time to tender with excursions

[Ashtonwa]

I am a first time cruiser and am looking at booking the cave tubing/zip line tour with cabe-tubing.com. My question is with the need to tender, when will we have to schedule the tour and when do we need to be back to the small boats to make it back to the ship on time?

[OCruisers]

You'll just need to schedule it so that you can make it back for the last tender.

Normally, this is thirty minutes before your ship is scheduled to sail.

To be on the safe side you might want to be back to the tender dock about an hour before your ship is scheduled to sail.

 

Since you are a first time cruiser, you might want to at least consider booking this sort of excursion through the ship so you don't have to worry about the timing. ;)

 

LuLu

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[Ashtonwa]

So when booking the tour what time should I say I can make it if we "dock" at 8am? Not sure how long I will have to wait to get on a tender to get over there.

[Stevesan]

So when booking the tour what time should I say I can make it if we "dock" at 8am? Not sure how long I will have to wait to get on a tender to get over there.

 

It's difficult to answer that accurately. Passengers taking the ship's tours have prirority and will go first. I'd allow at least an hour for them. The tender ride to the dock is @ 20 minutes.

 

As a first time cruiser you might consider booking the ship's tour. It will cost more, but the anxiety level will be a lot lower. :)

[tlacabe]

If your booked on a NCL, all passengers that booked private excursions was ask to report to the piano bar area at 8. Around 8ish a NCL employee will show up and issue numbers. Once all the passagers that booked with the cruise line exited, they will begin to call numbers.

Note this was the procedure in February 2011

I booked with the same company their business is 98% cruise ship passengers. They will get you back in time, as they say…easy belziey.

Note:

When we proceeded to the tender area no one asked for a number.

Cavetubing.com has several buses we missed the 1st one and still had plenty of time to tube. We return in enough time to get our hair braided and shop.

[Ashtonwa]

If your booked on a NCL, all passengers that booked private excursions was ask to report to the piano bar area at 8. Around 8ish a NCL employee will show up and issue numbers. Once all the passagers that booked with the cruise line exited, they will begin to call numbers.

Note this was the procedure in February 2011

I booked with the same company their business is 98% cruise ship passengers. They will get you back in time, as they say…easy belziey.

Note:

When we proceeded to the tender area no one asked for a number.

Cavetubing.com has several buses we missed the 1st one and still had plenty of time to tube. We return in enough time to get our hair braided and shop.

 

This is actually the company I am looking at. Reviews are superb. Not one reviewer has had trouble with times. Thanks for the info.