Customs at San Diego

[Tikibear]

Our last cruise out of San Diego was plagued with a horribly slow debarkation due to understaffed Customs. Five agents clearing the whole ship. Has the wait time improved or will we be in line for an hour+ again?

 

[bcwife76]

SD is the worst. We debarked the Wonder on January 2nd and customs took forever. 6 customs agents for 2400 cruise passengers. RIDICULOUS

 

[holula]

It’s the worst. I did a b2b in December and it was slow both times, even when we were the very last people to disembark.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

I just got off last Saturday in San Diego. We had to wait a considerable amount of time to get through customs.

 

[happycamper47]

6 customs agents for 2400 cruise passengers. RIDICULOUS

And they have no more than that at Canaveral for 4000.

 

[bcwife76]

And they have no more than that at Canaveral for 4000.

But the difference in the port experience is night and day

 

[sophy1996]

We were the second people off the ship for our November cruise and had no wait for customs at all.

 

[SeanSD]

December was slow. Line started around the French Quarter lounge. Maybe 40-50 minutes to get to bag claim.

 

[Vala]

November was a complete nightmare. Line actually wrapped through the corridor an French Quarter at a point.

 

[Carohs]

The line in December went past the French Quarter, I couldn't tell you how long it took. We decided to lounge around and debark later when the line only extended into the atrium. Unfortunately I think it was 10:30 or 11 the customs agents did a changeover so we got stuck in an unmoving line for about 20ish minutes. BTW, the Cabanas bathrooms and the drink station right outside were open.

 

[greensombrero]

Take it with a grain of salt but I’ve heard the tech set up for customs in San Diego is a problem they have to use mobile devices or have internet issues or something like that compared to other ports.

I mention it because that sounds like a very solvable problem where staffing can be much harder to fix sometimes.

Of course no idea when it will get fixed or if the rumor is correct. We sailed out in Oct 2021 and I didn’t think the line was bad but those were the days of reduced capacity and social distancing.

We are sailing out of SD again in a couple months and I guess we will be prepared for a wait.

 

[happycamper47]

Take it with a grain of salt but I’ve heard the tech set up for customs in San Diego is a problem they have to use mobile devices or have internet issues or something like that compared to other ports.

If it's a closed loop cruise they shouldn't need technology unless everybody exceeds the $800 limit or there are a lot of foreign cruisers. When you leave Canaveral all they do is look at your passport and you walk out, nothing gets scanned.

 

[greensombrero]

If it's a closed loop cruise they shouldn't need technology unless everybody exceeds the $800 limit or there are a lot of foreign cruisers. When you leave Canaveral all they do is look at your passport and you walk out, nothing gets scanned.

I do remember them scanning passports or doing something on a device our last time in SD as well as at some other ports. Maybe it depends on the port or some other factor.

I’ve noticed airports vary at some they scan my boarding pass and look at my id at others they just want to scan my id and don’t care to see my boarding pass.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

They didn't scan our passport in San Diego. They looked at it , but they are using some kind of face recognition technology because they took our picture with little hand held cameras. Similar to what DCL used to use to take our photos before we boarded prior to Covid.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Our last cruise out of San Diego was plagued with a horribly slow debarkation due to understaffed Customs. Five agents clearing the whole ship. Has the wait time improved or will we be in line for an hour+ again?

I would doubt it. Customs/Immigration at San Diego has always been awful (not just for DCL).

 

[longboard55]

We did not seem to take long, it might be a function of how many ships are arriving that day. My tip for San Diego, reserve parking in advance.