Is whether the ship can leave you based on port?

[1025cruise]

Let's be real. Cruise ships NEVER want to leave passengers behind. If it's feasible to do so, they will wait. Sometimes it's not. The reality of a ship's excursion is that if the ship does need to leave, the cruise line will get the passengers to the next port. Whereas, if you aren't on a ship's excursion, you're on your own to get there (though you will get assistance in making arrangements).

It's possible the two passengers in question were in contact with the ship to let them know their situation.

[1kaper]

I'm guessing there are a number of reasons they may wait.

 

I do know that on our European cruise they delayed slightly to wait for passengers and missed their window to leave a busy port, so we were delayed longer waiting for another chance to leave port.  They made an announcement about it.  So that could be a factor as well.  

[Eli_6]

15 hours ago, ultrafighter said:

It is.  I know I'm opening myself up to judgment (but I really don't give a rip) by admitting that we've had a kid in Camp Ocean while we got off in a port.  I don't know if they would've held the boat had we been late, but that's a plausible theory.

Don't feel bad. I absolutely left my Kid's in Camp Ocean while we were on our Europe cruise and so di MANY other parents. That's a big part of the reason why I cruise Carnival because they have the option of safe, fun child care.  I was able to ask my kids which excursions they wanted to go on and which ones they didn't.  No point in dragging my kids on a multi-hour bus ride to see some historical site they don't care anything about and making them miserable and having to subject the other passengers to their complaining.  Yet, at the same time, I am not leaving them at home while we are in Europe for 3 weeks when there are still many sites that they can see and experience. My kids actually do really well at most of them...castles, henges, anything surrounding medieval times, etc. A vineyard where we are doing wine tasting or a gondola ride through a Galician mussels farm?  Not so much.  

[iria64]

19 hours ago, Dippy Dawg said:

So with that being said - I guess the safes are not that safe then.

There will be some on the crew with a master key/administrator code for the safe.

That being said... no, the safes are not safe.

Look up Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube.  He has done a number of videos opening hotel safes.  They are not very secure.

[iria64]

19 hours ago, Dippy Dawg said:

So with that being said - I guess the safes are not that safe then.

There will be some on the crew with a master key/administrator code for the safe.

That being said... no, the safes are not safe.

Look up Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube.  He has done a number of videos opening hotel safes.  They are not very secure.

[iria64]

3 hours ago, ontheweb said:

And that is a good thing. If you cannot get your safe open due to either a malfunction of some sort or you screwed up setting the combination or you just plain forgot, there has to be a way to get into your safe.

Yes, there is either a master key or administrator code that will unlock the safe.

Many of these hotel safes are also fairly easy to open by other means.  Check out the Lock Picking Lawyer on youtube... he has done a few videos on hotel safes.

[Homosassa]

Two of my favorite moments on the series, "Mighty Cruise Ships," were the two episodes where the ship was held for passengers  and while the passengers faces were blurred, they taped the tongue lashing that the cruise director gave to them as they came on board.

 

Schadenfreude was definitely my reaction. 

[EngIceDave]

In Chittiviittici...whatever....Italy, we were on a Rome tour that due to their terrible traffic made us late back to the ship. It was the cruise line's own tour, so the ship was there and they LITERALLY pulled the gangway up behind us. No pier running though, drove the bus right up to the gangway. We were off, in and closed ASAP.

By the time we got to our cabin, we were away from the pier and underway.

[CM Cruise]

Last year my family of 5 were on RC Odyssey in Athens and went on a cruise purchased excursion.  It was an all day schedule and traffic was difficult around the big attractions.  As we neared the end of the stops it was obvious there was no way we were going to make it back to the ship in time.

 

No one cared, the entire bus, we all enjoyed every minute of being in this amazing city.  For me, the lack of stress greatly out weighs any cost savings for independent excursions.  We all strolled back onto the ship 1 hour late.

[EngIceDave]

1 hour ago, CM Cruise said:

Last year my family of 5 were on RC Odyssey in Athens and went on a cruise purchased excursion.  It was an all day schedule and traffic was difficult around the big attractions.  As we neared the end of the stops it was obvious there was no way we were going to make it back to the ship in time.

 

No one cared, the entire bus, we all enjoyed every minute of being in this amazing city.  For me, the lack of stress greatly out weighs any cost savings for independent excursions.  We all strolled back onto the ship 1 hour late.

 

 

That was the lesson I learned, the lack of stress if late. I knew it, was well aware of it and never had an issue, but my instance (above) I learned that it's the big city tours that can get you in trouble and if booking independent, always get tours far shorter than the in-port time, just in case.

Edited February 24, 2023 by EngIceDave