A ‘Marvelous’ Hack for Disembarking from a Cruise Ship…

First-time cruisers might be surprised to learn that getting off the ship at the end of a voyage isn’t exactly a simple undertaking.

More or less simultaneously, crew members have to unload luggage, ready the ship for the next batch of cruisers, and deposit the departing crowd at the terminal in order to get through customs and catch rides to the airport. And it all starts very early in the morning.

The complex logistical maneuvers involved require passengers to do a lot more than simply stroll down the gangway.

In fact, a guest’s disembarkation day duties start the night before, when a decision has to be made about luggage.

On most major cruise lines, you have two options.

The standard way of getting your luggage off a cruise ship

The disembarkation method selected by the “vast majority of cruisers,” according to Celebrity Cruises, is to have crew take your bags and deliver them to the cruise terminal for pickup when you walk off the ship the next day.

That means you’ll need to have your bags packed, tagged, and waiting outside your stateroom at a specified time on the evening before disembarkation morning.

The tags will be provided in advance by the cruise line and will be color-coded or otherwise marked (Norwegian Cruise Line assigns “zone numbers,” for example, and Disney Cruise Line groups you by animated characters) to help you find your belongings at the terminal.

Obviously, if you go this route you’ll want to hang on to stuff like your ID, plane tickets, valuables, toiletries, and something to wear as you exit the ship. If you leave those items in the bags out in the hall, you won’t have them on hand come morning. Keep a carry-on with essentials, as you would on a plane.

The next day, you’ll have a designated time to leave the ship. As Cruise Critic explains, “Your time is assigned according to your flight times (which you provide a few days prior to disembarkation day), stateroom category, and even loyalty status.”

You’ll also probably need to vacate your stateroom by a specified deadline so that stewards can start cleaning. If the leaving-your-room time doesn’t coincide with your leaving-the-ship time, you will likely have to cool your heels in a designated area. On Royal Caribbean ships, the color of your luggage tags corresponds to the onboard lounge where you’re supposed to hang out till your departure time.

When that finally arrives, you’ll exit the ship, enter the cruise terminal, locate your checked bags (again, by color-coded zone), and proceed to customs. Porters stand by to assist.

A speedier way of disembarking from a cruise chip

The primary drawback to the system described above is that it slows you down. You have to wait around for your designated disembarkation time and then, at the cruise terminal, searching for your checked bags amid a crowd of other departing cruisers introduces further lines and delays.

To circumvent all that rigmarole, you can choose the second, less common method of unloading your bags: taking them off the ship yourself.

Cruise lines refer to this as “self-disembarkation” (or “self-assist” in Norwegian’s case).

For DIY luggage handling, you don’t have to affix the line’s tags to your stuff and you don’t leave it outside your cabin on the night before departure. Nor do you have to leave the ship at a designated time. After the vessel docks, receives clearance from local port authorities, and begins the disembarkation process, you simply take your stuff and go when you’re ready.

This can streamline your departure considerably, according to a recent online discussion at Reddit.

User OhiobornCAraised started off the thread with a rave about a self-disembarkation following a Disney cruise.

“We were able to pack everything we needed into two large suitcases and two backpacks,” the Redditor writes. “We were able to do self serve and were off the ship by 8am. Getting through immigration and the cruise terminal was soooo smooth! No long lines, no big crowds to work through. It was marvelous. 10/10 experience and hope to be able to do it more in the future.”

Several commenters likewise endorsed self-schlepping luggage—though, as many pointed out, there are caveats to consider.

What to consider before choosing self-disembarkation from a cruise

First—to state the obvious—you need to make sure you can carry all of your luggage without assistance off the ship and to the terminal. That might mean you’ll need the arm strength to wheel suitcases across carpeting in some areas. If you have a lot of bulky items, by all means accept the crew’s offer to transport your bags to the terminal ahead of disembarkation.

Because hauling your belongings yourself works best if you’re traveling light, the option probably makes the most sense if you’ve taken a short trip or if you’re the sort of person who can cram a 2-week wardrobe into one carry-on.

Keep in mind also that the elevators aboard the ship will be very crowded on disembarkation day. Passengers toting luggage will need a little more space than the norm, which raises the possibility of an extended wait for an elevator with enough room to accommodate them. Obviously, that could defeat your effort to streamline the departure process.

Fortunately, there’s a strategy you can try to snag an elevator spot: “go up to go down,” as another Reddit user puts it.

In other words, when you arrive at the elevator bank, press the up button rather than the down. That’ll send you in the opposite direction of most of the other passengers, but eventually the ascending elevator you’ve boarded will become a descending one and you can exit at the bottom. As Sir Isaac Newton and ’60s rockers Blood, Sweat & Tears observed, What goes up must come down.