We recently cruised for our first time aboard Sensation. Had a fabulous time. The only down side was the day we disembarked. We are Canadian and we had to clear US Customs at 7:00am in one of the lounges. As there were over 250 other non US citizens, it took quite a while to clear.

My concern is that we are now looking at another cruise in Jan 2004. Someone has told us that if the ports of call are the US Virgin Islands, we are going to run into the same sort of problem.
We've heard that you have to clear US Customs before you can get off the ship. Any comments?

You will have an early immigration call in the US Virgin Islands. Every passenger must go. The ships we were on there was one area for US citizens and one area for non US citizens to go to. The immigration call usually starts around 6:00 am.

This entire thing gets really confusing. We are from Florida, and went through on-board immigration in early December. If you leave from San Juan (U.S. Territory) and then stop in St. Thomas, no on board immigration, but if you stop say in Dominica first, then St. Thomas, then you do have immigration. Same holds true for Florida, when ships stop at their own islands 1st, and then St. Thomas, immigration again. You want to look at St. Thomas being your 1st port, but unfortunately, that doesn't always work. It's annoying, but very easy, basically a walk through to check passports, etc. Hope this helps.