The title of my blog today may seem a little harsh, but I think we can all agree that at one time or another, we have each come across another passenger on the morning of disembarkation that we would have gladly thrown overboard – even though we were tied up alongside at the time. 😉

We spend a large part of our voyages getting to know new people, everything always seems so calm and relaxed, and incredibly friendly, but then disembarkation day arrives and suddenly people we once smiled at and said hello to in the cabin corridor have turned into stark raving lunatics that we just want to avoid. People suddenly lose their cool over the smallest of things.

Disembarkation day arrives and what are we all trying to do? We are ALL trying to get off the ship via the same exit – naturally, this takes time, but so many people seem to forget that and get themselves into such a miserable mood. Picture the scene. There are THREE AND A HALF THOUSAND PEOPLE trying to leave the ship and you are one of them, but it can’t be done on a first come first served basis, it needs to be structured and staggered. You are given instructions on where to meet and at what time – can we all just get there without the nastiness in-between, please?

I know that the biggest issue is the usage of the lifts, this is always the key ingredient when it comes to arguments, and I do appreciate that it is super frustrating when you have been waiting a long time – after 28 cruises, I too have done my fair share of waiting for lifts on disembarkation day, but only if I physically can’t walk down the decks because of the amount of baggage I have – but there is no excuse for taking that frustration out on other people.

Recently I watched two older gentleman exchange a balloon full of heated words during disembarkation, and then one pushed the other out of the lift. I know it can be stressful, but that’s no excuse for rudeness or a physical altercation. One guy had a bag on the floor, the bag was between the lift wall and his feet and was very small – essentially whether the bag was on the floor or not was irrelevant because it wasn’t big enough to cause a problem. A man got in the lift and with such a bad attitude said to the owner of the bag “does that bag have to be on the floor?” to which the other man simply replied “yes”. Words then went back and forth and eventually the man that owned the bag pushed the other out of the lift – twice. I couldn’t believe my eyes or my ears.

Disembarkation is not all negative though! Some people simply don’t let anything bother them. They sit there, quite content, waiting for the crew member in charge of the area to tell them they can leave and then off they go with not a care in the world.

I don’t think my blog today has a point as such, I just wanted to share some of my disembarkation day demons with you. I think 85% of us go about the process with a calm head, but I ask the other 15% to please just chill out! We are all trying to get to the same place and get there we will – 10-minutes, in the grand scheme of things, really makes NO difference.

Happy Disembarkation! 😉