Disembarking in Southampton

[nundi]

Can anyone describe the customs/immigration process in Southampton? Are there long queues and waiting times? Do they have separate queues for British citizens etc? Does everyone get off at the same time, or is it staggered to avoid lots of waiting around?

[Luckycol]

Nundi

 

I can only comment on what happened when we arrived in New York.

 

US immigration came on board ship and every guest whether a US citizen or not had to present themselves at a designated time per deck, the lower your deck the earlier the time ie deck 4 06:15!

 

When we arrived the queue stretched half the length of the ship as it seemed everyone ignored the times and arrived together, however it only took twenty minutes to be processed.

 

Disembarkation took a long time, again it was called by deck with the people opting to carry thier own luggage allowed of first follwed by thoses who had booked Cunard transfers then by deck from the top down. They sent back people from lower decks who tried to disembark before their deck was called. The whole process took sometime, over 2 hours and we retired to the kings court and sat drinking coffee until our deck 6 was called.

[KarenR_UK]

I cannot comment on Crossings : but on my Caronia Cruise there were no issues re disembarkation.

 

We were given our coloured tags (mine was green) the night before, with disembarkation times : mine was 9:00 (I think). My friends, at the other end of the ship and on a different deck were given 9:45.

 

We arrived in Southampton about 6am.

At about 8am, the first people to get off were being tannoyed. I was called about 8:30.

 

Picked up my case from the 'green row' of luggage waiting in the hall

 

There were no customs staff apparent when we went through - there was a phone number to ring if you had anything to declare.

 

I got in a taxi and was home by 9am - I could have gone to work

 

We went Southmpton to Southampton via Spain & Portugal, so I don't know if it is different for crossings, or if the ship originally departed from a different port or country (immigration might have a say). Also being British, I don't know if there was an issue for other nationalities.

Of course Caronia only had about 650 people on board!

 

After all those caveats, hope this is of some help

 

Karen

 

Caronia Sept 2003

[mufi]

If you are prepared to carry your own bags off the ship you will be the first off, shortly after the gangway is down. Otherwise you will be invited to disembark when your transport is ready to accept you i.e. coaches bound for Heathrow tend to leave early to accomodate flight connections etc. The idea is to prevent the rush of human lemmings that gum up the works otherwise. The best advice is to be patient; Cunard really wants to get you off asp as there is no more revenue from you to them at this late stage.

David.

David.

[ccs]

Our disembarkation at Southampton last August after our QE2 crossing was surprisingly smooth. British customs officials were aboard and had checked everyone's passports during the voyage. On the morning of our arrival we simply waited for our deck to be called and then walked off the ship. Those who had things to declare were advised to stop at the Customs office, but the office was empty, so we just collected our baggage and climbed in a taxi. There was no wait whatsoever.

[Crouton]

What ccs said...

 

I would just elaborate that during days 2-4 of the crossing each deck is assigned a time to "go through customs" who, on my trip, had set up shop in G32 (disco) and were very friendly and pretty much just processing people right through.

 

Also, wonderfully, this is all done via your QM2 ID card/room key, so that when you leave the ship they scan your card for the last time and see that you have already 'cleared' customs.

 

In my case, I was also happy to see that there were plenty of taxis waiting.

 

Crouton

[womanohio]

We were on the Eastbound voyage - May 18 departure. We were surprised at how easy it was to go through customs. They have immigration folks on the ship; you are assigned a time to go through the process, where they stamp your passport.

 

Our bags were picked-up during the night on the last evening of the cruise (you set them outside the door of your stateroom), then when we got to England, we departed with our group and went to the pier, found our bags and got on our bus. It was disorganized in that there were way too many people being forced through too small of an area, but the customs part was not a big deal at all.

 

Barbara