Port Everglades boarding and PAT

[sjuncfan]

We are on the dream now, boarded yesterday from Port Everglades terminal 4 Had an 12:00 PAT with boarding group 7. We arrived the the terminal at 11:30 - they were letting everyone in (it was raining) but you are always under cover. Surprisingly we were on board at 11:47. There were so few people in the terminal they did one group per minute.

This was our experience on December 18. I think it was the quickest we'd ever gotten on a ship.

 

[epcotrulz]

Finally got inside. Another set of lines inside. The iPads aren’t working or are slow. They weren’t able to complete our check in and sent us to a second line.

Meanwhile this is the inside of the terminal. Absolutely empty…

Your experience was similar to mine. I have no idea what that seating is for inside when they make everyone stand around outside to get through a bottle neck. Poor design and planning and the leadership there thinks everything is great!

 

[Alicatt]

I just booked my our PATs shortly after 22 this morning. We are silver. For one room we got 12 to 12:15 for the other 12:15 to 12:30. I'm guessing we all have to get on the later line if we want to stay together.

 

[MommyCMickey]

Your experience was similar to mine. I have no idea what that seating is for inside when they make everyone stand around outside to get through a bottle neck. Poor design and planning and the leadership there thinks everything is great!

Yea, the seating thing I didn't understand because if your terminal has seats on the inside, why are all of us sitting on the ground on the outside. Our experience with the boarding process on the dream last month as awful as well. They said their systems were down and we got in so late. I probably won't cruise out of FLL again unless it's a really really great itinerary

 

[Doingitagain]

Yea, the seating thing I didn't understand because if your terminal has seats on the inside, why are all of us sitting on the ground on the outside. Our experience with the boarding process on the dream last month as awful as well. They said their systems were down and we got in so late. I probably won't cruise out of FLL again unless it's a really really great itinerary

We will be on the Magic this summer, so hopefully it is better with the smaller ship.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We will be on the Magic this summer, so hopefully it is better with the smaller ship.

It might be better but that doesn't necessarily mean good. We sailed the Magic in October on the WBPC out of Miami, which a pp mentioned too. The ship wasn't even full and it was still an absolute CF for lining up outside. They didn't even separate the lines. Even SWA has the courtesy to label each line so passengers know they're in the correct line.

We arrived about 5 mins before our PAT (I think was 11:45) and the line was huge. We got in it and waited. After about 20 mins, another passenger told me while we were chatting that they had already called out for anyone in our PAT earlier. So we walked toward the front of the line to find a CM who said to wait in this line, pointing to another that ran parallel to the main one. After another 10-15 minutes a different CM came walking down the main line calling out for anyone with a PAT that was later than ours, maybe 12 or 12:15. I stopped her and said, we are in 11:45 group. She says, "Oh well then just go inside!"
Ugh, I am not one to cut in line but if they would organize the lines, people would know what line to get into.

I think part of the problem is that people forget what PAT actually means. Port ARRIVAL Time. The system is designed to intentionally stagger the arrival of 2000-4000 people so they don't show up all at once.
So if people show up 30-45 mins early, they are part of the problem. Disney won't enforce it, and it will continue.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Finally got inside. Another set of lines inside. The iPads aren’t working or are slow. They weren’t able to complete our check in and sent us to a second line.

Meanwhile this is the inside of the terminal. Absolutely empty…

Ugh— I am leaving from Pt Everglades at the end of this month on the Dream and dreading it after reading your report so far.

I hope things turned around for you when you reached the ship and you’re having a great cruise!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We sail from FLL in March. It seems the only alternative is to show up at 2pm after the lines are gone and just walk right through.

 

[Doingitagain]

We sail from FLL in March. It seems the only alternative is to show up at 2pm after the lines are gone and just walk right through.

I would consider that, except we like embarkation lunch and they close by that time.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I would consider that, except we like embarkation lunch and they close by that time.

I agree. We not only enjoy it but it’s part of what we pay for when we pay cruise fare. To pay for lunch off the ship is not really a good solution but it’s either that or suffer the long lines.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I agree. We not only enjoy it but it’s part of what we pay for when we pay cruise fare. To pay for lunch off the ship is not really a good solution but it’s either that or suffer the long lines.

I suspect it's the only way to be sure that you don't get stuck in a long queue, but (especially on the 3 and 4 day cruises) it really feels like missing 2-3 hours is actually a significant chunk of your total trip, especially when you only measure waking time.

 

[Dug720]

I just booked my our PATs shortly after 22 this morning. We are silver. For one room we got 12 to 12:15 for the other 12:15 to 12:30. I'm guessing we all have to get on the later line if we want to stay together.

Yes. You can move back but they cannot move forward.

 

[lorenni]

We sail from FLL in March. It seems the only alternative is to show up at 2pm after the lines are gone and just walk right through.

Nope - we actually left port at 6:15 and I suspect it was because they took FOREVER getting people checked in and onboard. Once you got through check in you walked right on - boarding groups were absolutely meaningless. Its the horrible design plan and sketchy technology that bottleneck the process. So the 3:15PATs probably didn't actually get checked in until closer to 4pm.

 

[lorenni]

I would consider that, except we like embarkation lunch and they close by that time.

Yup - lunch was closed by the time we got onboard.

 

[lovedisneycruise]

I honestly don't understand why this is allowed to continue especially at a new port. Pre-covid, my daughter and I had continual embarkation/disembarkation issues every single time we cruised with DCL. I love cruising with them and so I tolerate this long, standing in lines forever process. However, my daughter is not a big Disney fan, so last year she tried Celebrity's new ship out of Fort Lauderdale. She braced herself for the chaos and interminable waits of a Disney terminal.......and was stunned/thrilled to report that it took her about five minutes to check in and then was immediately permitted entry to her room (she got there about 11:30 with a 12:30 PAT; she wasn't sure how long to the port.) She said disembarkation was the same - you were given a time to disembark and it was orderly without the hours-long lines present on DCL. The older I get, the more I hate starting and ending a cruise this way, so I will probably try Celebrity with her soon.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I honestly don't understand why this is allowed to continue especially at a new port. Pre-covid, my daughter and I had continual embarkation/disembarkation issues every single time we cruised with DCL. I love cruising with them and so I tolerate this long, standing in lines forever process. However, my daughter is not a big Disney fan, so last year she tried Celebrity's new ship out of Fort Lauderdale. She braced herself for the chaos and interminable waits of a Disney terminal.......and was stunned/thrilled to report that it took her about five minutes to check in and then was immediately permitted entry to her room (she got there about 11:30 with a 12:30 PAT; she wasn't sure how long to the port.) She said disembarkation was the same - you were given a time to disembark and it was orderly without the hours-long lines present on DCL. The older I get, the more I hate starting and ending a cruise this way, so I will probably try Celebrity with her soon.

We have the same experience but in the opposite order. Used to cruise with Celebrity, Regent, Seabourn and Princess. Now our kids are prime Disney age. I would say that our average embarkation on a Disney ship is 2-4x as long as the average experience on other ships and our average disembarkation is probably close to 20x as long. That may sound dramatic but I’ve never waited more than 10m to disembark or get to luggage (sometimes there’s a wait at border control/customs) on any other ship and with Disney we have twicd waited more than an hour slowly crawling through atriums and hallways just to get to the gangway, sometimes with a second queue in the terminal before we make it to luggage.

It is a consistently horrible disembarkation experience and I once did the math and realized on a 3 day sailing, we’re spending a fairly high % of total waking time trying to get on or off the ship!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I honestly don't understand why this is allowed to continue especially at a new port. Pre-covid, my daughter and I had continual embarkation/disembarkation issues every single time we cruised with DCL. I love cruising with them and so I tolerate this long, standing in lines forever process. However, my daughter is not a big Disney fan, so last year she tried Celebrity's new ship out of Fort Lauderdale. She braced herself for the chaos and interminable waits of a Disney terminal.......and was stunned/thrilled to report that it took her about five minutes to check in and then was immediately permitted entry to her room (she got there about 11:30 with a 12:30 PAT; she wasn't sure how long to the port.) She said disembarkation was the same - you were given a time to disembark and it was orderly without the hours-long lines present on DCL. The older I get, the more I hate starting and ending a cruise this way, so I will probably try Celebrity with her soon.

We cruised Celebrity out of Miami last March and there was a crazy long line that zig zagged up and down the ship on debarkation day. Maybe this was unique? It was our only Celebrity cruise. Otherwise, service was on par with DCL but ship upkeep was severely lack. It didn't help that we docked in Nassau right next to the Dream which looked immaculate.

 

[hrhdhd]

We cruised Celebrity out of Miami last March and there was a crazy long line that zig zagged up and down the ship on debarkation day. Maybe this was unique? It was our only Celebrity cruise. Otherwise, service was on par with DCL but ship upkeep was severely lack. It didn't help that we docked in Nassau right next to the Dream which looked immaculate.

That line is people who self assist to disembark. If one waits until 8 or later, it's not that bad.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

That line is people who self assist to disembark. If one waits until 8 or later, it's not that bad.

We had an early flight and wanted to disembark early. Usually on DCL in Miami, it's not that difficult. We can easily catch a 10am flight home and have done it several times since the post-covid restart, usually with time to sit at the gate.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

We had an early flight and wanted to disembark early. Usually on DCL in Miami, it's not that difficult. We can easily catch a 10am flight home and have done it several times since the post-covid restart, usually with time to sit at the gate.

Interesting, we almost never try to get off before 9, so maybe Disney is better for early risers/self-assist but worse for people who don’t want to be up and off before dawn?