The check-in process for a cruise can really make or break your cruise holiday, which is actually quite a worrying statement due to it been right at the start of your adventure.

You arrive at the cruise port full of excitement and after weeks or months of planning, it is now time to have an experience to remember and make the most of your time at sea.

From kerbside to stepping onboard a lot can change however and all of that excitement can drain out of you and by the time you tap your room key to enter the ship, you are fed up and ready to head for home.

That all comes down to experience you have at check-in, when at best it just takes a few moments to get from security to the buffet but at worst, it can be hours of queuing, confusion and going round in circles and I should know as I have had both of those experiences.

Using what I have learnt from all of my check-in experiences around the globe, these are my top 10 picks to make the process as quick and easy as possible.

Our Top 10 Tips for Faster Cruise Check-In

Use Pre-Check In Services

This is simply a must do nowadays as the majority of cruise lines allow you to do much of the check-in process before even getting to the cruise terminal.

Make sure you take advantage of that to save having to queue at the terminal to do it once you get there.

This is especially true for your onboard photo, setting up your payment for your onboard account, completing the health questionnaire and other must do things that need to be achieved before boarding.

Print Forms

There are some forms that are a necessity, such as insurance documents, visa proof and your boarding pass and whilst most of these are now digital and you can load them up on your form, I highly recommend having a paper back up.

At worst, your phone battery could run out and you cannot access them or simply it can be just that the signal at the terminal could be incredibly slow.

There’s also the chance that something you save to your phone gets corrupted, or you cannot find it but no matter why things go wrong with a digital version of an important document, having a hard copy at hand takes away the worry and the extra wait from having to refined or download it all at the port.

Arrive On Time

Its always amazing to me that so many people view the arrival time you are given for checking in as just a suggestion.

It is designed to spread out passengers, so staff at terminals don’t get overwhelmed and the whole thing doesn’t grind to a halt.

If you have ever been delayed whilst waiting to board your ship, or if there are issues at an airport, you can quickly see how fast things unravel and a small issue can become a major headache.

It is mostly a problem out of peoples control but then it is often the fault of people simply turning up when they shouldn’t.

I experienced this at first hand when sailing on the MSC Virtuosa from Southampton at a terminal I have gone from arrival to check-in in minutes but on that occasion, I couldn’t even get in the building upon arrival.

Make sure you arrive at your allotted time to not only make sure you get through the process quicker but everybody else does as well.

Pick Early or Late Check-In

Aside from a big initial rush as soon as check-in opens, things do tend to quickly calm down before storm hits around a couple of hours into the check-in period.

From there it tends to be all action until around an hour or so before check-in closes- aside from a last minute rush and whilst it does depend on things such as if most cruisers will be flying in to the departure port or if most are driving there, those tend to be the ebbs and flow of departure day.

If you pick an arrival time outside of the busiest ones, you often get a much calmer and speedier boarding process.

A top tip for this one is to take not of any boarding time slots that are full, don’t book the one straight after it.

Have Everything You Need At Hand

Every line has a different process at the port of departure but with most allowing you to do most things online before you get there, the things you actually need at hand tends to be quite small.

What I tend to do, well to be fair what my wife tends to do as she’s the organised one, is to have a folder in her carry on that has all the things you need such as boarding pass, passports etc and as soon as we clear security, she gets the folder out and then no matter what we are asked for, we have it at hand.

That helps you to speed through the check in process and whilst it may only save you a minute or two, it all helps and when you add up all of those minutes over 4-5000 passengers, it can make a huge difference for everybody.

Use Tag Holders

Most cruise lines will ask you to print off luggage tags at home and then fold them up, loop them through a handle on your suitcase and then staple them.

Yes, its sturdy but its still paper and staples which can lead to them coming off when you grab your bag getting out of your car or a taxi or even walking over to the terminal.

That can really slow things down as you need to find someone to help and hope they can print you another one so what I used to do was put two tags on each suitcase, through the top and side handles.

What I do know is put the printed tag into a tag holder that you can then properly fasten to your case which not only make it much tougher to accidently rip it off your bag but it also offer protection from rain.

Quick Safety Drill

The very last thing that you likely need to do as part of the check-in process is to complete the safety drill and whilst some line still force you to all do it at the same time, the majority allow you to do it any time from boarding to departure.

That helps to make it much quicker and even safer as large crowds of people aren’t trying to use stairs at the same time but you can still make the process better by heading to your muster station early.

I tend to watch the safety video as soon as I board and then head to the muster station then as not only does that tend to mean there are no queues but it then something I don’t have to think about and my holiday as truly started.

If you leave it until everybody is onboard, you can often get stuck in a queue and getting in the way of people enjoying their getaway.

Check For Priority Lines

It’s fair to say that with most lines, the rewards you get for your loyalty don’t really add up to too much but one thing that can often a big plus are priority lines at the departure terminal.

Make sure you know if you have access to these before arriving as not only can they help you avoid queues, but you can also often get earlier access to the ship.

Check Security Rules

Every departure day starts with heading through security at the terminal and whilst cruse security is certainly much simpler and more relaxed than airport security, there are still some things you cannot take through it.

It also changes from country to country and sometimes even termina to terminal based on the technology they have in their, so even if you have cruise a few times before, make sure you quickly check to see what is on the banned list at the terminal you are due to depart from.

Not only will it save you from likely losing something you wanted to take with you, but it saves the time of having to get pulled over, find the item in your bank and get your telling off from the security officer.

Avoid Mega Ports

Big ships mean big queues, lots of big ships can often mean chaos and that was the experience I had in Barcelona.

It’s not just the chaos from the 1000’s of passengers from your ship but the 10’s of thousands from other ships and all of the trucks, cars, taxis, buses etc you get as a whole load of ship all arrive and depart around the same time.

If you want a more relaxed embarkation and probably a quicker check-in, try to stick to smaller ports that maybe just have the 1 ship to focus on.