Clearing Immigration nightmare!

So I’ve just recently returned from my first Transatlantic cruise which required clearing immigration at our first port of call being Boston. I have to say this was a total nightmare and completely disorganised by Royal Caribbean. As much as I do like to praise Royal Caribbean for their ships, food, service, entertainment and so on, however I do also have to express my disappointment at their handling of immigration which was just shambolic.

I’ve never see anything like it before and it was enough to put me off ever considering a Transatlantic cruise ever again. I’ve booked many crossings with several cruise lines. Cunard, Celebrity, NCL, Holland America and I’ve never had anyone report clearing immigration with such a bad experience as we had.

The Que was just ridiculous.

I appreciate you cross the Atlantic and you have to clear immigration. We’re entering the U.S.A and it’s protocol but seriously the way this was handles was just ridiculous. My scheduled time to disembark was 09.40 and I knew it wouldn’t be a five minute job. It can take a while at airports so I expected some sort of delay. What I didn’t expect was waiting until gone 2pm in the afternoon before getting off and then with the last shuttle departing at 3.30pm to have just one hour in Boston. That’s exactly what happened. This was advertised as a port of call. Boston arrive 9am and depart 5pm for those who wish to book any excursions this is the time you have in Boston. Wrong, what they didn’t tell you was unless you booked an over priced ship excursion you wouldn’t be given priority and you’d in fact spend most of the day in a very long Que trying to get off the ship.

Even those who had booked an excursion were still nearly 3 hours late getting off so a morning excursion soon became an afternoon excursion. Of course the Americans on board had priority to disembark. Royal Caribbean said this was because apparently we have priority back home and they have to Que up. OK, I’ll accept that but we don’t have just 4 officers on board to clear everyone.

I’m sorry Royal Caribbean but this was just a joke and you got this one wrong. No organisation and just total chaos. 

I tried to take a panoramic view of the Que that went the length of the ship. This was worse than the opening of Harry Potter ride at Universal studios I’m sure!

There were some debate on board with who was responsible. Royal Caribbean blamed the immigration staff for not sending enough bodies and yet the immigration officers said it was Royal Caribbean who wouldn’t pay for anymore so you get what you pay for. Who do we believe?

If this was Boston really trying to sell their city they didn’t do a good job because unless you’ve been before you simply didn’t see enough on this port of call. I have to say I didn’t think the staff were that bothered that we wanted to get off in a hurry and see their city and spend our money there. Now if it was Royal Caribbean being tight and not spending the money then shame on you because all you did was annoy a few thousand people and then insult them with a free drinks coupon. Like that really went down well with people who already had a drinks package or the pinnacle members who were entitled to free drinks anyway. insulting.

I think they need to consider another option for future sailings as this don’t work. Why not, fly over a couple of officers and let them clear passengers at Southampton? Yes the day would be long to board the ship but if everyone stuck to their designated check-in times this would help and at least then the day would be over and passengers could relax and enjoy the rest of their cruise and once arrive in Boston after a week at sea passengers can just walk off the ship and have a full day as advertised and not waste the first port of call in a stupid Que.

Or why not even fly over a couple of officers who actually sail back with the crew and passengers on board. Perhaps they could call passengers down to clear immigration deck by deck and day by day. The officers would have their lunch hour, meals included, evenings off and they would get through everyone in no rush and by the time the ship in Boston, the passengers could get off nice and early and they could too and go home. Is it really that unrealistic? What do you think? Have you ever been in similar circumstances on a transatlantic crossing? I’m certainly going to put my views and opinions to Royal Caribbean and my suggestions. Be interesting to see what they think and more so if they do anything in the future to resolve this problem.

Unless I had some sort of guarantee that clearing immigration will be plane sailing on a cruise because they have a plan in place I don’t think I could go through that again. I’d love to hear about your experiences and if you have ideas that we could put to them.