NOLA Escape: Embarkation

I stayed at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans last night. I just checked out and I’m walking through the mall to the port area. I have to stop by my car which is parked at Fulton Garage. It’s noon and people are heading down to the port.

I took a peek outside and they have started boarding.

It looks like there are still people from the last cruise down there. The ship was late getting in. Debarkation started just before 9am.

If you do a week of cruise parking at Fulton and add a hotel stay to the front of it, you have to check back in with them on embarkation day to get a sticker for your car.

Valor is in port today as well so the shuttles are going to be busy.

They’re splitting up shuttles between the two ships. This one is going to Escape and the next one is going to Valor. I don’t think I’m going to get on this one so I’ll have to wait for at least two more shuttles. 

It’s a short walk to the Norwegian port from here so I’m going to walk it.

It took me eight minutes to get from the garage to the port.

I missed the porter outside so I had to go back out to check my bag.

It was five minutes to get from this line to the security line.

I messed up in the security line. I ended up in the disabled line because I was just following the crowd and had elderly people in front of me. When I realized it I got out of line. That wasted five minutes.

The lady working the line who should have been the one to point me to the right line in the first place, tells me get back in it. It’s the shorter line, but the other one is moving faster because it has five security stations and this one only has one. 

That took 20 minutes the second time and I felt like I could’ve been through the regular line three times by then.

They are stopping security now because the check-in line is backed up.

They are starting security back up. It was shut down for five minutes.

I left the garage on foot at 12:44 and was on the ship at 1:55. I think getting in the wrong security line cost me 15-20 minutes.

Next time we’ll cover day 1 on Norwegian Escape.

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