Landing day. Cruise to Haiti. Day 1, part 1.

Landing day is already a day on the liner, no matter how you look at it.
I have already determined for myself that all days on a cruise should be counted from the first day of boarding.
Because before it seemed to me that you should consider the first day when you wake up in the morning on the ship, and you are on vacation. And the day when you have turmoil, nerves, a sleepless night, moving, fear that the ship will sail without you - this is the first day of the cruise, you see, it’s somehow difficult to call it.

However, later, I changed my mind.
After all, the hassle, the sleepless night, the journey to the ship, these are still your personal, family issues.
And the liner, here it is, it is ready to receive you from 12-00, feed you, drink you, the pools are working, the music is playing.
Come, do your “check-in”, check into your cabin and, if you want, sleep in it and go to bed if you are tired, but if you want, go to the upper deck, start drinking cocktails, swimming in the pool and sunbathing.
You can fall asleep there and relax near the pool.
So, whatever one may say, the first day is the first, right on the day of moving into the cabin, still standing on the shore and not sailing anywhere.

We usually choose to check-in somewhere in the middle, at 13, 14 hours.
Because the ship usually starts accepting passengers around noon, and usually ends at 15 o'clock.
Arrival, entry, check-in (check-in) onto the ship is divided into several time frames, half an hour each.
When you check-in for a ship (we do it online, right from your computer), you choose your check-in time for the ship.
Let me remind you that we live close to all local ports, and we simply go by car to the port an hour and a half before our chosen check-in time.

And many people arrive in advance, live in a hotel and check out at 11-12 noon.
It is better for such people to choose the earliest check-in time.
Some people choose the latest, so that there are no longer any queues, and so that they can simply board the ship among the last, there are such amateurs. Or, again, those who are late for some reason (traffic jams, plane delays (and there are also those who arrive right on the day the ship departs, don’t do this, there are so many cases of flight delays).
We love the middle.

We get ready, go to the port, drive to the cruise parking lot, leave the car there, and take a transfer (small minibus) to the ship itself.

The first time we were worried on our boarding day, how the driver would know where to take us, and how we would find our plane if the driver just took us to the port.
It turned out that everything was simpler, the driver simply takes each passenger to his plane. Each liner, even if there are 4-5 of them departing that day, has its own terminal in the port, and the liner is already docked there.

As a rule, let’s say, very often, liners arrived at the port early in the morning, disembarked passengers, they were already cleaned, everything was put in order, and by noon the liners were ready to receive you as new passengers.
So our liner was already standing and waiting for us to board.

You give your luggage to a special person who walks near the entrance to your terminal, or rather, near taxi and bus stops, to immediately pick up your suitcases from you.
You need to stock up on cash in advance to give these movers cash.
We usually give $10-20.
If you now ask me a question, am I worried about our suitcases when handing them over to the first loader I come across on the street, then I will say, yes, I am ALWAYS very worried.
And I calm down only a few hours later, seeing all our suitcases safely delivered to the door of our cabin.

Different cruise lines have different styles of boarding and welcoming passengers on boarding day.
At Royal Caribbean, check-in is very convenient because you do not have to wait in a long line to receive onboard cards in envelopes; you will see these cards in your cabin.
So you simply go through security, who will check your documents and compare your documents, and you board.

The cabins are already ready for you. You can go up to your cabin, change clothes and go explore the ship or go straight to the bar and pool and swim.
Thus, already at lunchtime you are on the ship, settled, have a cabin, you can have a snack somewhere, if some of the cafes are the first to start working, swim and completely relax.

What does that mean? That your vacation has already begun with this lunch.
That is, after all, the first day of your vacation and cruise should be considered this very landing day.

To be continued.

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You can read previous posts about the cruise here:

Cruise to Haiti. Part 1. How we got on this cruise.

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