When it took three and a half hours (3 of them standing) to board I thought at the time that this might be an omen. Norwegian began by sending out early notice of the departure facility as Canada Place instead of Ballantyne Pier and we talked to people in the lineup who hadn't received the correction and had already spent time at Canada Place only to find out they were at the wrong terminal. In any case it was an ordeal standing for so long to clear security and then even longer to check in with an agent. When we did make it to the check-in desk they acted as if they had no record of our information at all and the agent was not friendly, did not smile or act welcoming, just stressed out and indifferent. Another omen. Finally we were able to go to the departure level which had no public address system just haggard looking attendants sadly trying to call out the numbers we had been assigned to line up for customs, not easy in a huge hall with a 1000 or more impatient people at a time talking. But there were at least chairs to sit in after 3 hours of standing on concrete.

Sadly, I did see elderly and disabled passengers who clearly had not been told about special services check-in which provided a short-cut around the long lines. Clearly no one at security thought to tell these poor folks. It was amusing however to see several very able-bodied-looking people, desperate to get on board, decide to jump the line and suddenly start limping over to use special services.

Once on board, the Captain broadcasted a half-hearted apology and blamed our 3 hour late departure on the Customs people. Odd because customs was the fastest most efficient part of the whole disembarkation, heck, we even got a smile out of the border guard which is more than we got from the ground crew. Read more