Water Shuttle versus Tender

[beg3yrs]

Just noticed a change in terminology for two of our upcoming Pacific Princess trips. Rather than saying "Tender Required" for some ports, it now says "Water Shuttle". Is this a substantive change, is Princess just fiddling with words or what?

[neverbeenhere]

Possible:

 

Water Shuttle - Private contractor

 

Tender - The Ships vehicles.

 

 

What Ports?

[Colo Cruiser]

1 hour ago, beg3yrs said:

Just noticed a change in terminology for two of our upcoming Pacific Princess trips. Rather than saying "Tender Required" for some ports, it now says "Water Shuttle". Is this a substantive change, is Princess just fiddling with words or what?

What ports?

[beg3yrs]

8 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

What ports?

St. John, USVI

Mayreau, Grenadines

Virgin Gorda, BVI

Rangiroa, French Polynesia

Huahine, French Polynesia

Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Moorea, French Polynesia

Easter Island, Chile

[beg3yrs]

33 minutes ago, neverbeenhere said:

Possible:

 

Water Shuttle - Private contractor

 

Tender - The Ships vehicles.

 

My thought as well but over two separate cruises almost a year apart in two different oceans, no ports are tender ports, they are water shuttle ports.

[Colo Cruiser]

I would agree maybe private transportation.

If not then new terminology perhaps.

[beg3yrs]

14 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

I would agree maybe private transportation.

If not then new terminology perhaps.

Yeah, maybe someone complained when a private shuttle was used that it wasn't a tender owned by Princess. I suppose "Water Shuttle" could cover both.

[neverbeenhere]

Trying to make the hugely 😜 confusing term “tender” easier to understand?

[1025cruise]

Carnival changed the term to water shuttle from tender. Don't know why.

[CRUZBUDS]

Makes sense that Water Shuttle is more easily understood to someone not familiar with nautical terms.   

 

Just don't start calling the cabins, rooms 

[getting older slowly]

1 hour ago, CRUZBUDS said:

Makes sense that Water Shuttle is more easily understood to someone not familiar with nautical terms.   

 

Just don't start calling the cabins, rooms 

 

The mind starts to drift...  berth a parking spot .... bow the pointy end...deck the floor.... etc

 

or tender.... a boat... a taxi

 

Cheers Don

[2 cruises a year]

2 hours ago, 1025cruise said:

Carnival changed the term to water shuttle from tender. Don't know why.

Apparently Princess has also.  All of our future cruises through 2021 show "Water Shuttle Required" for all of the Tender ports.

I don't like it!!  But, I still go the the Purser's Desk.

Edited June 29, 2019 by 2 cruises a year

[fishywood]

4 hours ago, beg3yrs said:

St. John, USVI

Mayreau, Grenadines

Virgin Gorda, BVI

Rangiroa, French Polynesia

Huahine, French Polynesia

Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Moorea, French Polynesia

Easter Island, Chile

I pulled up the cruises the OP lists in their signature and both on the splash page for that date and the detailed itinerary you click through found "Tender Required" as the only note on those ports. Was it changed to "water shuttle" in your cruise personalizer or on your booking summary? Because I see that term absolutely nowhere on the Princess website.

[Colo Cruiser]

20 minutes ago, fishywood said:

I pulled up the cruises the OP lists in their signature and both on the splash page for that date and the detailed itinerary you click through found "Tender Required" as the only note on those ports. Was it changed to "water shuttle" in your cruise personalizer or on your booking summary? Because I see that term absolutely nowhere on the Princess website.

Just checked our bookings.......

The term water shuttle  is listed on (itinerary) all of our booked cruises where applicable.

The earliest being this October at Princess Cays.

[fishywood]

5 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

Just checked our bookings.......

The term water shuttle  is listed on (itinerary) all of our booked cruises where applicable.

The earliest being this October at Princess Cays.

OK I dug deeper into my own booking for next month.

On the Travel Itinerary page in the cruise personalizer it does read "Water Shuttle"

But if searching for and viewing the same cruise on the website I could only find "Tender Required"

 

You have to wonder if this change to less-specific language was actually prompted by some dolt complaining to Princess when a shoreside craft was used rather than the ship's tenders. While "Tender" by definition more or less means you will be riding in a boat to shore (smaller than the actual cruise ship) "Water Shuttle" is sufficiently vague that Princess could engage anything from a private vessel to a fleet of jet skis if the mood strikes them and still meet the letter of the itinerary.

 

[Colo Cruiser]

1 minute ago, fishywood said:

OK I dug deeper into my own booking for next month.

On the Travel Itinerary page in the cruise personalizer it does read "Water Shuttle"

But if searching for and viewing the same cruise on the website I could only find "Tender Required"

 

You have to wonder if this change to less-specific language was actually prompted by some dolt complaining to Princess when a shoreside craft was used rather than the ship's tenders. While "Tender" by definition more or less means you will be riding in a boat to shore (smaller than the actual cruise ship) "Water Shuttle" is sufficiently vague that Princess could engage anything from a private vessel to a fleet of jet skis if the mood strikes them and still meet the letter of the itinerary.

 

More PC garbage perhaps?

[beg3yrs]

49 minutes ago, fishywood said:

I pulled up the cruises the OP lists in their signature and both on the splash page for that date and the detailed itinerary you click through found "Tender Required" as the only note on those ports. Was it changed to "water shuttle" in your cruise personalizer or on your booking summary? Because I see that term absolutely nowhere on the Princess website.

It's on the cruise personalizer.

 

[Colo Cruiser]

12 minutes ago, beg3yrs said:

It's on the cruise personalizer.

 

See post #16

[brisalta]

5 hours ago, CRUZBUDS said:

Makes sense that Water Shuttle is more easily understood to someone not familiar with nautical terms.   

 

 

Not really as water shuttle sounds like a component of a steam engine.

[majortom10]

Dont think there is anything more than "water shuttle" sounds posher than "tender".

[richmke]

Maybe the word change is for newbies. They could think that "tender" means they have to pay "legal tender" to visit the port. On USA money it says "This note is legal tender ..."

[capriccio]

Just off a fantastic 14 day Sapphire Princess cruise along the Norwegian coast this morning.  We used ship tenders for all our ‘water shuttle’ transfers.  There were quite a few comments about semantics!

[voljeep]

2 hours ago, richmke said:

Maybe the word change is for newbies. They could think that "tender" means they have to pay "legal tender" to visit the port. On USA money it says "This note is legal tender ..."

Love me tender ... thank you ... thank you very much

 

nothing tender about tendering on the lifeboats ...

[2 cruises a year]

13 hours ago, fishywood said:

OK I dug deeper into my own booking for next month.

On the Travel Itinerary page in the cruise personalizer it does read "Water Shuttle"

But if searching for and viewing the same cruise on the website I could only find "Tender Required"

 

You have to wonder if this change to less-specific language was actually prompted by some dolt complaining to Princess when a shoreside craft was used rather than the ship's tenders. While "Tender" by definition more or less means you will be riding in a boat to shore (smaller than the actual cruise ship) "Water Shuttle" is sufficiently vague that Princess could engage anything from a private vessel to a fleet of jet skis if the mood strikes them and still meet the letter of the itinerary.

 

I agree.  Or possibly the "dolt" is some middle manager at Princess with no nautical experience.

 

I searched Google for ship tender.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship's_tender

 

I searched Google for water shuttle and came up with a lot of water taxi sites, point to point.  So I guess water shuttle is O.K. in a broader sense.  But tender is better for specifically from ship to shore.  Seems like "dumbing down" to me.

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

On more than 100 cruises, we have been in ports where the ship’s tenders were used.  In other ports, the port authority required the ship to use local boats for tender service.  In our experience, the local boats were preferable as they could take more people on each run.  In all cases, the local boats were complimentary.  Also, in some ports to speed the tendering service, both ship’s tenders and local boats were used.