Self disembarking

[KelseyLowder]

Not sure if that is what it is called but I heard something about not putting luggage out the night before and getting off the ship earlier. Can someone tell me more about this?

 

[Maggie'sMom]

Not sure if that is what it is called but I heard something about not putting luggage out the night before and getting off the ship earlier. Can someone tell me more about this?

DCL refers to it as Express Walk Off. You keep your luggage with you and can exit once the ship is cleared by customs. I believe that usually occurs around 7:30am.

 

[piglet1979]

We did this on our cruise in 2018. You don't put your luggage out the night before. The day of disembarkation you will be responsible for all of your luggage. You also will not be able to eat breakfast at any of the restaurants in the morning. You line up in the atrium until Disney has gotten the ok to disembark. When they are given the ok you get to walk off the boat with all of your luggage and leave. We got out of the parking area really quickly. it was nice to be able to get on the road for our long drive.

It does have it's pro's and con's. Mainly having to deal with all of your luggage. Luckily our kids are old enough to handle their own. If they weren't we would have not done this.

 

[Lynne G]

Yep, we walked out around 7:30 and there was no one in customs, we were on the road, as parked in port, in a few minutes. This was Miami.

Did the same thing with Carnival a few weeks ago. Was off the ship around 7:30. We think we could have been off even earlier. Was short through customs too. Tampa, and we made our 9:55AM flight, by also parking at the port. Oh, and we had the faster to the fun, so was allowed to leave earlier than the 8am announcement for leaving, along with those in suites.

I don't mind carrying off my suitcases as I only have one that can fit in the overhead, and a backpack. No breakfast for us either, as we too, just like to get on the road.

 

[Andrew96]

I did express walk off on my September 2019 cruise on the Dream and we were able to eat at our assigned first seating breakfast. We were going to skip and go to Cabanas instead as we were worried about doing express walk off, but there were no issues. After breakfast we just took our bags, which we had with us, and walked off the ship as everyone else did. Customs process was the same, minus searching for our luggage in the holding area (if tags were put on the night prior and taken).

 

[Love2Cruise2015]

My family and I have always done the express walk off when cruising and you just have to leave your luggage outside the restaurant when you have breakfast in the morning and we have always had servers that get us out quickly so we are off the ship in a fast amount of time.
I am interested in trying cabanas for breakfast on the last day.....if you don't mind sharing any tips about how you do breakfast on the last day ie time it opens, do you eat their or in your room (sorry for asking this on your post....)

 

[John VN]

Last 2 cruises on Dream Concierge 1BR walking off at 7:30 were super easy as mentioned above.

7:30 was walk off for our RCCL Mariner at PC last Friday with dining open at 6AM. DW and I met Tao our concierge guy at 7AM in restricted area then walked off ship and into terminal escorted by him at 7:15. DD and SIL ate full breakfast and met Tao at 8AM then were also escorted into terminal. DW and I had facial recognition check with DD and SIL simply walking on through.

 

[Numtini]

We did Cabanas last time because we were express walking off. I vastly preferred the Cabanas experience though part of that might have been the incredible view in Miami off the stern of the Magic, but Your Mileage May Very. We actually left the luggage in our cabin and went and grabbed it after breakfast.

The whole thing was very easy. Our luggage rolls, so it wasn't a lot of stress to "carry" it off, and I'm not sure it wasn't easier overall than the normal debarkation.

 

[Marc D]

In other ports than PC, it offers the advantage of not having to wait for your disembarkation group to be called. They use them because they take off the luggage from the ship while guests are already able to disembark. In PC, we find there is no real advantage. All the luggage is available the second the ship is cleared. You exit the ship on level two and often must wait behind strollers and wheelchairs for the single elevator because large luggage doesn’t fit in the escalator. It takes 45 seconds at most to retrieve your luggage while the line for the elevator can take 10 minutes to clear

 

[2XPCV]

We did this on our cruise in 2018. You don't put your luggage out the night before. The day of disembarkation you will be responsible for all of your luggage. You also will not be able to eat breakfast at any of the restaurants in the morning. You line up in the atrium until Disney has gotten the ok to disembark. When they are given the ok you get to walk off the boat with all of your luggage and leave. We got out of the parking area really quickly. it was nice to be able to get on the road for our long drive.

It does have it's pro's and con's. Mainly having to deal with all of your luggage. Luckily our kids are old enough to handle their own. If they weren't we would have not done this.

As a clarification - you will not be able to eat at any of the SIT DOWN restaurants. Cabanas will be open.

We always do this and its easy and relatively quick, even if we do stand in a little bit of a line until CBP gives the all-clear to disembark.

 

[RX8]

We just did this on Saturday with the Fantasy. We were at Cabanas when they opened at 6:30 AM. Ate breakfast and by the time we returned to the room around 7:30 AM to get our luggage the ship had cleared customs and we were able to exit the ship.

 

[KelseyLowder]

Thanks everyone! First cruise for us! We leave 2 weeks! We were trying to figure out car rental

 

[RX8]

If you are Port Canaveral the rental car shuttles are right outside the door next to the Disney shuttles. We walked out the door, got on the Alamo shuttle and left within 2 minutes. Not everyone is going to have it go that well but just wanted to share that is shouldn't be a scary experience. We were hurried as we had a 12:30 pm flight out of Orlando. We made it to the airport with no issues only to have our flight delayed to 5:15 pm. We could have slept in on the ship!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We could have slept in on the ship!

Not by much. As they want everyone off by 9:00 at the latest. 8:00 would be better.

 

[ColoradoMom12]

We didn’t do express walk-off, but our breakfast strategy might work for anyone considering it. We aren’t big breakfast eaters. The morning before disembarkation, we brought some breakfast things from Cabanas back to our room (bananas, yogurt, cereal, milk, pastries). I kept the milk, yogurt, and pastries in the refrigerator in our room. I took the pastries out before I took a shower that morning, and according to my daughter, they were room-temperature about 20-30 minutes later. The only drawback to doing this was no morning coffee until we arrived at MCO! However, we were able to just eat quickly and in the quiet of our own room and were off the ship by 7:30.

 

[Seamama]

We did express walk off for our last cruise. On the advice of our very experienced table mates (platinum level), we left our (fully packed and completely ready to go) bags in our room and had breakfast at our assigned restaurant (first seating). We scooted outta there as soon as possible and went back to our room to grab our stuff, making it to the designated line up are perfectly on time.

I’d been worried about doing it this way (I don’t want to break rules or make things harder on anyone- like our room host- but our room host was the one who asked us the night before what our plans were and when we told him and asked if it was ok he said it was no problem at all. I imagine not all hosts are as gracious but perhaps he was extra nice about it because we’d added a cash tip to those little “tip receipts” along with a thank you note that evening. (That wasn’t our reason for doing that, but in retrospect it probably didn’t hurt.)

I expect it may not be this easy next time and in that case we’ll leave our bags outside the restaurant or go to Cabanas instead. (Though I really love to see our servers one last time and if we did it this way I’d be sure to give them a final “thank you and goodbye” the night before.)

 

[PrincessShmoo]

The only drawback to doing this was no morning coffee until we arrived at MCO!

The work around for this - order room service coffee the night before. It comes in a carafe, and it's reported that it's still hot enough the next morning.

 

[Tehanna]

We didn’t do express walk-off, but our breakfast strategy might work for anyone considering it. We aren’t big breakfast eaters. The morning before disembarkation, we brought some breakfast things from Cabanas back to our room (bananas, yogurt, cereal, milk, pastries). I kept the milk, yogurt, and pastries in the refrigerator in our room. I took the pastries out before I took a shower that morning, and according to my daughter, they were room-temperature about 20-30 minutes later. The only drawback to doing this was no morning coffee until we arrived at MCO! However, we were able to just eat quickly and in the quiet of our own room and were off the ship by 7:30.

I can confirm what PrincessSchmoo says about the success of ordering room service coffee the night before disembarking. We this on the WBPC in 2019, and while not scalding, it was plenty warm the next morning. I'm thinking that combining this with your breakfast strategy would work very well for a quick departure that includes both a light breakfast and coffee.

 

[bakerworld]

We always do Express Walk-off. It's easy. We feel more in control. The one tip is to have your customs materials (declaration form and passport/BC) handy because even tho few people are around - or fewer - customs is expecting efficiency.

For some reason eating breakfast makes me more prone to motion sickness so it is better for me to forgo anything. We get coffee, etc. at our destination. We usually end our cruises at WDW and the rooms have always been ready upon arrival around 9:30/10 AM.

On the cruise out of NY it took forever to disembark - we were shoulder to shoulder in the Magic atrium for like 45 minutes. Now that was a bit more hectic so I was even happier that we were pulling our own luggage.

 

[brentm77]

We are going to try this next cruise. It will help that we have learned to travel carryon only recently, so only one small bag per person.

But, for me, the main benefit will be not packing on the night before disembarking. I despise doing that! We often come back earlier than I want from Castaway Cay so that we have time to get it all done before dinner. But worse is that reminder all day that the cruise has come to an end and we must pack.

We are early risers, so I would much rather get up at 6:30 the next morning and pack everything then. Disembarking day is already sad, so adding the packing to it won't take away from it and will leave the day before to be a regular cruise day.