My Getaway Experience- UPDATE

[Smitheroo]

First, the process of getting on the ship is embarkation. Why isnt the process of getting off called disembarkation?  Yet I have seen "Debark?"  Anyway, that's what this thread is about, rather than add to my first Getaway Experience thread.   Getting off the Getaway on 1/17/24 at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal in NYC was a painless experience, at least it was for me. I thought NCL outlined the process extremely clearly even giving each passenger the choice of time to leave and choosing the corresponding color of tag and publishing all of this in the Freestyle Daily. Sometimes your situation dictated the color  i.e. I was taking a transfer to the airport so I was assigned a brown tag which was delivered to my cabin the night before.  Otherwise you got to choose the time and the color tags were in the Atrium.  Self assist was no tag and very clearly explained.  There are people who are just not "visual " and miss information when only distributed in visual form. i.e. I got in line at guest services to check on a lost item. A woman gets on behind me muttering "this is so stupid" so I asked her what was wrong.  She said "I put my luggage in the hall last night just like i was told to. How am I supposed to know what color tag I am?"  i told her that she was supposed to choose a color and attach it to her bag. She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language "It was explained in the dailies"   Apparently she missed this part. She put her luggage out in the hall with no tag and they still took the bag. She thought the tag issued by NCL at the beginning of the cruise was sufficient. She was not aware of any other tag!  I assured her they would find her luggage, perhaps there is an area in the baggage hall for bags with issues. Dont know how this turned out.  As I said, the process was explained in the daily newsletter. If you had a question about it, guest services is always available to help. If the line was long , another crew member went up and down the line screening the question you had which could save time.  The process became even clearer with the morning announcements as tag colors were called. I was given the approximate time of 8:15 am for the brown tags to be called and they were, at 8:20. The lines were not long and moved quickly.  Next interesting experience..... At the podium where your keycard is scanned to make sure you have checked out, the passenger ahead of me handed the crew member a card which turned out to be a keycard from a previous cruise. The crew member asked where the current keycard was.  "oh, I left it in my room" So the crew member makes a note of his room number. Simple, right?  Well, the crew member then hands over the old keycard and the passenger waves his hand saying "keep it, throw it in the garbage, I dont care", turns and heads towards the gangplank. The crew member threw the card at the guy. Fortunately the rude passenger didnt see this happen and the card didnt hit him.  Another crew member picked the card up and placed it on the podium. I sure hope that poor guy's day got better.    Found my luggage with no problems in the area with brown tags marked clearly.  The buses werent seen immediately but  one question asked to one of the many people in neon green vests pointed me in the right direction. The driver had a list of all the people on the transfer. There was no specific time to leave but it was advised that your flight left after 12 noon.  The driver knew which terminal each flight left from and advised.   He  waited until 9:45 for a few stragglers who never showed up and left. We arrived at Newark Airport as expected.  I soon learned my flight was cancelled but that's a story for another thread somewhere else.

 

So, to summarize. A painless experience. I have heard many complaints about MCT .  I've now experienced 3 ports that NCL uses (Los Angeles, Seattle, NYC) and my order of best to worst is  Seattle (really hard to beat Port Valet), MCT, and last, Los Angeles. 

[buddy1755]

I hope Southampton is as smooth yours while you DeBarked.

Edited January 19 by buddy1755

[coin ops]

On 1/18/2024 at 9:11 AM, Smitheroo said:

First, the process of getting on the ship is embarkation. Why isnt the process of getting off called disembarkation?  Yet I have seen "Debark?"  Anyway, that's what this thread is about, rather than add to my first Getaway Experience thread.   Getting off the Getaway on 1/17/24 at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal in NYC was a painless experience, at least it was for me. I thought NCL outlined the process extremely clearly even giving each passenger the choice of time to leave and choosing the corresponding color of tag and publishing all of this in the Freestyle Daily. Sometimes your situation dictated the color  i.e. I was taking a transfer to the airport so I was assigned a brown tag which was delivered to my cabin the night before.  Otherwise you got to choose the time and the color tags were in the Atrium.  Self assist was no tag and very clearly explained.  There are people who are just not "visual " and miss information when only distributed in visual form. i.e. I got in line at guest services to check on a lost item. A woman gets on behind me muttering "this is so stupid" so I asked her what was wrong.  She said "I put my luggage in the hall last night just like i was told to. How am I supposed to know what color tag I am?"  i told her that she was supposed to choose a color and attach it to her bag. She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language "It was explained in the dailies"   Apparently she missed this part. She put her luggage out in the hall with no tag and they still took the bag. She thought the tag issued by NCL at the beginning of the cruise was sufficient. She was not aware of any other tag!  I assured her they would find her luggage, perhaps there is an area in the baggage hall for bags with issues. Dont know how this turned out.  As I said, the process was explained in the daily newsletter. If you had a question about it, guest services is always available to help. If the line was long , another crew member went up and down the line screening the question you had which could save time.  The process became even clearer with the morning announcements as tag colors were called. I was given the approximate time of 8:15 am for the brown tags to be called and they were, at 8:20. The lines were not long and moved quickly.  Next interesting experience..... At the podium where your keycard is scanned to make sure you have checked out, the passenger ahead of me handed the crew member a card which turned out to be a keycard from a previous cruise. The crew member asked where the current keycard was.  "oh, I left it in my room" So the crew member makes a note of his room number. Simple, right?  Well, the crew member then hands over the old keycard and the passenger waves his hand saying "keep it, throw it in the garbage, I dont care", turns and heads towards the gangplank. The crew member threw the card at the guy. Fortunately the rude passenger didnt see this happen and the card didnt hit him.  Another crew member picked the card up and placed it on the podium. I sure hope that poor guy's day got better.    Found my luggage with no problems in the area with brown tags marked clearly.  The buses werent seen immediately but  one question asked to one of the many people in neon green vests pointed me in the right direction. The driver had a list of all the people on the transfer. There was no specific time to leave but it was advised that your flight left after 12 noon.  The driver knew which terminal each flight left from and advised.   He  waited until 9:45 for a few stragglers who never showed up and left. We arrived at Newark Airport as expected.  I soon learned my flight was cancelled but that's a story for another thread somewhere else.

 

So, to summarize. A painless experience. I have heard many complaints about MCT .  I've now experienced 3 ports that NCL uses (Los Angeles, Seattle, NYC) and my order of best to worst is  Seattle (really hard to beat Port Valet), MCT, and last, Los Angeles. 

Debark and disembark are interchangeable for cruises, not for trees. 

[kitkat343]

Our tags fell off one of our bags on our last cruise.  A Cunard employee helpfully  showed me the section with the unmarked luggage.  It was right there, along with other bags missing ship tags so hopefully everything worked out for the person who forgot their tags on your cruise.   

[julig22]

On 1/18/2024 at 6:11 AM, Smitheroo said:

 Self assist was no tag and very clearly explained.  There are people who are just not "visual " and miss information when only distributed in visual form. i.e. I got in line at guest services to check on a lost item. A woman gets on behind me muttering "this is so stupid" so I asked her what was wrong.  She said "I put my luggage in the hall last night just like i was told to. How am I supposed to know what color tag I am?"  i told her that she was supposed to choose a color and attach it to her bag. She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language "It was explained in the dailies"   Apparently she missed this part. She put her luggage out in the hall with no tag and they still took the bag. She thought the tag issued by NCL at the beginning of the cruise was sufficient. She was not aware of any other tag!

Same thing happened in Seattle. On the Sun, ship tags were yellow, so people who didn't read the instructions thought they were supposed to leave when yellow was called - and were complaining that they didn't get to choose when they got to leave (yellow was latitudes priority, so early). It was probably 50/50 whether their luggage was with the yellow tags or with the unknown bags.

[Smitheroo]

I really dont know how they could get that many people off the ship in a timely manner any other way. I dont know if all the NCL ships disembark the same way or they have improved the process. I was on the Joy in Feb 2023 disembarking in the Port of Los angeles and it was a nightmare. Spent a long time on that line that snaked through the ship and spending way too much time not moving at all in the arcade. I dont remember anything about colors of tags but maybe there was.  In Seatle we used Port Valet (which is even easier than self assist) so cant compare but this experience getting off the Getaway at MCT was effortless.  You get to pick when you want to leave! (unless you have a transfer or other commitment) How much easier could it be?  But you do have to read the instructions.  This poor woman was distraught but I assured her they would find her bags. 

[mjkacmom]

I think it’s hit or miss, sailed out of nyc 4 times, 3 were fine, 1 was horrible (not enough port staff).

[schmoopie17]

My debark is worse than my debite. Well, usually...

[julig22]

5 hours ago, Smitheroo said:

I really dont know how they could get that many people off the ship in a timely manner any other way. I dont know if all the NCL ships disembark the same way or they have improved the process. I was on the Joy in Feb 2023 disembarking in the Port of Los angeles and it was a nightmare. Spent a long time on that line that snaked through the ship and spending way too much time not moving at all in the arcade. I dont remember anything about colors of tags but maybe there was.  In Seatle we used Port Valet (which is even easier than self assist) so cant compare but this experience getting off the Getaway at MCT was effortless.  You get to pick when you want to leave! (unless you have a transfer or other commitment) How much easier could it be?  But you do have to read the instructions.  This poor woman was distraught but I assured her they would find her bags. 

 

All NCL ships use the same process for handling luggage. Color tags are used for sorting bags, depending on when people are planning to leave and/or if they are using NCL transportation after the cruise. But luggage isn't necessarily the reason for long lines at disembarkation.

Port Valet in Seattle is unique, it would be nice if it could be expanded to other ports.  But it's run by the port, not the cruiselines.

[Smitheroo]

22 minutes ago, julig22 said:

 

All NCL ships use the same process for handling luggage. Color tags are used for sorting bags, depending on when people are planning to leave and/or if they are using NCL transportation after the cruise. But luggage isn't necessarily the reason for long lines at disembarkation.

Port Valet in Seattle is unique, it would be nice if it could be expanded to other ports.  But it's run by the port, not the cruiselines.

we must have been asleep at the Port of Los Angeles lol because I have no memory of anything other than long lines with disembarkation. I cant remember putting our luggage out or picking times to leave. I know that because I remember wondering why we couldnt just hang out in the Atrium until we had to leave.  Some people seemed to be doing that.  We were not aware of that option. (picking the last color) Probably just a first time experience