Speculative Queuing to Board in Miami (Liberty)

[Boo Boo]

One (of the very few things) that furstrated me on our recent Liberty cruise from Miami is the way people "Speculatively Queue" to board the ship.

 

Basically with Liberty they have a "Board by numbers" system: they give every passenger a "group number", then they call each group for boarding. People in suites (and I assume Diamond Members etc) get "Priority Boarding": they can board at any time after borading has commenced.

 

Husband and I got "Priority Boarding" and were directed to "join the queue" by a RCCL employee. The Boarding hall is very long. We entered the hall near the front of the queue, but - since there is no sign/instruction to "skip to the front of the queue if you have priority boarding" - husband and I walked down to the back of the queue (a VERY long, slowly moving queue, about 4 people deep that went the length of the hall). I don't believe in queue jumping.

 

This queue did shuffle slowly forward at a constant pace. I would guess that we were a good 10 minutes in the queue (there were regular announcements to "stay seated and only queue when your number is called"). Anyway when eventually got to the front of the queue, it basically just slowly "fizzled away"... it turned out that about 80% of the people in the queue were "speculatively queuing" (i.e. "if I start queuing, then - by the time I get to the front - it will be my turn to board"). Of course when they got to the front, their number still hadn't been called! So we had been queueing for 1 minutes, when we could have effectively "walked on" :(.

 

So my advice is two-fold:

- if you don't have priority boarding, don't queue until your number is called.

- if you have priority boarding, so right to the head of the queue (don't go to the back of the queue). What you are VERY likely to find is a hesitent "fizzling out" front to the queue and an RCCL employee repeatly saying "priority boarding and group x only at this time". At which point you should be able to get in and present your ticket. If the queue seems genuine (unlikely!), then go to the back and queue with everyone else.

 

Boo

[abba_dabba_doo]

One (of the very few things) that furstrated me on our recent Liberty cruise from Miami is the way people "Speculatively Queue" to board the ship.

 

Basically with Liberty they have a "Board by numbers" system: they give every passenger a "group number", then they call each group for boarding. People in suites (and I assume Diamond Members etc) get "Priority Boarding": they can board at any time after borading has commenced.

 

Husband and I got "Priority Boarding" and were directed to "join the queue" by a RCCL employee. The Boarding hall is very long. We entered the hall near the front of the queue, but - since there is no sign/instruction to "skip to the front of the queue if you have priority boarding" - husband and I walked down to the back of the queue (a VERY long, slowly moving queue, about 4 people deep that went the length of the hall). I don't believe in queue jumping.

 

This queue did shuffle slowly forward at a constant pace. I would guess that we were a good 10 minutes in the queue (there were regular announcements to "stay seated and only queue when your number is called"). Anyway when eventually got to the front of the queue, it basically just slowly "fizzled away"... it turned out that about 80% of the people in the queue were "speculatively queuing" (i.e. "if I start queuing, then - by the time I get to the front - it will be my turn to board"). Of course when they got to the front, their number still hadn't been called! So we had been queueing for 1 minutes, when we could have effectively "walked on" :(.

 

So my advice is two-fold:

- if you don't have priority boarding, don't queue until your number is called.

- if you have priority boarding, so right to the head of the queue (don't go to the back of the queue). What you are VERY likely to find is a hesitent "fizzling out" front to the queue and an RCCL employee repeatly saying "priority boarding and group x only at this time". At which point you should be able to get in and present your ticket. If the queue seems genuine (unlikely!), then go to the back and queue with everyone else.

 

Boo

 

I'm a bit confused :confused: . Are you saying this process only took 10 minutes? I guess I just don't see what the problem is here.

[RevSmith]

I do...standing in a line in back of people who were not yet supposed to be in line is annoying. If the people had just followed directions, there would have been NO lines and everyone would have gotten directly on without having to wait on line. This makes perfect sense to me.

[Boo Boo]

I'm a bit confused :confused: . Are you saying this process only took 10 minutes? I guess I just don't see what the problem is here.

 

Yes, when I could have walked on without any queue at all - 10 minutes queuing is a complete waste of time...

 

I am not a huge fan of queuing, but was brought up properly and will queue when it is required. But I strongly dislike queuing for 10 minutes when it absolutely was not required...

 

I am just posting this so that other people may learn from my lesson - if I save 60 people from queueing for 10 minutes, then that is 10 hours of vacation time that can be spent in more enjoyable ways (rather than queuing) :)

 

Boo

[DiannaInVA]

I noticed that too. I had number 2, and I saw there were people in line with number 5, so I asked them if they were in line, and they said no, they had just gotten in line when they heard the color not realizing there were numbers (though that didn't stop them from staying in line). So basically I worked my way up the line asking all of the people in front of me if they were a 1 or a 2...and all of them weren't. Kind of annoying but it was really fast, so I wasn't too bothered. Plus I was happy to have a 2 instead of 6 or more!

 

At least the people controlling the boarding were actually paying attention to the numbers.

[BrianTom]

I am glad you wrote this. I will be sailing on the Liberty OTS and will keep it in mind. Waiting 10 minutes to board the ship for the first time can seem like hours let alone boarding a Freedom class ship for the first time. Thanks again.

 

Tom

[GMoney]

Only a Brit could come up with a label as good as "speculative queuing"... :)

[Boo Boo]

Only a Brit could come up with a label as good as "speculative queuing"... :)

 

;)

 

(maybe helped with me working as a "Management Consultant" for a while too ;) ).

 

Boo

[luvtosing]

Can I ask what time you arrived to board? I'm still unclear about what time we're supposed to arrive to board; if your documents say 2 PM do you still try to arrive earlier?

[Boo Boo]

Can I ask what time you arrived to board? I'm still unclear about what time we're supposed to arrive to board; if your documents say 2 PM do you still try to arrive earlier?

 

We caught a taxi from the JW Marriott (Brickell Avenue) at about 11am, so got to the Port about 11.15am. No queue through security (straight through the x-ray machines) and up to check-in. We had no queue (in the suite line), but the other queues looked fine too.

 

We stupidly took the offer of "escorted boarding", but after waiting almost 30 minutes for an escort (!?!), we left the waiting lounge and just walked on ourselves. We were onboard by 12.30pm (despite 30 minutes of pointless waiting in the "escorted boarding lounge" and 10 minutes pointless waiting in the "speculative queue" for boarding.... Am sure that we could have been onboard before 12noon without the various hold-ups...

 

Boo

[Langley Cruisers]

When we were boarding Liberty, everyone was told to sit down. They said it over and over again. - "Take a seat until your number is called.". I know what you mean about people in the line; seems everyone congregated at the front of the room and stood, when further back there were plenty of seats for everyone.

 

My advice - move to the back of the room if you don't have Priority Boarding. There will always be someone ahead of you, and the wait could be 2 minutes or 20 minutes.

[Kruzeagain]

I'm sure some people were "speculating", but there's no doubt in my mind that others simply had no clue.

 

To wit, we sometimes...

...drive the wrong way on one-way streets

...walk away from microwave popcorn as it's being nuked

...stagger into the wrong restroom

...berate front desk staff for yet another inoperative room key (when in fact we keep getting off the elevator at the wrong floor)

...wander down the supermarket aisle pushing a complete stranger's shopping cart instead of our own

 

But enough about me.

Alan

[john & Gerrie nj]

They are not exposed to real food and must live on pine needles and tree bark.

When they smell the food in the Windjammer they are terrified there won't be enough for them so they panic and Stampede the lines..

 

The other group are those with Doctorates in moronic studies from Universities, who unfortunately do not have any grasp on the nuances of the English language or any comprehension of alpha /numeric sequences.

 

However do not despair these social foibles are only temporary.

As soon as the cruise is over all rationale returns and they are fine.

JMHO