Norwegian Joy held Seattle boarding for a face-to-face customs check

Norwegian Joy’s Seattle stop on 2 Oct 2026 turned into a long wait on the pier. KIRO 7’s report, published in the early hours of 3 Oct UTC, says guests could not board while an immigration and customs check was underway. The ship had left Vancouver.

If this was your cruise, you already lived it. If your next one starts in Canada and hits a U.S. port next, the same kind of check can land on you.

What KIRO reported

KIRO’s transcript says dozens of people trying to board waited hours. A viewer called the station from the Seattle cruise terminal around 7 that night. People in line said no one was allowed on the ship because of an immigration and customs check. They said they had left Vancouver, B.C., and were taken to Seattle to clear immigration.

A guest who told KIRO she has been cruising for 40 years called it an unusual night. Her line in the transcript: “This immigration process is so unusual and so I don’t really know. I have my own theory as to what’s going on.”

KIRO said the cruise was headed south toward Los Angeles, then Mexico and the Caribbean. The station said it was contacting Norwegian Cruise Line and Immigration and Customs. The transcript does not include a reply.

The KIRO headline names Norwegian Joy. The transcript says “a Norwegian cruise.” Pier 66 is not in that transcript.

The ship had already flagged Seattle

A passenger site that reprints Joy’s 1 Oct 2026 Freestyle Daily, from the Vancouver embarkation day, says the daily told every guest to attend a mandatory Customs and Border Protection face-to-face inspection on arrival in Seattle. It says guests going ashore were told to carry what they needed, because they might not get back on until the inspection was finished.

That is the ship’s own heads-up, as that site describes the daily. It is not a surprise rule invented on the pier. The delay is what stretched the line.

The clock that was on the timetable

Cruise Timetables lists Joy on a 6-night Pacific Coast cruise from Vancouver to Los Angeles. Seattle is on the page for Friday 2 Oct, 1:30pm to 7:30pm. Astoria is Saturday 3 Oct, 1:00pm to 8:00pm. San Francisco is Monday 5 Oct, 10:00am to 8:00pm. Los Angeles arrival is Wednesday 7 Oct at 7:00am. Vancouver is the 1 Oct embarkation. That page is the planned window. It does not record the wait.

Cruise Fever, dated 3 Oct, puts the backup at Pier 66 and says one traveler reported two and a half hours to get off through customs. It says Seattle was the first U.S. port after Canada, so the face-to-face check covered guests who were staying aboard for California, too. It also reports terminal computer trouble and passenger accounts that a few people missed the check. Those missing-guest details are passenger reports in Cruise Fever. They are not in the KIRO transcript, and Norwegian had not answered KIRO in the report above.

Cruise Fever says Joy later cleared Seattle and was on its Astoria call, headed for California.

Joy’s earlier Sitka delay is a separate post: Norwegian Joy docks late in Sitka after a whale was found on the bow.

What this means for you

If you are still on this Vancouver-to-Los Angeles cruise, use the ship’s app for the Astoria and San Francisco times. The timetable above is the plan Cruise Timetables published. Cruise Fever is the outlet that said the ship had resumed that plan.

If a later cruise of yours starts outside the U.S. and the first American port is a middle stop, read the daily before that morning. On this sailing, the 1 Oct daily already said Seattle would be a face-to-face inspection, and that a shore walk could lock you off the ship until it finished. Build slack into a pier meetup, a flight, or a tour on that day. A long line is a bad evening. A missed ship is worse.

Facts above follow KIRO 7’s 3 Oct 2026 transcript, Cruise Fever the same day, the 1 Oct Freestyle Daily account, and the Cruise Timetables Seattle page.