Rhapsody OTS Oct 12th departure is extended till 9:45 PM

[cruza]

Rhapsody OTS Oct 12th departure is extended till 9:45 PM and I had read that now it's happening quite often.

Question for previous cruisers: would cruise line provide paid transfer from port to St Marco (we had it while on Celebrity)?

We want  to explore Venice in our own and to advantage of this situation. We aware of vaporetto option but i prefer water RCCL transfer.

Thanks for your help,

 

Tanya

 

PS Our Kotor stop is ruined as well since now we will arrive @ 5 pm...:(((

Edited October 9, 2019 by cruza

[Biker19]

17 minutes ago, cruza said:

would cruise line provide paid transfer from port to St Marco

Unlikely - you can easily take the people mover and walk there.

[Yorkshire Voyagers]

When this happened recently, the last time to check in and be on board the ship was kept the same, as well as the time of the lifeboat drill.  After that, passengers weren’t allowed to leave the ship 

 

We actually left a lot earlier than the changed time of departure, which wouldn’t have happened if guests weren’t on the ship

Edited October 9, 2019 by Yorkshire Voyagers

[steveso]

We are also on that cruise and of course looking forward to it.

 

We have been to Kotor before but even so what is the point of them arranging that you arrive at 5pm and leave at 9pm. It's on a Sunday so hardly anything will be open anyway.

 

Also once we had booked we saw that the stay in Pireus for Athens arrives at 12 noon (leaving at 8pm) which again means it is hardly worth a trip to Athens especially with traffic to get there and shops closing after lunch. Is that late arrival something to do with RC trying to save port charges?

[cruza]

1 hour ago, Yorkshire Voyagers said:

When this happened recently, the last time to check in and be on board the ship was kept the same, as well as the time of the lifeboat drill.  After that, passengers weren’t allowed to leave the ship 

 

We actually left a lot earlier than the changed time of departure, which wouldn’t have happened if guests weren’t on the ship

Thanks for sharing your experience! We hope they would extend muster timing to 8 pm and we would have more time in Venice

[Biker19]

9 minutes ago, steveso said:

Is that late arrival something to do with RC trying to save port charges?

I don't think they make any money on port charges - that's just a pass through to customer (or refund in case of cancellation).

[steveso]

My point was more are RC trying to save money on port charges for the late Pireus arrival (either port charges or fuel costs)?

 

Athens is the highlight of the trip for many and a noon arrival limits the options to get to Athens which is often at least an hour by coach.

[Biker19]

56 minutes ago, steveso said:

My point was more are RC trying to save money on port charges for the late Pireus arrival (either port charges or fuel costs)?

I've never heard of a port charge being dependent on arrival time (or time in port). All cruise lines try to save fuel costs, though not to the point of affecting scheduled port times. Very likely this change was due to a number of factors.

[Norwich Cruiser]

Two weeks ago we sailed at 19.00 instead of 17.00 all aboard and muster drill times remained the same.

[awestover89]

55 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

I've never heard of a port charge being dependent on arrival time (or time in port). All cruise lines try to save fuel costs, though not to the point of affecting scheduled port times. Very likely this change was due to a number of factors.

 

Key West has different port fees depending on departure time. There's a significant increase in charge if ships are docked during/past sunset (I think the official cutoff is 30 minutes before sunset)

[cruza]

6 hours ago, steveso said:

My point was more are RC trying to save money on port charges for the late Pireus arrival (either port charges or fuel costs)?

 

Athens is the highlight of the trip for many and a noon arrival limits the options to get to Athens which is often at least an hour by coach.

RCCL will loose money on cancelled Kotor excursions. Kotor's stop is completely ruined with arriving at 5 pm on Sunday.

We wish they would make additional excursions in Venice and stay Venice overnight  instead of Kotor.

[Merion_Mom]

23 minutes ago, cruza said:

RCCL will loose money on cancelled Kotor excursions. Kotor's stop is completely ruined with arriving at 5 pm on Sunday.

We wish they would make additional excursions in Venice and stay Venice overnight  instead of Kotor.

Stopping in Kotor is to your benefit.  It is your only port of call outside of the EU, so you are not going to be charged VAT.

[cruza]

33 minutes ago, Merion_Mom said:

Stopping in Kotor is to your benefit.  It is your only port of call outside of the EU, so you are not going to be charged VAT.

Montenegro is part of EU, their currency is euro.

[Merion_Mom]

6 hours ago, cruza said:

Montenegro is part of EU, their currency is euro.

 

Nope.  Montenegro is NOT in the EU.  It has applied for membership, but has not been added.

[little britain]

6 hours ago, cruza said:

Montenegro is part of EU, their currency is euro.

Whilst Montenegro does use the Euro as their currency, they are not part of the EU.

 

[Yorkshire Voyagers]

9 hours ago, cruza said:

Montenegro is part of EU, their currency is euro.

No, it isn’t part of the EU, even though you can pay in Euros.   As  Merion_Mom says, Royal use this stop in order to keep the cruise free of Italian VAT, which would be charged on all purchases on board.  In the past, docking in Kusadasi in Turkey was used for the same purpose