Our cruise was on Sunday Dec, 11th to Monday Dec. 19th San Juan, PR to NYC. I flew to San Juan a day early as I do when I have to fly to take a cruise. Especially when the cruise is in the winter months. I do this in case the weather or the airlines don't fly I still have time to make the ship. The ship will not wait for you. ( Good thing I flew early as NJ-NY had a snow storm on the 11th). Flight went smoothly and arrived at noon on Saturday. I took a cab from the Airport to the TRYP Hotel and it cost $15. I went to the beach & stayed over night. The hotel was very clean and up to date. They called a cab for me and it arrived in 10 minutes. (very good cab service) the cost to the port was $24. I left for the port at 9:45 as I had a boarding appointment at 10:30 - 11:00 am.

When I got to the port there was a long line waiting to get into the registration area. I ask a porter where the priority boarding line was and he replied this is for luggage drop-off and will begin shortly. All he said that the incoming cruise was delayed to disembarkation. NCL didn't say anything to us unless we ask them. We didn't get into the terminal until 11:15 am. What good was my registered time to check-in from 10:30 am to 11:00am ? Once we went through security we asked what line to go to. They said to go to the far right side and go in the priority line. We got in the priority line and the line next to us was for Casino and Special Boarding. Since my reservation was a Casino w/ priority boarding I went into the Casino Line. This line only had 1 station that took care of passengers. The priority line was handled by at least 7 stations. The priority line was moving 10 times as fast as the Casino line. We found a NCL representative and asked why we aren't moving and he graciously took us at every other person. As it was it didn't matter what line you were in except not to be in the special need / Casino line.

After I registered I had to walk to the far left to get into the boarding line which began to get mixed up with the people trying to register for the cruise. This was all messed up as they did not designate any sort of lines or even mark what line was what. This was the worst boarding setup I ever have seen and I have been on 9 cruises. Read more