What to Expect on a Cruise

Heading Home

You can sense a change in the ship after it departs from Mexico. Everyone is a little tired, and the mood is a bit subdued. Kind of like the final week of school when you realize you are about to leave to go to the real world. But you have another full day of sun and fun, so take advantage! The shops will put things on sale realizing you won't be there much longer. Pat bought a ton of clothes on sale on the last day.

You'll get an envelope to tip the Maitre'd -- from what I understand, they are probably getting a percentage of the waiter's tips, but we did tip Joseph. He was very nice and his dining room was just so great.

By midnight, you are expected to have your luggage outside your room. Be sure to keep the clothes you want to wear the next day. Also, be sure to have enough carry on bags to hold your dirty clothes. Keep your documentation. They'll close a bank of elevators while they move luggage, once again.

When the luggage starts moving you can see a drop in service. I guess a lot of people get pulled off to luggage service. Also, it may have been a coincidence, but our room suddenly was low on toilet paper. When we asked for some more in the morning they told us they didn't have any! I can only assume they are afraid you will take the toilet paper home (we really needed it onboard). So little things like that -- you can tell you are on your way out. Most of the crew is busy offloading luggage or getting ready for the next cruise (which is only a few hours away) and you can tell. So you can kind of expect that your vacation is over when you get up in the morning.

We didn't try it, but the cruise director told us that if you gave them one credit card for your Sign and Sail account, and then asked the Purser to change it to another credit card at the end of the cruise, they would do that for you. He also said it would screw their computers up so bad that you wouldn't get billed for quite some time. I don't know if he was kidding, but something to think about!

Everyone on board has to go through immigration. They set immigration up somewhere on the Promenade. You'll get a customs declaration form to fill out. You are supposed to tell them how much you spent and if you brought back more than a certain amount of certain items (like liquor and cigarettes). I wondered what happened to NAFTA and then I realized: from the government's point of view, you went to Panama (the Celebration is registered in Panama). We didn't go over our limits, but I will tell you that I didn't see anyone getting searched or overly audited. If you can take a guess at how much you've brought back, that will probably be sufficient.

They call you to the Promenade by deck. However, no one checks to see where you came from, so if you want to go early, I'd say go ahead! The line is very long, but it moves quickly. You show your documents to the officer and they stamp your customs form (they aren't the ones that look at your customs form, though). Then you wait some more because customs has to clear the ship. They will eventually call your group. Don't bother leaving until they call you since your luggage probably won't be out anyway. You can always leave later if you are eating or busy.

The best thing to do is go up to the Wheelhouse and have a nice breakfast. Go early because everyone else will think of this too. When they call you down to the Promenade, you are only one deck away (the back stairs in the Wheelhouse put you right where you need to be). Then you can just chill out until it is your time to go. Take everything with you. We left some things in the cabin and when we got back, the door was wide open and the cabin was made up for arriving passengers. Luckily, we didn't leave anything valuable. Don't forget to empty your safe and leave it unlocked.

Once you get off in the terminal, your luggage will be in a cluster with other bags with the same color coded tag. Find your bags, and proceed to customs. Give them your custom form and ID and tell them you have nothing to declare (unless, of course, you do). They will wave you through and you are back in the US.

Leave one person with the baggage at the curb and catch the bus back to the parking lot. You can then bring your car back around and pick up all the bags (you will have more coming off than you did coming on). At that point you are back to real life.

The whole process starts around 8AM and you should be off by, say, 11AM if not earlier. I would make one suggestion to Carnival. Instead of making everyone wait in line for immigration, it would be more civil to set up in the Astoria. When you walked in, someone would give you a ticket with a number and you could get some coffee and danish and have a seat. Then they would call your number. The Astoria could handle it and then you wouldn't feel like you were being herded (plus you could enjoy some coffee).

I hope this small series of articles has helped you prepare for your cruise. We had a blast and we are anxious to do it again. Since this was the only cruise we've ever taken, we didn't have anything to compare it against, but we were quite satisfied. One thing that struck us: we were only gone for a long weekend, but it seemed much longer. By the time you leave Mexico, you feel like you've been away from home for 2 or 3 weeks, so from that standpoint alone, it is an excellent value.