Cruise Elevator Luggage Debate: Etiquette Expert Weighs In on Disembarkation Crowding
If you're carrying your own luggage during disembarkation, plan ahead: consider leaving larger suitcases outside your cabin the night before for crew pickup. If sailing Carnival, know that checked baggage service during embarkation ends two hours before sailing—after that, you're responsible for carrying bags aboard yourself. In elevators, let others exit first, wait for another car if one is full, and give priority to passengers with mobility issues.
What strikes me here is how a routine logistics squeeze—thousands of passengers disembarking at once—turns into a manners flashpoint on Reddit. Gottsman's advice is practical, not preachy: use the elevator if you need to, just read the room. The Carnival policy detail is the real actionable nugget—arrive within two hours of sailing and you're hauling your own bags, full stop, no exceptions noted. Mobility-impaired passengers are the clear losers in this dynamic, as one commenter's account of a mother on a scooter facing rudeness illustrates. My read: this isn't a cruise-line problem to solve, it's a crowd-management problem passengers create for each other. In the reader's shoes, I'd tag bags for crew pickup the night before whenever possible and simply build in extra time on disembarkation morning rather than gamble on elevator etiquette holding up.