 

Exactly the same experience when we boarded QM2 the other week. We had 12pm priority boarding and were on the ship at 11.50am. Our first case arrived at the cabin as quickly as we did. Friends who arrived an hour or two later (without priority boarding) also reported a seamless experience with no queues. P&O like queues. The Cunard disembarkation process was also significantly better than the P&O system 🤔

[scarlet ohara]

We are on Britannia just now and had the best boarding ever. We were allocated 12.45 which is the earliest we have ever had. We stayed in Southampton on Thursday night, having sent our luggage ahead via BHC. We strolled up to Ocean Terminal at 12.15, past all the traffic at a standstill, just as they were calling for those with 12.45 arrival times and were directed  straight into the terminal. Minimal queuing inside for checkin or security, went straight to our muster station and were sitting in the Glass House before 12.45, having our first fizz of the cruise!!

 

it looked as if they were calling to those in the queue who had 12.45 arrivals to come forward

[Selbourne]

9 minutes ago, scarlet ohara said:

We are on Britannia just now and had the best boarding ever. We were allocated 12.45 which is the earliest we have ever had. We stayed in Southampton on Thursday night, having sent our luggage ahead via BHC. We strolled up to Ocean Terminal at 12.15, past all the traffic at a standstill, just as they were calling for those with 12.45 arrival times and were directed  straight into the terminal. Minimal queuing inside for checkin or security, went straight to our muster station and were sitting in the Glass House before 12.45, having our first fizz of the cruise!!

 

it looked as if they were calling to those in the queue who had 12.45 arrivals to come forward

Great to hear. Given that it’s impossible to know precisely what time you will have dropped your car off and be entering the terminal, I’m trying to establish how early you have to be to be sent to the naughty queue. Clearly 30 minutes is within the level of tolerance. Well, on Britannia at least!

[scarlet ohara]

20 minutes ago, Selbourne said:

Great to hear. Given that it’s impossible to know precisely what time you will have dropped your car off and be entering the terminal, I’m trying to establish how early you have to be to be sent to the naughty queue. Clearly 30 minutes is within the level of tolerance. Well, on Britannia at least!

If we had been slightly earlier, I suspect we would have been sent to the queue. Maybe we were lucky that the traffic was so slow around Southampton, some/many people with earlier checkin or priority might not have reached the port. But it seemed that they were calling people from the queue by arrival time, rather than who was first. We met a couple who were on one of the coaches which didn’t arrive till 3.30 and they were all given priority and waved straight through. They said that the queue then was really long

[AndyMichelle]

8 hours ago, scarlet ohara said:

If we had been slightly earlier, I suspect we would have been sent to the queue. Maybe we were lucky that the traffic was so slow around Southampton, some/many people with earlier checkin or priority might not have reached the port. But it seemed that they were calling people from the queue by arrival time, rather than who was first. We met a couple who were on one of the coaches which didn’t arrive till 3.30 and they were all given priority and waved straight through. They said that the queue then was really long

That sounds good that they call you out by arrival time, I was concerned that it was first come first served... 

Thank you for the info, have a great cruise. 

Andy

[tring]

Now got our boarding cards for Arcadia next month.  Tells us not to arrive earlier than 3.15pm, but the last time is 3.30pm.! That will be fun if we get bad traffic in Southampton!  We would be quite happy to leave it until our correct time, but a 15mins leeway before we would miss the cruise entirely seems totally ridiculous, especially the way the traffic has been in Southampton recently.  We were concerned we may only have a 30 minute slot, which seemed bad enough.  

 

I have read elsewhere that we can park our car with CPS earlier, hand in our cases and go off into Southampton with hand luggage, if we cannot wait in the terminal, but the thought of being left outside with no facilities, including toilets is not viable for me.  I can place dock gate 10, which is near some hotels, e.g. Novotel, but does anyone know if we will be able to use a bar in the Novotel, or somewhere else that is near by as a non resident.

  

Edited May 16, 2023 by tring

[Cathygh]

I hope I am not repeating my self here. MSC open boarding at 10am, and you can stay on the ship on the last day till noon. Latest boarding is 4pm. You have to be out of the cabin by 7.30 (or was it 8? I can't remember). Cabins ready by 2pm and no problem with luggage. It's a much better way of dealing with getting 5000+ people on the ship. Eventually the pictures and videos of queues will make their way into the media and I expect the publicity will be negative. 

It's not just people arriving early that is the problem, it's P&O's procedures. I know there is a cost to having to pay staff in the port a couple of extra hours but if you consider maybe 100 staff, paid extra £25 (I am guessing their pay is £12.50 an hour just to make the maths easy) for the 2 hours = £2500. On a ship of 5000 that's an extra 50p per passenger. Now I know some of you will pick the Maths apart, but it's just a simple example. 

@molecrochip I would be interested to know your thoughts on this.

 

[Selbourne]

3 minutes ago, Cathygh said:

I hope I am not repeating my self here. MSC open boarding at 10am, and you can stay on the ship on the last day till noon. Latest boarding is 4pm. You have to be out of the cabin by 7.30 (or was it 8? I can't remember). Cabins ready by 2pm and no problem with luggage. It's a much better way of dealing with getting 5000+ people on the ship. Eventually the pictures and videos of queues will make their way into the media and I expect the publicity will be negative. 

It's not just people arriving early that is the problem, it's P&O's procedures. I know there is a cost to having to pay staff in the port a couple of extra hours but if you consider maybe 100 staff, paid extra £25 (I am guessing their pay is £12.50 an hour just to make the maths easy) for the 2 hours = £2500. On a ship of 5000 that's an extra 50p per passenger. Now I know some of you will pick the Maths apart, but it's just a simple example. 

@molecrochip I would be interested to know your thoughts on this.

 

Excellent points. Other cruise lines can manage far better embarkation and disembarkation procedures, yet P&O steadfastly stick with what they have always done and subject people to horrendous queues. It’s all very well people pontificating that passengers shouldn’t turn up until their allocated time, but that’s nigh on impossible with long travel distances, unpredictable traffic and the understandable reluctance to leave cars unattended with suitcases, baggage and valuables in them. 
 

We were hugely impressed with the Cunard disembarkation process, where you have full use of your cabin until your allocated disembarkation time. You go to breakfast (without hand luggage), go back to your cabin to refresh and just relax there until your designated time. No announcements, no herding in overcrowded public rooms, you just wander down from your cabin when your time comes and disembark. They also give you colour coded and numbered disembarkation luggage labels and off load luggage in that order. This also means that you have a much smaller ‘zone’ to search for your luggage. Found our cases in seconds. 
 

Those of us blessed with priority embarkation can easily lose sight of how frustrating all of this can be. When we are on Iona in August we have priority but our daughters and partners don’t. I can imagine that they will have some stories to tell by the time that they join us. It will be the first cruise for both of their partners and I suspect that they might wonder what they’ve let themselves in for 😂 

[davecttr]

My experience with P&O is the border force security opens at about 11.45 so if you can't persuade them to open earlier there is no point in changing the procedures.

 

Disembarkation on Arvia last month was a shambles. I had a 9.15 time and wandered down to a almost deserted muster area at 9.10, just get off now said an officer. Having located my case within a couple of minutes, deck 17 was right next to the entrance, I was then confronted with two enormous queues to exit at the other end of the baggage hall. To make matters worse the late comers decided to form a third queue in the middle and try to push in. The stewards could not handle the situation and it took almost 30 minutes to get out of the terminal. My hire car driver was being harassed by the stewards despite pointing out that there I was just leaving the terminal. Then there was another delay as i was not allowed to go straight to the car but had to go via the taxi queue which i forced my way through.

[GOQ]

On 5/8/2023 at 9:29 AM, Selbourne said:

 

During the cruise, my wife was one of only a very small number of wheelchair users on the ship. We also saw very few people with walking difficulties. However, when we went to the Golden Lion (the area used for assisted disembarkation) it was absolutely rammed with people who all of a sudden needed assistance to walk the very short distance off the ship. We have noticed this on every P&O cruise we have done as well. 
 

No doubt many of these people are taking advantage of the "system", but perhaps not all of them are.

 

I often wonder what people think of me getting assistance when possibly they have seen me in the Gym during the cruise.

 

I have structural damage to my back, neck and knees, walking down ramps and stairs is painful but curiously I can use an exercise bike and the rowing machines without problems. I have poor balance with is upset by enclosed spaces and crowds, but I can do sitting down exercises like the weights machines in the Gym.

 

I request assistance going through security type environments because I can fall, but I can walk OK, as long as there are no slopes or stairs involved.

 

Disembarking at Southampton, if I am taking the train I self disembark because I can avoid the balance disturbing crowds, get off early before the mob and use my suitcase on wheels as a walker.

 

If I am taking a coach I get off at my allocated time but don't request assistance because I can walk, as long as no-one else knocks me over.

   

[GOQ]

On 5/8/2023 at 9:29 AM, Selbourne said:

 

During the cruise, my wife was one of only a very small number of wheelchair users on the ship. We also saw very few people with walking difficulties. However, when we went to the Golden Lion (the area used for assisted disembarkation) it was absolutely rammed with people who all of a sudden needed assistance to walk the very short distance off the ship. We have noticed this on every P&O cruise we have done as well. 
 

No doubt many of these people are taking advantage of the "system", but perhaps not all of them are.

 

I often wonder what people think of me getting assistance when possibly they have seen me in the Gym during the cruise.

 

I have structural damage to my back, neck and knees, walking down ramps and stairs is painful but curiously I can use an exercise bike and the rowing machines without problems. I have poor balance with is upset by enclosed spaces and crowds, but I can do sitting down exercises like the weights machines in the Gym.

 

I request assistance going through security type environments because I can fall, but I can walk OK, as long as there are no slopes or stairs involved.

 

Disembarking at Southampton, if I am taking the train I self disembark because I can avoid the balance disturbing crowds, get off early before the mob and use my suitcase on wheels as a walker.

 

If I am taking a coach I get off at my allocated time but don't request assistance because I can walk, as long as no-one else knocks me over.

   

[GOQ]

On 5/8/2023 at 9:29 AM, Selbourne said:

 

During the cruise, my wife was one of only a very small number of wheelchair users on the ship. We also saw very few people with walking difficulties. However, when we went to the Golden Lion (the area used for assisted disembarkation) it was absolutely rammed with people who all of a sudden needed assistance to walk the very short distance off the ship. We have noticed this on every P&O cruise we have done as well. 
 

No doubt many of these people are taking advantage of the "system", but perhaps not all of them are.

 

I often wonder what people think of me getting assistance when possibly they have seen me in the Gym during the cruise.

 

I have structural damage to my back, neck and knees, walking down ramps and stairs is painful but curiously I can use an exercise bike and the rowing machines without problems. I have poor balance with is upset by enclosed spaces and crowds, but I can do sitting down exercises like the weights machines in the Gym.

 

I request assistance going through security type environments because I can fall, but I can walk OK, as long as there are no slopes or stairs involved.

 

Disembarking at Southampton, if I am taking the train I self disembark because I can avoid the balance disturbing crowds, get off early before the mob and use my suitcase on wheels as a walker.

 

If I am taking a coach I get off at my allocated time but don't request assistance because I can walk, as long as no-one else knocks me over.

   

[Old_tilly_billy]

Got my earliest ever check in time 🤫

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Old_tilly_billy
Spelling

[lindyloo22]

That’s early people are still coming off then.

[Windsurfboy]

1 hour ago, Old_tilly_billy said:

Got my earliest ever check in time 🤫

 

 

Presumably  Liguirian members are flown out by helicopter the night before.

 

Looks like a co*k up, if you arrive then be prepared for a long wait