Why Thousands of Cruise Guests Spent the Day Waiting to Step Ashore

A routine screening from Customs and Border Control at the Port of San Francisco turned into an hours-long delay for guests of Norwegian Encore.

The NCL ship, which is operating two repositioning cruises simultaneously, arrived in San Francisco on April 28, 2026, for an overnight visit that quickly turned into a lesson in patience.

Due to a variety of issues impacting the customs process, guests were not allowed to go ashore for several hours and some were never able to disembark at all.

Making matters worse, guests who did manage to go ashore were not allowed to reboard the 169,116-gross ton ship until the clearance process was completed.

Guests of the current 18-night sailing were supposed to get one full day to enjoy the port on April 28, before disembarking in San Francisco on April 29.

Passengers staying onboard for the current 22-night sailing would get two full days to explore before sailing onward to Astoria, Oregon, and Victoria, British Columbia.

The 3,958-guest ship is bound for Seattle, Washington, where she will arrive on May 3, 2026, to disembark the remainder of the current passengers and to begin her Alaska season.

Technical Difficulties Impact CBP Agents

Some guests might be wondering why all passengers had to go through customs since nobody was beginning or ending their sailings that day, and there is actually a reason for this.

Though Norwegian Encore began the current two sailings in Miami, Florida, every port she has visited since embarking on April 11 has been an international destination. The Breakaway Plus-class ship sailed to Colombia, Panama, and Mexico, before arriving in San Francisco.

As this is the first US port call on the itinerary, the ship and its passengers had to be cleared by Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents.

“As per federal regulation, all passengers are required to go through an immigration screening at the first U.S. port when returning from an international destination,” Norwegian Cruise Line told NBC News in a statement.

While no one denies that customs is important to maintaining safety and security within the US, the issue is that the normally expedited process essentially took the entire day.

Unfortunately, the normal facial recognition technology that is used to efficiently screen US citizens was broken, so all passengers had to go through the biometric screening that is usually reserved for international guests.

The full process includes photographing and fingerprinting guests, as well as conducting interviews. With over 3,000 guests onboard, this is a time consuming ordeal.

Avid cruisers were shocked at the thoroughness of the clearance process, reporting that it was more extensive than they had experienced during previous sailings.

“They asked you questions…I showed him my driver’s license, my veteran’s card, showed them everything,” one passenger, named David Jones, told NBC.

“I’ve been on five cruises and I’ve never had a problem, ever…I’ve never gone through this anywhere,” another current guest, named Arthur Morrisette, reflected.

As of the time of this publication, the screening process is complete, and the NCL ship is scheduled to depart from San Francisco at 6 p.m. PST on April 29.

It’s unclear at this time if Norwegian Cruise Line has or will provide guests with any compensation for the inconvenience and/or missed shore excursions.

Additional Factors Cause Delays

It wasn’t just technical difficulties and an extra thorough screening process that caused the hours-long delay. A variety of other factors contributed to the slowdown.

CPB explained that part of the issue was that Norwegian Encore docked three hours late, which Cruise Hive confirmed by looking at cruise tracking data. This means that the CBP agents got off to a late start.

The late docking was most likely related to inclement weather, though this has not been confirmed by the cruise line. The San Francisco Port area is under a Small Craft Advisory through the night of April 29 due to strong winds reaching up to 25 knots and swells of up to 10 feet.

Additionally, CBP stated that a deceased passenger had to be retrieved and processed by a local coroner before the customs process could actually begin.

Details of the death are not publicly available, though Cruise Hive has no reason to believe the circumstances were suspicious at this time.

When these factors were combined with malfunctioning technology, there was no way to get around the extended delay except to go through it.