Advice for Flam tender?

[okgals]

Hi, We am stopping in Flam as a tender port with MSC this July. We really want to do the Norway in a Nutshell route. The ship doesn't offer one (it offers only pieces of it) so I'd like to book with Fjordtours which arranges all your tickets for an independent tour. The ship is arriving at 7 AM and the first leg of the route is the boat from Flam to Gudvagen and it leaves at 9. 

My concern is whether this is enough time to get to the boat considering it is a tender port. If anyone has any experience with this: MSC tendering process, how long would take to walk to boat launch; how long tendering usually takes, whether you heard of people missing their boat, I would love to hear about it. 

I'm hopeful that since the ship only offers 2 and 3 hour excursions that they may not be leaving super early and then a lot of people who are not doing excursions will want to eat breakfast and come out later but I'm nervous about missing the boat but really want to do the trip!

Thank you for advice

[MeHeartCruising]

Flam isn't always a tender port.  The first ship of the day usually docks at a pier. If others arrive, they then tender.  If MSC is telling you it's a tender port, then I would assume they know they will not be the lucky ship at the pier.

 

The ships that do tender, do not tender very far.  So it should go quite quickly.  I would be surprised if you cannot make your 9am tour boat unless MSC just has some process that makes you wait.  Most cruise lines these days seem to use one tender boat for their tours and one tender boat for everyone else.  The 2 tender boats leave your ship from 2 different "doors" on the side of the ship.  But this is not always the case.  So I can't be certain your ship will do that.

Edited April 8, 2019 by MeHeartCruising

[hallasm]

Only MSC Poesia July 9 does tender - 9 am should be fine for a tour start - tour does start very close to tender pier.

Regarding MSC tender procedures you might ask that question at the MSC board.

[Capt_BJ]

everything in Flam is pretty close together ..... your walk from the tender landings to the ferry is about 3 minutes!

 

We did Nutshell last July:

started in Bergen ... train to VOSS .... bus to Gudvagen ... ferry (premium) to Flam ... we overnighted in Flam ... next day train up to Myrdal .... change to train to Oslo ...

 

 

Edited April 8, 2019 by Capt_BJ

[okgals]

Thanks everyone; now my timetable is listing my ship as docking! So I hope that's the case but it looks like a good bet regardless; weather or systems breakdown could happen but otherwise looks like it would work out. 

[hallasm]

9 hours ago, okgals said:

it looks like a good bet regardless;

What is date and name - several MSC ships during July - but as I see it only MSC Poesia July 9 does tender

[CCJack]

I agree with all these posts, we tendered and it went pretty well.   However on our stop we were scheduled to tender (we were on Cunard QE) and a Holland America ship was scheduled to dock.  However, the QE was ahead of schedule so our ship docked for about 20 minutes, let people off, then backed off and started tendering (making way for the HA ship to dock).   Unfortunately,  Cunard only let off people at the dock who were booked on early excursions sponsored by the ship.   We were biking on our own, so we could not get off even though we were ready and willing.   I was a little upset that they would not let us off.     So just be cautious if you are pushed for time, then the cruise line could give priority to those who booked excursions with them.