Norwegian Joy Passengers Stuck 2.5 Hours in Seattle Customs Line
This touches Norwegian Joy's one-way repositioning sailing from Vancouver to Los Angeles, and any similar sailing where Seattle is the first U.S. Port of Entry. On such a cruise, every passenger must step off and clear customs in person, even if they plan to stay aboard to California. Read the customs notification the cruise line sends and plan to be at your check on time. A missed check can hold up the entire ship. If you are boarding in Seattle that day, expect a long wait outside the terminal.
My read is that this was a process failure, not a ship problem, and the cruise line was mostly stuck taking orders. Norwegian Joy's 5-night Vancouver to Los Angeles repositioning made Seattle the first U.S. Port of Entry, so all passengers, including those staying aboard, had to clear a face-to-face check at once. That is a predictable crunch, and adding computer glitches and reportedly too few border agents made it worse. The dry irony is that six passengers who skipped their check reportedly held up about 3,000 people. The losers were the newly embarking guests, who were still on the sidewalk well past the 7 p.m. all-aboard time. The article puts the decisions with federal officers and says NCL had to follow CBP instructions. I would read every customs notice on a repositioning cruise and show up early. I would also not blame the cruise line before checking who controls the gate.