All aboard! How close have you cut it?

[tempus137]

We were on an RCI cruise to Cozumel. We decided to take a shore excursion to Tulum, with a beach stop for lunch.

 

The excursion required a ferry ride to Playa del Carmen, where we boarded a bus to Tulum for an hour-long trip. After touring the ruins, it was almost a two hour ride to the beach. Then an hour back to Playa del Carmen, where we almost missed the ferry back to Cozumel.

 

Because the excursion was booked on the ship, they waited for us, but the ferry wouldn't have. Instead of some leisure time to walk through the town before the ferry, since the bus wasn't parked anywhere near the ferry pier, we had to run through Playa & got on the ferry with a minute to spare.

Edited October 6, 2015 by tempus137

[teekeelee]

We usually try to get back to the ship an hour before all aboard but had a close call a few years ago on POA. We spent too much time playing in the surf at Hapuna beach in Hawaii and realized we better get a move on to beat the rush hour traffic. In our rush to throw our beach gear in the trunk of our rented PT cruiser my husband accidentally wacked me in the head with the corner of the trunk. OUCH!!! I saw stars!!! We wasted more time making a bag of ice from our cooler to put on my head. We were a long way from Kona when we hit gridlock traffic on the highway. We crept along ever so slowly and were sure we wouldn’t make it back in time. Traffic started moving ever so slowly and we returned the rental car at the Kamehameha hotel and sprinted to the tender, me with a cold can of diet coke on my head since the ice had melted. We were the last passengers on the tender with the crew and a few other passengers who applauded when we got on board. I have a permanent dent in my head which will always remind me of our first and hopefully last close call.

[sparkinator]

Our first cruise was 14 years ago on the Norway out of Miami. We boarded a flight that morning, and as they were checking our documentation, the lady at the flight counter said she didn't need all of my documents for the cruise, just my drivers license. Well, that's all we brought. Both my wife and I were told by our travel agent that we didn't need birth certificates or passports, just our picture ID. We were stunned. It was early Sunday morning, so we didn't really have anyone we could call to confirm it.

 

We had a connecting flight in Atlanta, with a hour or so layover, so I got on the phone and called my teenaged daughter at home to try and round up our birth certificates. She had been at prom the night before, so she was sleeping HARD. Had to call the next door neighbor to go wake my daughter up. We finally got her on the phone and told her to go get our birth cert. out of the lock-box and take them to my place of work and to fax them to us. We would get her a number to fax to.

 

She found the docs, and fortunately, we were standing across the aisle from a fax/call center in the airport. We called back to a co-worker and told him to expect my daughter and the fax number. They finally got the fax machine working (neither knew much about them back then) and we got received the fax with about 10 minutes before our departure time. Of course, we had to run across Atlanta airport to the gate, because they are never close, and barely made it.

 

We were excited and pretty proud of ourselves when we made it to the cruise terminal in Miami. When we made it to the NCL counter, we were explaining how hard it was to get all of our paperwork together, the NCL rep told us that faxed copies were acceptable. We were floored again. They told us to wait to the side of the counter and they would try to help us after everyone else boarded. In the end, they did let us board, but we weren't sure until the last minute.

 

When we got on board, we headed to our room (down in the lower levels of the Norway), and crashed. We slept through dinner and woke up about midnight. We were exhausted and relieved. We've always been a lot more prepared since.

[IWORK2CRUISE]

Generally, we ensure that we are back onboard before we need to be.

 

We did have a scare in Cabo San Lucas a few years ago as we decided to walk back to the tender along the beach. We didn't know that it was not a straight shot. From the beach you must cut into the marina and go waaaaaay in and around! You don't see that as you look down the beach.

 

We were running and sweating afraid of missing the final tender.

 

Thankfully, we made it.

 

On another trip, without tender services, we were standing outside of our ship in Curacao taking pictures more than half an hour before all passengers were to be on board.

Apparently, all passengers returned early that day!

Imagine our surprise when we heard our names being paged to check if we were on board.

[leekel619]

A great running tune.

 

 

[emoji106]🏻[emoji125]

[leekel619]

[quote name='Misskitty72']I love Yackety Sax! It makes any video hilarious.



[url]http://youtu.be/8pQAWOCofXo[/url][/QUOTE]


That was so funny!

[Reebster]

We arrived 25 minutes after our scheduled sailing time from a (cruise line, thank goodness) shore excursion in the Dominican Republic. The vehicle got a flat tire, then we also were stuck in traffic due to road construction. The ship was in radio contact with the driver to try to figure out our ETA. As soon as our truck stopped moving, cruise line employees started rushing us out of the van and into the tender. The ship literally started to pull away less than 5 minutes after we were all back on board.

[Barb Nahoumi]

Thank goodness you were on a "Ship Trip."