Port Arrival Time & Boarding number

[AuntieKels]

Hi,
This is our first cruise so forgive me for being confused by this.

History: We booked a Disney bus from the Poly to Port Canaveral months ago as suggested by our travel agent.

Yesterday I happened to read somewhere that we may not be picked up until afternoon and to expect about 2 hours of travel time. That wouldn’t get us on the boat until late afternoon which sounds undisierable to me.

Today I read that if you show up at 10:00 you may be waiting in the terminal for hours but if you show up at noon you can just walk on. Then the Disney buses show up and crowd the terminal again.

How do the boarding numbers work? Is it by your cruise status? When you requested the arrival time?

We are now looking at canceling the bus and taking a Lyft because it’s slightly cheaper and maybe we can get on the ship earlier.

Any tips/tricks? Thank you!

 

[pixiedustedme]

Hi,
This is our first cruise so forgive me for being confused by this.

History: We booked a Disney bus from the Poly to Port Canaveral months ago as suggested by our travel agent.

Yesterday I happened to read somewhere that we may not be picked up until afternoon and to expect about 2 hours of travel time. That wouldn’t get us on the boat until late afternoon which sounds undisierable to me.

Today I read that if you show up at 10:00 you may be waiting in the terminal for hours but if you show up at noon you can just walk on. Then the Disney buses show up and crowd the terminal again.

How do the boarding numbers work? Is it by your cruise status? When you requested the arrival time?

We are now looking at canceling the bus and taking a Lyft because it’s slightly cheaper and maybe we can get on the ship earlier.

Any tips/tricks? Thank you!

You'll definitely arrive earlier if you don't take the DCL bus from WDW. Their schedules run on the late side of boarding and it is a long drive to get to the port from WDW, especially with stops at other resorts.

We always take the DCL bus from the airport & tend to get to the port on the early side. We've never had to wait at port for more than an hour. We like boarding early and hitting the pools right upon boarding, before they get crowded. We carry our swimsuits in my shoulder bag so that we can do that, and let the cruise line handle the rest of our bags. Then we have a nice lunch, and after that we get into our stateroom and begin to settle in. Arriving hours later would make that first day of the cruise feel rushed and shorter.

However, you are coming from a very nice resort, so if you'd rather spend the morning swimming and chilling out there than on the ship, that would make sense.

 

[lklgoodman]

Keep in mind for whatever you do, that you won't be able to get into your cabin until 1:30. If you arrive early, you'll have to lug whatever carry ons you may have until then. We usually arrive anywhere from 12:30-2:00. The crowds are usually gone at the ports. Gives us time to eat lunch and then our cabin is ready. We don't care about going to the pools on that day. Dh and dd go to the kids club (open house then, so adults go with kids) and I like to unpack any luggage that has arrived. Orlando is about an hour from the port, so not sure why you were told 2 hrs. We've never stayed at a Disney resort though, but I guess if you stop at a lot of resorts, it could take awhile.

 

[Dug720]

Have you already done online check-in? If so, I don't know if you'll be given the chance to pick a PAT when you cancel the Disney bus - even if you are, depending on how close to embarkation you are, you may get a later PAT.

IF you are able to select one, your Boarding Group number will be tied to the PAT you have - so if your PAT is 11:45-12:00 (for example), your Boarding Group will be a number corresponding to that time. Even if you arrive at 10:30.

I think it is rare that the DCL buses pick up so late. Even staying at lowly AoA, our pick-up was at 12:30 and we were on the ship within an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes. (AoA was the final pick-up. Once you're on the road, barring traffic, you're looking at probably an hour tops.)

 

[AuntieKels]

Have you already done online check-in? If so, I don't know if you'll be given the chance to pick a PAT when you cancel the Disney bus - even if you are, depending on how close to embarkation you are, you may get a later PAT.

IF you are able to select one, your Boarding Group number will be tied to the PAT you have - so if your PAT is 11:45-12:00 (for example), your Boarding Group will be a number corresponding to that time. Even if you arrive at 10:30.

I think it is rare that the DCL buses pick up so late. Even staying at lowly AoA, our pick-up was at 12:30 and we were on the ship within an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes. (AoA was the final pick-up. Once you're on the road, barring traffic, you're looking at probably an hour tops.)

I can’t see the port arrival options until I cancel my Disney transportation but my MIL looked and she said all the arrive times are still available.

Does that sound off to you? Our cruise is about 30 days out.

Our cruise is so very short that I feel like we’ll want every minute possible on board.

 

[Dug720]

I can’t see the port arrival options until I cancel my Disney transportation but my MIL looked and she said all the arrive times are still available.

Does that sound off to you? Our cruise is about 30 days out.

Our cruise is so very short that I feel like we’ll want every minute possible on board.

I don't know. I've always booked at Silver (90 days out) and had all options. I've never booked that close to embarkation.

Do keep in mind as a PP stated though - you're not getting into the cabin until at least 1:30 so you'll have to keep all your carry-ons with you until then. And that includes any alcohol (beer or wine), water, or soda you bring on.

 

[FigmentSpark]

You could also keep the bus transportation, but take it from the airport. Then take the Lyft to the airport before whatever their pickup time is. Then you won't need a boarding number and you'll get there early. Not sure how they assign boarding numbers to people coming from the airport on their bus.

 

[Dug720]

You could also keep the bus transportation, but take it from the airport. Then take the Lyft to the airport before whatever their pickup time is. Then you won't need a boarding number and you'll get there early. Not sure how they assign boarding numbers to people coming from the airport on their bus.

I think you would have to let them know you're changing from resort to airport bus - so they are not waiting and waiting at the resort for someone who's no longer even AT the resort.

 

[AuntieKels]

We cancelled our Disney transportation and were able to get a PA time at 11:30 which should give us enough time to relax in the morning a little and have lunch on the ship! Seems like a win-win for us! Plus is $35 cheaper taking Lyft.

Thanks for the info and we will def have our carry-on packed accordingly!

 

[Weedy]

For Port Canaveral the earliest Port Arrival Time is 10:30-10:45 they usually start boarding the ship 11:15-11:30.
When you arrive and check in you will be given a boarding number. Your boarding number is to your PAT. The earlier your PAT the lower your boarding number. When you pull up to park the porters will take your luggage and deliver it to your cabin. You may want to keep a small bag with you for things you need until cabins are ready at 1:30
Typical first day at Port Canaveral
9:30-9:45 Parking garage opens
You will wait outside until the terminal opens
10:30 Terminal opens
11:15:11:30 boarding begins
11:45-12:00 pools, slides, restaurants and bars open
1:30 cabins available
3:30 all restaurants and pools close to get ready for the lifeboat drill
4:00 lifeboat drill
4:30 quick service restaurants reopen
4:30 sail away party

 

[BlueRibbon]

We cancelled our Disney transportation and were able to get a PA time at 11:30 which should give us enough time to relax in the morning a little and have lunch on the ship! Seems like a win-win for us! Plus is $35 cheaper taking Lyft.

Thanks for the info and we will def have our carry-on packed accordingly!

I've always wondered what the price range is for Lyft/Uber from WDW to the port...

Just an aside, I brought two twelve packs of soda with me to the port a couple of months ago, and the porter just said that he'd slap luggage stickers on them, and I could leave them with him. They showed up outside our room a few hours later! (Admittedly, one pack had been crushed and one of the sodas blew a little, but hey...)

 

[lanejudy]

(Admittedly, one pack had been crushed and one of the sodas blew a little, but hey...)

And you were lucky...had someone else’s belongings been damaged by your beverages, you would have been on the hook for cleaning or replacement. Precisely why those are not supposed to be checked. Porters are not DCL employees and only want your tips, the more you check with them the larger the tip. Unfortunately they don’t enforce DCL rules.

 

[Dug720]

I've always wondered what the price range is for Lyft/Uber from WDW to the port...

Just an aside, I brought two twelve packs of soda with me to the port a couple of months ago, and the porter just said that he'd slap luggage stickers on them, and I could leave them with him. They showed up outside our room a few hours later! (Admittedly, one pack had been crushed and one of the sodas blew a little, but hey...)

Of course the porters are going to take anything - they want a tip.

DCL rules are all beverages are to be carried on board with your carry-on.

If that blown soda had damaged someone else's luggage, you would be responsible for the cleaning and or replacement of the damaged items. (Yes, I have seen that happen before. A guy in a cabin a couple of doors down had packed red wine in his luggage. It broke and ruined the luggage of another party. The steward, Deck Manager for Housekeeping, and Hotel Director were all having a discussion with him in the hall about it.)

Edit: @lanejudy beat me to it!

 

[sunmoon620]

Ok, so different people have different preference. We are platinum at this point, but have done it the same way every cruise. I like to be at the port early. I simply love being there, once I am at the port we can watch them load the ship, sit on the outside balcony and let the anticipation to board mount. I am always up at midnight to choose my PAT and usually have always been able to get a boarding number in the single digits (now that we are platinum I can sleep because we are always #1). We always arrive at the port at about 9:30 and drop off our luggage to the porters. We either drive in or take a private car. For a family of 7 a limo is comparable to Disney transportation price wise. We then proceed to deck 3 of the parking garage and get into the line...there are usually only a few people ahead of us. Side note: If you park in the garage, the porters will actually come to the line and get your luggage from you there! We are usually some of the first people to get into the terminal so there is no line for check in. This way I can usually get my favorite table close to the outside balcony and the girls can start the line for Mickey (people usually have no idea why they are standing there...lol)! My husband has a cigar on the back balcony and I watch them clean and load supplies into the ship. They usually start boarding at about 11:30, then it's off to Cabanas for a quick lunch and into the quiet cove pool I go. If you are one of the first to board the ship, Cabanas is empty and lunch is quick and easy. This gives us almost a full day on the ship. (As a side note and a pet peeve, please do not stand and block the boarding entrance if you are holding boarding number 10 and they are calling for boarding number 5....they will give you plenty of time to get there before they call the next number).

This is our routine it has always worked for us! Oh and btw, bathing suits are usually already on under our clothes to alleviate the hassle of having to change in the bathrooms on deck.

 

[kiford]

Yesterday I happened to read somewhere that we may not be picked up until afternoon and to expect about 2 hours of travel time.

It depends if you consider 12:30 pm to be afternoon - technically it is but just barely. That's the latest we've ever been picked up; we've been picked up as early as 10:30 am. Two hours of travel time is only the case if there is an accident or insane traffic. It's usually not much more than an hour. The latest we've ever arrived was 2 pm due to a minor slowdown (we were picked up at 12:30 and a couple of people were dawdling so we left a bit late). We usually arrive at a time such that, once we get checked in (and there's never any wait for that), we can go right to our stateroom or at least within about 15-20 minutes. I personally don't like sitting around waiting to get into my stateroom since we have to carry our hand luggage which is a pain. I don't really feel like I'm particularly enjoying time on the ship when I'm pinned down by that and waiting to go to my room.

 

[Masonmj84]

We just canceled our DCL transportation from our WDW resort in order to go with a private car service and got a port arrival time of 12:45-1 pm.

For us, the “sweet spot” time to arrive at the port is just a bit after 12:30 pm. By this time, the terminal has cleared out a good bit and it’s usually open boarding.

Then, by the time we go through security, check in, and have our picture taken, it’s usually approaching 1:30 pm. This is nice because once we’ve boarded the ship, we can take our bags directly to our stateroom.

We can then go to lunch without having to lug bags around with us. And since it’s not yet 2 pm, we still have the option of eating in the MDR restaurant or Cabanas, both of which are typically really starting to clear out by this time.

For us, this is the most relaxing and hassle free way to board the ship.

We’ve scheduled the car service to pick us up at 11:30 am. If we could’ve been guaranteed a DCL bus pickup at this time, we probably would’ve stuck with it. But we didn’t want to risk the possibility of a substantially later pickup time that might have reduced our lunch options.

 

[Lisa F]

For Port Canaveral the earliest Port Arrival Time is 10:30-10:45 they usually start boarding the ship 11:15-11:30.
When you arrive and check in you will be given a boarding number. Your boarding number is to your PAT. The earlier your PAT the lower your boarding number. When you pull up to park the porters will take your luggage and deliver it to your cabin. You may want to keep a small bag with you for things you need until cabins are ready at 1:30
Typical first day at Port Canaveral
9:30-9:45 Parking garage opens
You will wait outside until the terminal opens
10:30 Terminal opens
11:15:11:30 boarding begins
11:45-12:00 pools, slides, restaurants and bars open
1:30 cabins available
3:30 all restaurants and pools close to get ready for the lifeboat drill
4:00 lifeboat drill
4:30 quick service restaurants reopen
4:30 sail away party

Say I had a PAT of 10:30-10:45 but don't arrive until 11 - does that mean I will still have an early boarding time but less of a wait?
doesn't sound like the waiting is tooooo long if you have an early PAT regardless, if you arrive at 10:30 and take a while to get in and situated it's about a half hour to 45 minutes? Why are people saying "hours"?

 

[SmileEar2Ear]

Say I had a PAT of 10:30-10:45 but don't arrive until 11 - does that mean I will still have an early boarding time but less of a wait?
doesn't sound like the waiting is tooooo long if you have an early PAT regardless, if you arrive at 10:30 and take a while to get in and situated it's about a half hour to 45 minutes? Why are people saying "hours"?

It’s not a huge wait, but it seems like it because when we were there it was insanely crowded in the terminal. Our PAT was 10:30. Our van dropped us off around 9:45 and we joined the line in the parking garage. It wasn’t too big of a line. Maybe 100-200 people ahead of us. Once it opened we dropped off luggage and went through security and then made it to the main terminal. The line there wasn’t bad and we got checked in easy, but the terminal filled up very fast. When our boarding number was called we started down the hall, but there was quite a big back up for the photo so we ended up skipping that. We were standing by the gingerbread house in the lobby by 11:43 and went straight to eat after that. So arrived at 9:45 and in by 11:45. If we had waited for the photo I’m guessing it would have been closer to 12:15 on board.

 

[squirk]

Hi,
This is our first cruise so forgive me for being confused by this.

History: We booked a Disney bus from the Poly to Port Canaveral months ago as suggested by our travel agent.

Yesterday I happened to read somewhere that we may not be picked up until afternoon and to expect about 2 hours of travel time. That wouldn’t get us on the boat until late afternoon which sounds undisierable to me.

Today I read that if you show up at 10:00 you may be waiting in the terminal for hours but if you show up at noon you can just walk on. Then the Disney buses show up and crowd the terminal again.

How do the boarding numbers work? Is it by your cruise status? When you requested the arrival time?

We are now looking at canceling the bus and taking a Lyft because it’s slightly cheaper and maybe we can get on the ship earlier.

Any tips/tricks? Thank you!

One thing I will say about arriving ~ 1:00 to the terminal if you have early seating at dinner:

It seems like, at least for my family of five, that arriving late means we board, eat, unpack, do the muster drill, and - whoops! - it’s about time to start getting ready for dinner. It all feels a little rushed to us, and we really miss that extra 60-90 minutes of “ship time” we get when arriving at the port early.

Granted, we could eat before arriving at the terminal and skip Cabanas to save time, but what’s the fun in that?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Say I had a PAT of 10:30-10:45 but don't arrive until 11 - does that mean I will still have an early boarding time but less of a wait?

A PAT of 10:30 will get you a lower boarding number (not TIME), but boarding doesn't begin until 11:15-11:30, so you'll still be waiting.