Strategies for Easier Disembarkation

On the last day of a cruise, the drill goes something like this: You’re assigned a number and a disembarkation time according to your scheduled flight and cabin category (suites get priority). You’re asked to vacate your room by about 8 am so the crew can clean and ready it for the new passengers embarking a few hours later.

On large ships carrying more than about 1,500 passengers, ship’s stairwells, lounges, and open decks become a vast waiting room, as you and your fellow shipmates — and their collective carry-on bags — anxiously wait for numbers to be called. On a big mass-market ship with thousands of passengers, it’s usually an inelegant way to end a vacation, but here are five ways to make your exit more enjoyable:

Strategy #1: Carry your own luggage.

If your suitcase is small enough to fit through a standard airport-style X-ray machine (cruise ship terminals have them for scanning carry-on bags), you have the option of taking your own bag on and off the ship. That means you’re entitled to disembark first.

There’s another bonus to carrying your own bag: Non-carry-on suitcases have to be put outside your cabin door the night before so the crew can collect and stack them in the cargo hold for offloading at the terminal. Once you get off the ship, you then have to take the time to claim your bag from the hundreds on the pier.

Strategy #2: Throw money at the issue.

Some cruise lines offer an optional VIP disembarkation service. For a fee, you can stay onboard until just before the ship departs on its next voyage. On European cruises, for example, Celebrity Cruises charges $59 per adult and $29.50 per child to stay for breakfast and lunch onboard, plus access to movies, the pool, and the gym until a mere 90 minutes before the ship sets sail on its next voyage.

Strategy #3: Give yourself time and take it easy.

If your flight doesn’t leave until later in the day and you haven’t signed up for the ship’s bus transfer to the airport — and you aren’t interested in seeing the disembarkation port — then don’t stress about getting off the ship. Linger over breakfast in the buffet, have one last bloody mary at the pool bar, or head to the photo gallery to review the formal portraits you posed for earlier in the week.

When you’re done, find a quiet corner on deck, grab a chair, and relax with a good book — or in the sun — while everyone else congregates in the ship’s stairwells and atrium until their numbers are called. You can wait for the crowds to die down to disembark if you don’t have to be anywhere.

Strategy #4: Hang out in your cabin as long as you can.

Some cruise lines, including Norwegian Cruise Line and Holland America Line, as well as most of the luxury lines, offer room-service breakfast the morning of embarkation if you hang your order form on your cabin door handle the night before. Eating in — especially if you have a balcony to hang out on — is a great way to avoid the bustle in the lido deck buffet as fellow shipmates rush to eat before disembarking.

Sometimes, the cabin crew will even let you stay on the balcony while they clean your room if you stash your stuff in the closet so it isn’t in their way.

Strategy #5: Sneak out early.

The crew won’t tell you this, but you might not be asked for your color-coded disembarkation tag when you leave the ship — so try heading up to the gangway whenever you’re ready.

Keep in mind, however, that luggage is off-loaded according to those numbers — if you were assigned number 12, for instance, you may have to wait in the terminal for hundreds of other suitcases to be offloaded until your bags are available.