Julia Street Dock: Embarkation

There are two potential boondoggles when you go on a cruise: embarkation and debarkation. Both have the potential for being a total nightmare--a nightmare, at least, if you hate long lines, being wanded by security, losing your luggage, and uncomfortable surroundings.

This day, the weather for embarkation was sunny. We arrived by car and ended up parking almost at the top of a multi-tiered parking garage ($12 per day to park). From there it was a fairly short walk (while pulling luggage) to the terminal.

The Julia Street Cruise Terminal itself has the architecture of a warehouse. It is not elegant, but we have been in worse. At first, everything went well. We did, though, have to swear that we did not have any flu symptoms (cruise lines are hyper about Norovirus). Then the wait began. And the lines waiting to get on the ship got longer. People began to get irritated. And then things got worse. By now, boarding should have begun and everyone knew it. What in the world was going on?

We had arrived early and so were at the beginning of one of the lines. Then, to our surprise, a Royal Caribbean official came up to us and said that anyone who was not a V.I.P. (meaning a member of the Crown and Anchor Society) had to get immediately out of the line and go the end of the line next to us. I looked to the end of that line. I squinted and looked again. It was a long way off.

Other people started to complain. "Why hadn't you told us about this earlier" they asked. "Where is there a sign saying Royal Crown Society Only?" The officials were saved from at least a verbal pummeling by the fact that at that very moment the lines started to move.

Then cruise justice stepped in. Someone at the front of the other line grabbed us. "Dude," they said. "Merge in here." And we went with the flow.