Embarkation times

We try, alas sometimes we fail

When we drive to the port, we try to get on as early as possible, and head to the main dining room for lunch (much less crowded than the buffet!). That typically means carrying our carry-ons into the dining room.

We have not bothered paying attention to the times in the past, however with being a new cruise customer on Princess, we will do our best to follow the times assigned to us. For our Carnival sailings, we are in the VIP boarding and I don't worry about it.One of perks we really like and use. If we try another cruise line (hopefully soon) we will again follow the guidelines given,

No, never!

Carnival has addressed this by doing staggered check-in. Passengers have an assigned time, and cannot check-in earlier unless they have priority boarding or FTTF.

We usually prefer an early boarding time and fortunately NCL allows you to choose your boarding time through their on line portal. I am not sure if they limit the numbers for each time slot or not as we usually look after all these particulars long before cruise day. Our preference is to check out of the hotel about 10 ish and depending on where we are board at either 10 or noon ish. Noon is a good time as it allows us to have a nice lunch, explore the ship, and then check in to our room to relax a bit before sail away.

I like to get to the ship early to explore the ship and have lunch. It is my first day of vacation. I do watch the times, on my last cruise they were doing carpeting on the ship so boarding was delayed until 1:00, Carnival did move the check on very quick that day I was surprised at how quick it went.

I tend to see the time as a speed limit and more of a "suggestion" which is bad, because I see the other side (as a check in agent).

I can tell you for Boarding time, it all depends on the Debark process and where they are ate. IF the debark is delayed, then yes, there will be a back up with embarkation. The lines and congestion definitely does not help with any side of the coin.

I have had numerous cruisers praise the staggered check in for carnival and have seen a smoother process and ease of going through the lines.

Not always. I've never had a really long time boarding but I also go with the expectation that it may take an hour. It's never taken me longer than that. I don't stress, I'm going on vacation.

With Princess, we make sure that we do everything up to boarding through them. They dropped us off at the airport to afternoon before, made sure our luggage was at the hotel. bought breakfast and escorted us on board...can't beat that. And there were three bus loads at the time.

On NCL we took a cab from the hotel to the dock and then only waited a short time to bboard. But we made arrangements prior to the cruise.