PAT time is the time that you should be allowed to go into the terminal. Once in the terminal you will be called by your boarding group starting with 1 etc. This used to start around 12:00 pm. I can't remember if on our last cruise out of Port Canaveral if they started calling boarding groups before 12. When they are calling boarding groups it moves very quickly so I wouldn't worry if you get a higher boarding group. On the last cruise we had a PAT time of 11:30 and boarding group of 8. We got to the port a little early, parked the car and waited in line until our PAT time was called to go into the terminal. we than waited until boarding group 8 was called which was some time after 12:00. We were still called to board before open boarding.