The wife and I had originally planned to take the RCL Freedom of The Seas for Thanksgiving but then decided to take the Norwegian Jewel Thanksgiving cruise at the recommendation of our travel agent and here's a recap of our experience.
Embarkation:
We arrived at the terminal around 11:00 am after dropping our rental car off at the Hertz Location near the port and taking their free shuttle. As soon as we got off the shuttle van, I could tell that the embarkation process was going to be nuts. There was a huge line and porters running all over the place grabbing people's luggage as they got off taxis, buses, etc. We were staying in one of the aft mini-suites (#11656), so we asked the guy at the door if we could use the shorter line for guests staying in suites to which he said it was ok. We thought this would help expedite our process, but as soon as we walked through the door, both lines merged into a single line if you can call it that. When we walked in we found what amounted to total chaos. There were four or five tables set up with Bahamas immigration forms which had to be filled out before you could get into the line that led to the check-in stands. Groups of people 3 and 4 deep gathered around the tables with all their carry on luggage trying to find a spot on the table to fill out the form. Once we were able to fill out the forms, we got into our line which snaked around several times a la Disney World before we got to the check-in stand. Finally! (We thought) we're going to be able to get checked in and get on the boat and out of this noisy mess. Little did we know that after going through the check-in process we would be shuttled into another line to get our embarkation photo. That station was also crazy, with people running back and forth trying to get their family members who were still in the previous line so they could all get their picture taken (Why not take the picture on the gangway right before you get on the ship?) Ok, so we got our picture taken in front of a green screen (for the computer generated background to be put in later) and then into yet ANOTHER line to get our key cards. The key cards were all stored in these Rubbermaid bins and you handed your ticket to one of the persons there and they proceeded to search through the bins to find your key cards. (Why don't they just give you the key card when you check in the first time?). Finally we have our key cards, great! Now we go to ANOTHER line for security screening, and we work our way through that and on to the gangway where we wait another 15 minutes in line as everyone gets their hands sanitized before getting on board. The total time from when got off the shuttle bus until we set foot on the ship: 2 HOURS. If I were to describe the embarkation process in one word it would be MAYHEM. NCL needs to re-engineer this whole process and streamline it (it can be done I've seen it done better elsewhere).