Experience With Transfers?

[JennAngel9]

We are arriving at 2:30pm in Auckland for a cruise that departs at 6pm. We are using Princess' transfers. Given that they are willing to provide us with a transfer, I presume that if we arrive on time, they will be waiting for us at the airport. I am also hopefully that if we arrive w/in an hour of scheduled arrival, they will be waiting (I'm aware we may have to wait for the bus to fill, etc.).

My question is, presumably if we were delayed beyond some point (I would assume before 5pm) the final transfer from the airport will have left and we will be stranded at the airport. Does anyone have any guesses as when the cut-off would be or the person I would contact at Princess to ask? We can't leave any earlier and I am OK with the fact there's some chance we may be driving from Port 1 to Port 2 instead of cruising-- I just would ideally like to know about how much of a delay we can handle before we start calling rental car companies etc.

Has anybody ever missed a transfer due to a delayed flight? Is there a Princess rep there to notify you missed the boat or are you left to figure it out? Do you end up paying for the transfer?

Thanks!

[Toto2Kansas]

Did Princess arrange these flights for you, or were they privately booked? That is cutting it awfully close to sailing time, as all passengers must be checked in an hour before sailing (if memory serves me correctly). That doesn't give you much wiggle room if your flight is delayed at all.
Some of the answer to your question depends on the answer to the question above.

[katisdale]

I have had them wait from a scheduled arrival time of 5 PM until we actually got there at 9:30 PM. This was in Athens Greece. However our transfer was from the airport to the hotel for a pre-cruise stay booked through Princess. We did the flights independently. I wish you were arriving a day early but one must do what must be done. We were delayed on the leg from London's Heathrow to Athens. I did not bother to call the number for delayed flights but they waited as our flight had not arrived. We did get a taxi transfer rather than a bus.

[JennAngel9]

Thanks Toto and katisdale. I wish we were arriving a day earlier too! It will be very helpful if we have a number to call for flight delays, so far we have not seen anything to this effect.

We booked our own flight, but are flying directly from Brisbane, so shouldn't have to deal with too many connection issues. I agree we don't have almost any wiggle room, but I figure we have a 3 in 4 chance of arriving on time and a 1 in 4 chance of an adventurous drive through the countryside.

I actually will feel a lot better so long as we only have to be checked in one hour in advance of sailing instead of 2. They say that you are supposed to be at the pier 2 hours in advance of boarding-- but I have been on plenty of ships that have left late waiting for the last couple passengers. I don't expect the ship to wait for us, but I feel a lot more confident about our odds to be on the ship by 5:30 instead of 4:00.

[Pam in CA]

Originally Posted by JennAngel9

...but I have been on plenty of ships that have left late waiting for the last couple passengers. I don't expect the ship to wait for us, but I feel a lot more confident about our odds to be on the ship by 5:30 instead of 4:00.

I wouldn't count on the ship waiting. A lot of times, it's dependent on the tides, pilot availability, etc. If the ship has a specific time slot in which to leave and misses that, it could be very costly to the cruiseline as the harbormaster has to reschedule the pilots and time slots. Captains try to avoid additional costs so ultimately, it's up to the Captain whether to wait or not. I haven't been to Brisbane so I don't know the port but I've been on quite a few cruises where the Captain didn't have many options.

[JennAngel9]

Thanks Pam. To be clear, we definitely don't want the ship to wait for us, but we are thinking if we are on a ship transfer and we hit traffic, we might be able to fudge the "2 hour in advance" arrival a bit.