Tendering on Celebrity British Isles Cruise

On the Eclipse this July for a British Isles Cruise, and we are tendering in Edinburgh. We plan on joining a group excursion in Edinburgh, meeting point likely on the Royal Mile. I’ve asked the travel agent who inquired with Celebrity. Celebrity Excursion folks will get priority getting off the ship. Also have to go through Customs. Suggested we speak to Customer Service on board but not sure how helpful they will be considering it is a non-Celebrity excursion. Not so worried about return time since we plan on taking the excursion day 1 of 2 days in Edinburgh. Trying to figure out how long we need to get to the meeting point for the tour. Anyone with prior experience tendering at Edinburgh who can shed some light on how lengthy the process?

Tendering in Edinburgh can be a real problem because the ship must anchor a considerable distance from the port. There have been several threads discussing this issue. We visited Edinburgh 2 years ago on one of Celebrity's Signature cruises for the Tattoo. I'm not sure if Celebrity has overnight visits to Edinburgh that are not aligned with the Tattoo. The last couple of years Celebrity has used some of the lifeboats for tendering. We were fortunate to be Elite and used the priority tendering and got off shortly after Celebrity's excursions. But the lines were very long, I would allow at least 2.5 hours after tendering starts for a meeting time. FYI after the Tattoo, passengers were still trying to get back to the ship until about 2:30 am. We really enjoyed Edinburgh but the tendering was a real pain, and you need to repeat it both days. If I were to do it again I would get a room in Edinburgh for the night and eliminate 2 legs of the tendering. You can have a relaxed enjoyable dinner the first night as well as waking refreshed for the second day. There are also a couple of different port locations in Edinburgh, you should confirm the meeting point to be at the correct port.

Enjoy your trip.

In addition to the tendering, the Royal Mile is a fair distance from where the tenders will drop you off. It can be very busy and slow to get a cab.

I also have never had to go through Customs when arriving in Edinburgh. If that is not confirmed you may want to double check as it will definitely save time.

All in all I think you would need a minimum of 2hrs from the time tendering starts with 3hrs being safer.

Tendering is not a factor of cruising that Celebrity can be proud of. It is cumbersome and takes a long time especially if the 6 ships tenders are all that are available. 120 people max per tender, around a 40 minute round trip minimum and then loading off the ship you do the maths. Unless you have a form of priority boarding then expect a long wait to get ashore. If arrival time is 0800 expect tender tickets to be made available around and hour before which means in order to get an early or low number tender ticket you will need to queue up at least an hour earlier because others will be doing that. If you are a couple or part of a group take turns in the line and get tickets for all your group. The only short way of avoiding tender tickets is to either be in a suite, elite status or above , have a high roller status in the casino or take a ships excursion. Money unfortunately buys status and associated perks.

Suggest you check to see if Celebrity has a basic "on your own" shore excursion that would provide some tender priority and get you to the Royal Mile for your meet up for the private tour.

Do you know where the tenders are dropping you off ? If it is S Queensferry your best option for getting into town would be the train. It it just a short walk up to the Royal Mile from Waverley Station.

I don't think I've ever read a positive comment regarding tendering at Edinburgh - unless you count, "We didn't drown." We're considering a different 12 night BI cruise in June, 2019, out of Dublin that includes several stops in Ireland and ends in Amsterdam. Also, 2 days in LeHavre really attracted us - more time for Paris. :)

On the Eclipse this July for a British Isles Cruise, and we are tendering in Edinburgh. We plan on joining a group excursion in Edinburgh, meeting point likely on the Royal Mile. I’ve asked the travel agent who inquired with Celebrity. Celebrity Excursion folks will get priority getting off the ship. Also have to go through Customs. Suggested we speak to Customer Service on board but not sure how helpful they will be considering it is a non-Celebrity excursion. Not so worried about return time since we plan on taking the excursion day 1 of 2 days in Edinburgh. Trying to figure out how long we need to get to the meeting point for the tour. Anyone with prior experience tendering at Edinburgh who can shed some light on how lengthy the process?

I was aboard Silhouette--with an overnight in Edinburgh [for the British Open at St. Andrews; it was a Signature sailing]--in July 2015... The ship was scheduled to anchor at South Queensferry but, at the last possible moment, port authorities redirected us to anchor at a far more central location on the Firth Of Forth with tendering into Leith [adjacent to the Ocean Terminal used by smaller ships]... Sounded great initially but the weather was so inclement--heavy rains, stiff winds, high/difficult tides--that tendering operations were fully cancelled coincident with our arrival on Saturday morning [for semi-finals play at the Open; for the first time in years, those were suspended that day too with the semi-finals postponed until Sunday/finals rescheduled from Sunday to Monday] and were not started until more than 24 hours later on Sunday morning... Ship tenders--supplemented by much larger municipal tenders at anticipated peak times--were then used in an attempt to expedite the transfer processes between the ship and Leith... Getting ashore on Sunday morning was ultimately uneventful--and Celebrity did an amazing job in rescheduling golf/non-golf excursions--but a recurrence of torrential rains, coupled with renewed windy conditions, on Sunday afternoon caused soggy/cranky waits of 45 minutes to an hour for return tenders from Leith to the ship...

Out of consideration for the many golf enthusiasts aboard, Silhouette remained in Edinburgh through Monday evening [double overnight] to allow "finals" attendance at St. Andrews but, in exchange, we needed to cancel our next scheduled port call at Inverness and instead proceeded directly to Belfast to get back on schedule...

Weather happens--and it did improve with a rainbow just as we were sailing away on Monday evening--but, with more than 400 nights at sea, I've never encountered anything remotely comparable... It was quite an experience!

Hope everything goes smoothly for you!

On the Eclipse this July for a British Isles Cruise, and we are tendering in Edinburgh. We plan on joining a group excursion in Edinburgh, meeting point likely on the Royal Mile. I’ve asked the travel agent who inquired with Celebrity. Celebrity Excursion folks will get priority getting off the ship. Also have to go through Customs. Suggested we speak to Customer Service on board but not sure how helpful they will be considering it is a non-Celebrity excursion. Not so worried about return time since we plan on taking the excursion day 1 of 2 days in Edinburgh. Trying to figure out how long we need to get to the meeting point for the tour. Anyone with prior experience tendering at Edinburgh who can shed some light on how lengthy the process?

When do you meet on the Royal Mile and what day of the week??

Annie

We booked the On Your Own excursion just for this reason. We were on one of the first tenders off the ship, boarded a bus which let us off near the Holyrood Palace end of the Royal Mile. Other members of our CC group who had private tours had to wait. We were at least an hour ahead of them. Well worth the extra we paid for the excursion, in my opinion.

Last August we got in the tender ticket line early and had no problem getting off the ship. Good luck!

Just double check where you are meeting your tour guide on the Royal Mile as you may have to factor in a fairly steep walk up hill :) The Castle is at the very top, Holyrood is the very bottom.

Thank you all for your insight! We played with many different options, including On Your Own and an overpriced Celebrity Excursion. We are scheduled for tender at Newhaven on a Sat/Sun, which apparently is closest to Leith. The On Your Own time is scheduled at 9:30. I did try to clarify if this mean we are called at 9:30 or we end up on land in Edinburgh by 9:30, and I was informed by the travel agent (who consulted with Celebrity) it would be the latter. Most private all day tours seem to range 8am-9:30am start times. I feel this would not work for us and would be too stressful, especially with so many unknowns, weather being one. We decided to bite the bullet and book an excursion directly with Celebrity for the guarantee. Only at Edinburgh though. For our next cruise, I will likely look at only cruises w/o tender ports.

Glad you have managed to sort something out, actually Sat/Sun the traffic isn't too much of a problem. Enjoy your time in Edinburgh and be prepared for 4 seasons in a day :)