Boarding Fun

On Saturday, Jan. 31, we woke up excited to begin our Caribbean Cruise. Since we were driving ourselves to the port, I checked online to see which Terminal our ship would be departing from and learned that it was Terminal 2. We drove to the parking garage located at Terminal 2 and were told that because our truck was an oversized vehicle, we would have to park at Terminal 4. But not to worry, there is a walkway from Terminal 4 to Terminal 2, so not a problem. We parked the truck and found the walkway to Terminal 2. As soon as we arrived, we were asked if we wanted to check our luggage, and of course we said yes. They took our bags and threw them on the luggage cart and we found our way to the end of a very long line. The line moved slowly, and after about an hour and a half, we finally proceeded through security. After security, we proceeded to the counter where we would collect our medallion/room key and then proceed to board the ship. All was well until we arrived at the counter.

The man behind the counter took our passports and boarding passes, looked at them, and began typing something into his phone. Passengers on either side of us were coming and going, and yet the man behind the counter kept typing away. I suspected there was a problem. Finally the man looked up at us and asked “You’re going on the Majestic Princess?” and we said yes. He said “This is for the Star Princess. The Majestic Princess is boarding at Terminal 21.” Lesson number one: don’t believe everything you read online.

The man then called a Princess employee lady over and told her that these morons were in the wrong terminal. Well, he didn’t exactly call us morons, but that’s what we felt like. However, in our defense, there were no signs anywhere out front, or anywhere along the long line we were in, that said Star Princess. Also, we had tags on our luggage that clearly identified us as passengers for Majestic Princess. As the Princess employee lady began leading us out of the terminal, I suddenly remembered that we had checked our luggage, and it was going on the wrong ship, so I asked the Princess employee lady about our luggage. She said that she hoped they could locate it; we didn’t like the sound of that. I asked her why didn’t they check the luggage tags when we checked our bags, because if they did, they would have noticed that we were at the wrong terminal. She said they are supposed to check them, but don’t always do so.

She walked us out to the place where they were checking luggage and asked if we remembered who the person was that took our luggage. I recognized the lady, and we went over to her and the Princess employee lady that had walked us out of the terminal told her the situation and asked if it was possible to locate our luggage. The luggage lady said that our bags might still be in the “holding area” and she would go check. While she was gone, I asked the Princess employee lady what would happen if our luggage were not still in the holding area, and she said it would then be on the ship, and they would have to have the ship personnel try to locate it. That didn’t sound promising.

Fortunately, the luggage lady miraculously showed up about 10 minutes later with our luggage. They said they would get us a cab to take us to Terminal 21. It sounded like a nice thing to do, but “get us a cab” didn’t mean they would pay for it. We arrived at Terminal 21 and had the pleasure of going to the end of the line to do it all over again. Just in case we couldn’t figure it out (after all, we were morons), one employee kept telling people that we would know when we reached the end of the line when we got to the last person. Good to know. We never would have figured that out.

Finding the silver lining, this line wasn’t as long as the last one. We made it through the line and security in about 45 minutes. We were given our medallions and shown the way to the gangway that would take us aboard the ship – finally. The worse part of a cruise is always the boarding process and standing in the long lines. Lucky for us, we got to do it twice. One thing I learned from this: If you are going on a cruise, it is impossible to board the wrong ship. They will catch the error at some point. I just wish that point would have been a little sooner in our case.

As we were making our way to the terminal – starting way back at the parking lot – we asked directions along the way, and we noticed that people would only give directions a step at a time. Instead of saying something like “Go to the end of the walkway, take the elevator, go around the corner, get in the line, etc.” They would only say “Go to the end of the walkway”. Then at the end of the walkway, we’d have to ask someone else, and they would say “take the elevator”, etc. Sometimes they would only say something like “Go straight ahead” and ahead there would be 3 options, all leading in different directions. When we finally got aboard the ship, we were so tired, frustrated, and hungry that Joe apparently was having none of the “one step at a time” directions. He asked a Princess employee which way to a place where we could get something to eat. In typical fashion, the guy pointed down the hall and said “Go that way”. So Joe continued to ask questions to get further details. After Joe asked a number of questions - “Which deck? Bow or stern? Port or Starboard?” I was pretty sure by now that we would be able to locate the restaurant, so before Joe would get to questioning him on latitude and longitude, I finally said “Let’s go” and started walking.

Once in the restaurant, I began seeing people I know from Magnificat and finally began to relax, remember why we were here, and able to enjoy the cruise. It was so nice to see friends from all over the world, put the annoyances of the day behind us, and get on with having a nice cruise.

The right ship