If you’ve seen the crowd waiting to board a 200-seat plane, imagine what’s involved in boarding 4000-passengers on a cruise ship. Carnival is re-imagining the scene with staggered boarding times.
Staggered boarding, with each passenger assigned a specific boarding time, has been added to 12 cities since late 2015, and will now be expanded to 6 more Carnival ports, starting with Tampa next week. The others are Jacksonville, Port Canaveral, San Juan, Vancouver and Seattle. It’s already in place in Baltimore, Barcelona, Charleston, Fort Lauderdale, Galveston, Honolulu, Long Beach, Miami, Mobile, New Orleans, New York and Norfolk.
Of course, as with most transportation companies, Carnival is also looking for ways to make a bit extra on fees, and also sells a perk called “First to the Fun” which gives priority boarding to a limited number of passengers for a fee ranging from $49.95 for short cruises to $79.95 for longer ones.
