Port Everglades boarding and PAT

[jba2]

When you get a chance can you tell me when your luggage arrived?

Also can anyone tell me about how long the main dining room sit down embarkation lunch takes?

About 4:30 to 5:00. I don’t recall exactly.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

We boarded the Dream today, January 17. We had a PAT of 2:15. Open boarding started at 1:00. We were in our cabin by 1:30.

If there is any chance you see this while you are on the ship, would you mind letting me know what hours Scuttles Cove/Oceaneers Club is open on Castaway Cay day?

Editing out my 2nd request because I found the MDAS schedule here:

 

[mmouse37]

Thank you for all this great information! I was 50/50 on renting a car and I think the shuttle situation has me leaning toward going directly from hotel to port.

i would love to know more in the Hilton Marina, we are staying there one night before the cruise. Did you book on your own or through DCL? We booked on our own. We have a party of five adults, a six year old, and a two year old.

Thank you!

The Hilton was very nice inside with a nice pool. It is right on the Marina and huge yachts were docked all around us. The water taxi to Las Olas shopping and restaurants was right at the hotel but we did not use it as I thought it expensive and we had a car so we drove anywhere we wanted to go. The Hilton has the main building and some "wing" buildings that are 3 stories. We were in a wing and our room overlooked the water but I felt it was far from lobby. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and it was too cold to really use the pool. We sat by the pool and got a bit of sun but it was very windy and cool so we didn't swim. Next time I would ask for a room in the main building. They do add a daily service fee separate from the room charge but they offset they a bit by offering a $20 pp food/beverage credit per day (we were 2 people so I don't know if it extends to all party members in your room). We did not eat at the hotel main restaurant but people said it was good. I felt the outside facade of the hotel could use a facelift or some TLC but inside was very nice. It is at the end of a street. If you walked a few blocks there was a Walgreen's, Public and a CVS and some restaurants. Again, we had a car so drove where we wanted to go. You could see some ships at the port from the hotel.

We had a great meal at a restaurant called Lona's Mexican which is overlooking the ocean. It was really good. It was recommended to us by someone in our cruise group and we both loved the food and drinks. We also drove up North about an hour to see the manatees at Manatee Lagoon. That was fun. There is a cove by a power plant where all the manatees (at least 20 of them) congregate in the warm water discharge from the plant. They built a very nice "center" that tells you all about the manatees in the area. It was very well done.

https://www.visitmanateelagoon.com/

We booked the hotel on points. We were not taking the DCL transfers but I stopped and chatted with the DCL rep who was in the lobby the night before the cruise and the morning of the cruise. I was able to get my luggage tags from here as we booked last minutes and knew they would not come in the mail in time. She told me there was 120 people taking the bus to the port.

Let me know if you need any other info on the hotel. We stayed on night post cruise at the Marriott Dania Point and that was a really nice hotel. More upscale in an area with easy walking to shops and restaurants.

MJ

 

[mmouse37]

We leave for our cruise next Friday. How expensive was your Uber?

$14.10 for 2 adults and luggage.

 

[mmouse37]

Is 10 am normal or 2nd seating debarkation? My cousin is picking us up and I'm trying to estimate a good time.

10:00 am was the latest we ever disembarked. There was never a long line to get off the ship so I believe it was a customs thing holding everything up. They called character luggage tags about every half hour.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

We boarded today. At 12:15 they didn’t check PAT at all. They herded us all into one line outside where we stood for 5-10min, then there was a 50+ person line inside. As returning guests (I believe they lumped gold and silver together) there were only about 2 families ahead of us once we made it inside, but as we were winding through the nearly empty queue, a port attendant let about 20 people (5-6 families) in from the general line ahead of us, which was annoying but not the end of the world. All together, it took less than 20m from leaving the taxi to making it through checkin and another 5-10 to get on the ship because we skipped the very long photo line. I’m guessing the photo line would have added another 10-15m.

 

[Kbmas0n]

We boarded today. At 12:15 they didn’t check PAT at all. They herded us all into one line outside where we stood for 5-10min, then there was a 50+ person line inside. As returning guests (I believe they lumped gold and silver together) there were only about 2 families ahead of us once we made it inside, but as we were winding through the nearly empty queue, a port attendant let about 20 people (5-6 families) in from the general line ahead of us, which was annoying but not the end of the world. All together, it took less than 20m from leaving the taxi to making it through checkin and another 5-10 to get on the ship because we skipped the very long photo line. I’m guessing the photo line would have added another 10-15m.

Interesting! What was your original PAT? Mine is 2pm, and I'm hearing a lot of "after 12:!5, 12:30, 1pm, etc, they don't check them."

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Interesting! What was your original PAT? Mine is 2pm, and I'm hearing a lot of "after 12:!5, 12:30, 1pm, etc, they don't check them."

It was 11:45 so I was a bit annoyed about it.

Getting off today was a huge pain. Got in the queue to exit the ship around 9:25AM, made it on to the ramp to the terminal around 9:45, then it took another 40m to get through the port terminal, luggage pick up, and customs.

 

[unrequited23]

Our PAT was for 12 on 1/26, our car arrived early so we ended up at the port at 11:25. No one was checking PATs when we walked into the terminal at 11:30. There was no line outside. Boarding group 8 was called after a 10 min wait. We were onboard by 11:55.

We got in line to debark at 9 and were at the airport by 9:40.

We had trouble with Lyft picking up at FLL. Three cars cancelled on us due to arriving at a hectic time sucking up 45 minutes. By that time the free hotel shuttle arrived. A scheduled Uber from the hotel to the port was $40--it would have been cheaper if we hadn't pre-booked. A Lyft from the port to FLL was $19.

 

[cph706]

Concierge can board whenever they arrive, correct?

 

[Henlady]

Has anyone used DCL transfer from FLL airport to port and port to FLL airport? What was your experience like with that service?

 

[Doingitagain]

Does anyone know when DCL transportation picks you up from Hilton Marina? Do you need a PAT or boarding group?

 

[JulieBeeRN]

Concierge can board whenever they arrive, correct?

Yes, that is correct.

Edit to add: They will also walk you off the ship until 825am, which was nice bc our train didn’t leave until 1020am. I heard the line was really long after 830am.

 

[JulieBeeRN]

$14.10 for 2 adults and luggage.

We got ours for $12 (two adults) and it was super fast & easy.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Yes, that is correct.

Edit to add: They will also walk you off the ship until 825am, which was nice bc our train didn’t leave until 1020am. I heard the line was really long after 830am.

Are you saying that if you don’t want to disembark before before 8:25, you don’t get a concierge benefit at all? I swear I’ve seen concierge guests moved ahead of the queue to disembark around 9:30.

 

[RedHead0186]

Concierge can board whenever they arrive, correct?

You can enter the terminal whenever you arrive, as long as it's open. Your boarding document will tell you what that window is. You won't necessarily board as soon as you arrive, if you check in at the terminal before boarding commences you might have a short wait. But you'll be the first to board once boarding starts.

If you arrive after boarding has started then yes, you'll board as soon as you get through check in/security.

 

[RedHead0186]

Are you saying that if you don’t want to disembark before before 8:25, you don’t get a concierge benefit at all? I swear I’ve seen concierge guests moved ahead of the queue to disembark around 9:30.

FYI, this time will likely vary depending on port. For us (Fantasy Eastern Caribbean in November), we could do concierge disembarking (skip the line) until 8am.

 

[JulieBeeRN]

Are you saying that if you don’t want to disembark before before 8:25, you don’t get a concierge benefit at all? I swear I’ve seen concierge guests moved ahead of the queue to disembark around 9:30.

That's what the concierge hosts said, but I've only sailed concierge once on the Wish and they said that they could only walk us out by 715a so I thought 825a was great, lol.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

That's what the concierge hosts said, but I've only sailed concierge once on the Wish and they said that they could only walk us out by 715a so I thought 825a was great, lol.

lol. We are supposed to be doing concierge on the Wish this fall. I’m going to be so sad if we have to be up and out before 8:30 to take advantage of one of the 3 main perks (for my family).

 

[Reckoner]

Wanted to give my experience here as I boarded the Dream in Ft Lauderdale last Wednesday - no one checked anything.

We had a family with 3 separate PATs (11:45, 12:15 and 12:30). Our transportation got us there at 11:30, and we didn't have any other time we could get there. We were prepared to wait until 12:30 if we were asked to hold off until our latest PAT. We walked right in with no wait and no one even asking to look at our PAT forms. They were already calling multiple Boarding Groups while we were having our IDs checked.

Seems like they really smoothed out all the previous embarkation issues from December and earlier in January.