Tendering Issues on Other Lines

[stephenandrew]

Hi--

There have been a lot of posts/comments on the recent tendering problems on the Grand Princess. Some folks seem to believe these are issues unique to Princess, others seem to think they are attributable to factos beyond Princess' control. While it is hardly scientific, I posted a question on the Carnival and RCCL boards to see if any folks who had recently returned from Grand Cayman and/or Cozumel expereinced any tender problems. I thougth the responses might give some perpspective as to whether Princess has a problem that is unique, or if it is something that other lines are haveing to deal with as well. Anyway, the links to those posts are here:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=270214 (Carnival)

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=270213 (RCCL)

 

I have not gotten a lot of responses, but those that I did get were mixed. Some folks said they had no issues tendering, others described problems similar to what has been described on the Grand.

 

Anyway, thought this might be of interest to folks.

[Stevesan]

Most interesting are the Cozumel responses that employed the local "Mega" tenders. Princess attributes GPs difficulties to having to utilize the local tenders, whereas most of the others report little or no problems with the oversized tenders.

 

Excuses, excuses. Where are the solutions?

 

Thanks for the survey. It's enlightening to have something other than a purely GP perspective.

 

FYI - i've reported elsewhere that we tendered in Grand Cayman from ms Veendam on Dec 8th with six other ships in port and had virtually no delays in either going to or returning from shore. Veendam dropped a number of lifeboats, providing a steady stream of tenders.

[rico]

And I have a good friend who was on a HAL cruise earlier this fall that stopped at Grand Cayman. She said tendering was so bad she'll never get off the ship in GC again.

 

I don't doubt Princess, or the Grand in particular, could be dealing with some process issues. But it's also sounding to me like the volume of ships at GC is impacting the tender operations for all lines in some manner.

 

GC just isn't that big a port. 6, 7, 8 ships are just too many.

[Stevesan]

And I have a good friend who was on a HAL cruise earlier this fall that stopped at Grand Cayman. She said tendering was so bad she'll never get off the ship in GC again.

I don't doubt Princess, or the Grand in particular, could be dealing with some process issues. But it's also sounding to me like the volume of ships at GC is impacting the tender operations for all lines in some manner.

GC just isn't that big a port. 6, 7, 8 ships are just too many.

 

I didn't intend to imply that Holland America Cruise Line has the upper hand in tendering. One HAL ship running tenders smoothly and another terribly is more proof of problems with process,not numbers.

 

I agree that seven ships are too many. That's evident in the crowds in town. But tendering isn't an issue when it's properly done.

[rico]

I didn't intend to imply that Holland America Cruise Line has the upper hand in tendering.

 

Sorry. I didn't think you had and I wasn't trying to say that.

 

My point is that the Grand isn't the only ship seeing tendering problems. Reading the boards lately you'd think the Grand has the most incompetent crew on the high seas based on the tendering complaints. The truth of the matter is many ships are affected. We've heard all about the Grand problems, my friend relayed the HAL problems, and from the threads the OP started you can see RCCL and Carnival are also experiencing problems, at least on some ships.

 

I think you and I would agree the volume plays a big part in it, particularly in Grand Cayman.

 

Process is certainly a factor as well. I just wonder how much of the process is dictated by the ship's crew and how much is imposed by port authorities, corporate contracts, etc. If the process could easily be changed to make it work smoothly, I have to think Princess would have done it by now. They're not new to this game.

 

I'll be on the Grand 1/14. I guess I'll find out first hand.

[bdjam]

Cruise News Daily (www.cruisenewsdaily.com) posted an article yesterday or the day before about the tendering issues in Cozumel and Grand Cayman. According to the article, much of the issues in Cozumel are due to the destruction of the passenger piers while the issues in Grand Cayman seem to be of capacity. The article focused on Grand Princess, however indicated there were other cruise lines that have also been adversely affected. In one instance, the article mentioned that the tender pier (don’t remember which location) is actually built for the local tenders that off-load from an upper deck and therefore is unusable to tenders from ships.

As far as solutions, Princess did indicate they were looking at ways to resolve the issues. My thoughts are that’s what happens when you try to fit more than one mega-ship into a small Caribbean port. Many of the Caribbean islands were overrun before the behemoths started arriving...not sure why anyone would expect anything different now.