We were a group of 15 friends and family traveling together. Nine were in the 15-22 year old range and six in their early fifties. All have cruised before; my husband and I having gone at least 15-18 cruises and our kids have been on ten of those cruises. This was our first cruise on Royal Caribbean.
The drive to the entrance of the port from Long Island was easy. It took approximately 45 minutes to an hour.
The Port: As we turned into the Port area at 11:15 a.m. we were met with an already long line formed to head to the luggage drop-off or parking areas. There was one lane, although clearly there was room for a second lane. In the planning stage of this pier a few old No Parking signs that dotted the area to the right could have been cut down and old parking spots, which clearly haven't been used in years, paved over. We inched up and around the buildings slowly coming closer to our destination. As we got closer to the drop-off area, which is PAST the parking area meaning you must drop off your luggage then get sent back on line to park your car, we decided we would just park our car and walk with our luggage the very short distance to the luggage check-in area. I had seen this suggestion on Cruise Critic and was now keenly aware of how smart it was. However, when we attempted to do this we were told we are not allowed to park if we didn't drop off the luggage first. Totally ridiculous! There were very few cars leaving the port so there was not a cross-over problem with those leaving and those arriving. Just poor set-up.