Free Shuttles in to Town?

[jtwind]

Hi.  If the ship is docked a few miles out of town, is it fairly normal for Windstar to offer free shuttles?  Thanks.

[Strenz]

All depends where. I remember a service in Valencia, Spain. Happy Sailing. 

[6rugrats]

We had a free shuttle just one time.

[BruceMuzz]

Free shuttles are an easy thing to arrange on paper - but more difficult to do in reality. In many of the small towns that cruise lines like Windstar visit, a big part of the earnings for local taxi drivers comes from ferrying cruise passengers to town and back.

If free shuttles are provided by the cruise line, the bus company makes money, but the taxi drivers get nothing. Some drivers tend to take this personally, causing local problems for cruise lines that do this.

[BellaBay]

On every one of our Mediterranean Windstar cruises all pre covid, a free shuttle or the Tender was provided for Windstar passengers at most ports a distance from the central area of the port city.
That included ports of Palma de Mallorca, Malaga, Valencia in Spain; Antibes, Le Lavandou, Antibes,Sanary-Sur-Mer, St. Tropez in France -Tenders, Porto Vecchio(Corsica), Portovenere and Portofino, Italy- Tenders.

[new_cruiser]

I've had similar experience to BellaBay when the ship was tendered or docked a ways from town in the Mediterranean. In other cases, we were docked or tendered into the center of things so no shuttle was needed. Also had a free shuttle for one port in Alaska where we were docked a ways out of town and for some ports in Japan. 

 

I can't recall any cases where we had a free shuttle in the Caribbean, but generally there the ship is located where no shuttle is needed.

[CruiseOrLand]

My experience is a few years out of date, but when we did back-to-back cruises from Tokyo to Hong Kong, many ports had shuttles. in some cases they were run by the port company, in some cases they were busses hired by Windstar. When the Port provided them, Windstar always said that the Port set the schedule, not Windstar.

 

It was disconcerting to be told that there were not backup busses, so that if the first bus of the day was full, you'd have to wait an hour to get the next one. But we didn't have any trouble. In Hiroshima, I think we took the shuttle downtown and took a taxi back to the ship. I forget if they gave us a card with the port location or what we showed to a non-English speaking driver. But it went fine, not a negative experience.

 

Some ports, like the one "for Beijing" are two hours from Beijing. So the "city" you visit if you're not embarking/disembarking, is not the same as the advertising name of the port. (That is, our two back-to-back cruises met in "Tianjin, for Beijing.") Again, I'm not whining, just reporting. Tianjin was simply, "satisfactory" for a part-day tour that may even have been "free", I forget. It was kind of like docking in Sandwich, MA, and being taken to Plymouth, instead of Boston, if that's any help.

 

Obviously there are exceptions, like (actual offer) visiting Seoul from an overnight port in Busan, which is like visiting New York from a Boston port stop! Luckily or unluckily, one of our China ports was cancelled, and we went to Incheon instead, which is a reasonable port for Seoul, our unscheduled second stop in South Korea.

[Redtravel]

Ports often offer shuttles. Check ahead to see what is offered in a port. Some ports are fantastic. Agents bring info, maps, and shuttles. Windstar doesn’t advertise free shuttles. They sell excursions that get you to places that you might be able to get to on a port shuttle.  Check before you sail.  

[milepig]

On 7/25/2022 at 10:44 AM, Redtravel said:

Ports often offer shuttles. Check ahead to see what is offered in a port. Some ports are fantastic. Agents bring info, maps, and shuttles. Windstar doesn’t advertise free shuttles. They sell excursions that get you to places that you might be able to get to on a port shuttle.  Check before you sail.  

And sometimes they insist there won't be one and then there is. I'll skip the much longer story of the Cruise Director from hell, but he insisted that there would be no shuttle in Rotterdam - insisted that there has never been and never will be a shuttle. No shuttle, period. The first thing we saw when we disembarked was a sign with an arrow saying "the way to the free shuttle."