Disembark a day early?

[Pptarmigan]

I guess I just had to vent on here to finally get an answer. Got an email back from NCL that they are making an exception and will allow us to disembark a day early. Not sure if we’ll still be able to take the NCL transfer into Venice that morning with our luggage, but I’ll figure that all out at the port. Can always take the train or a taxi. 
 

NCteacher, I’ll let you know here if we have any other challenges. You may not hear back until closer to your trip as they did mention that they had to work with the local authorities to allow early disembarkation and I doubt they do that very far in advance. 

[hawkeyetlse]

On 7/12/2023 at 5:57 AM, The Traveling Man said:

Your circumstances are somewhat different than ours, since you simply want to exit the ship at the scheduled port of departure, only a day earlier than planned.

It's not the port of departure. The OP's cruise ends in Trieste. NCL and the other cruise lines like to call every location on the Adriatic coast of Italy "Venice", when in reality the ship is like 2 or 3 hours away from Venice. It looks like the previous day, the ship will be anchored somewhere off the coast and passengers will be able to visit Venice (the actual city of Venice) by tender boat.

 

So the OP is asking to do the same thing you did: finish the cruise early in an intermediate port. There are all kinds of administrative reasons why they don't want people doing that. Particularly on this itinerary, I think lots of guests are going to have the same idea and ask to leave the ship a day early. But I can easily imagine that they don't want too many people trying to take all their luggage on the tender boats to Venice.

 

OP, Iike I said, I really doubt you'll be the only one hoping to do this on your sailing. I would join the roll call and other internet groups to compare notes with other passengers (who they have contacted about this, what kinds of answers they're getting). But I would wait until a couple of months before the cruise. I don't think they'll be able to give you any reliable answers this far out.

[The Traveling Man]

7 minutes ago, hawkeyetlse said:

It's not the port of departure. The OP's cruise ends in Trieste. NCL and the other cruise lines like to call every location on the Adriatic coast of Italy "Venice", when in reality the ship is like 2 or 3 hours away from Venice. It looks like the previous day, the ship will be anchored somewhere off the coast and passengers will be able to visit Venice (the actual city of Venice) by tender boat.

 

So the OP is asking to do the same thing you did: finish the cruise early in an intermediate port. There are all kinds of administrative reasons why they don't want people doing that. Particularly on this itinerary, I think lots of guests are going to have the same idea and ask to leave the ship a day early. But I can easily imagine that they don't want too many people trying to take all their luggage on the tender boats to Venice.

 

OP, Iike I said, I really doubt you'll be the only one hoping to do this on your sailing. I would join the roll call and other internet groups to compare notes with other passengers (who they have contacted about this, what kinds of answers they're getting). But I would wait until a couple of months before the cruise. I don't think they'll be able to give you any reliable answers this far out.

I see what you mean.  When I responded to @NCteacherlovescruising, I did not take the time to check the itinerary on the NCL website.  I simply responded to what the OP said, that the ship would overnight in Trieste.  I now see that the ship actually anchors near Venice and tenders passengers into town, then moves on to Trieste during the night for debarkation the following day.  I'm not sure how NCL would manage the logistics of a passenger carrying all their luggage with them onto a tender.  There also would be the issue of having Italian border control agents on duty in Venice, since they otherwise would be stationed in Trieste for the arrival of the ship on the following day.

[NCteacherlovescruising]

3 hours ago, Pptarmigan said:

I guess I just had to vent on here to finally get an answer. Got an email back from NCL that they are making an exception and will allow us to disembark a day early. Not sure if we’ll still be able to take the NCL transfer into Venice that morning with our luggage, but I’ll figure that all out at the port. Can always take the train or a taxi. 
 

NCteacher, I’ll let you know here if we have any other challenges. You may not hear back until closer to your trip as they did mention that they had to work with the local authorities to allow early disembarkation and I doubt they do that very far in advance. 

Im so happy to hear it’s going to work out for you!  I sent an email a week ago and crickets so far. 
 

23 minutes ago, hawkeyetlse said:

It's not the port of departure. The OP's cruise ends in Trieste. NCL and the other cruise lines like to call every location on the Adriatic coast of Italy "Venice", when in reality the ship is like 2 or 3 hours away from Venice. It looks like the previous day, the ship will be anchored somewhere off the coast and passengers will be able to visit Venice (the actual city of Venice) by tender boat.

 

 

This is news to me. I thought we were docking in Trieste both days and I was trying to avoid 4 hours traveling on the 11th followed by 2 hours the next to get to Venice both times. 
 

23 minutes ago, hawkeyetlse said:

So the OP is asking to do the same thing you did: finish the cruise early in an intermediate port. There are all kinds of administrative reasons why they don't want people doing that. Particularly on this itinerary, I think lots of guests are going to have the same idea and ask to leave the ship a day early. But I can easily imagine that they don't want too many people trying to take all their luggage on the tender boats to Venice.

 

I didn’t realize this was a tender to Venice. I thought we were docking in Trieste both days. 
 

23 minutes ago, hawkeyetlse said:

OP, Iike I said, I really doubt you'll be the only one hoping to do this on your sailing. I would join the roll call and other internet groups to compare notes with other passengers (who they have contacted about this, what kinds of answers they're getting). But I would wait until a couple of months before the cruise. I don't think they'll be able to give you any reliable answers this far out.

👍🏻

 

6 minutes ago, The Traveling Man said:

I see what you mean.  When I responded to @NCteacherlovescruising, I did not take the time to check the itinerary on the NCL website.  I simply responded to what the OP said, that the ship would overnight in Trieste.  I now see that the ship actually anchors near Venice and tenders passengers into town, then moves on to Trieste during the night for debarkation the following day.  I'm not sure how NCL would manage the logistics of a passenger carrying all their luggage with them onto a tender.  There also would be the issue of having Italian border control agents on duty in Venice, since they otherwise would be stationed in Trieste for the arrival of the ship on the following day.

I thought we were docking in Trieste both days. 

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, Pptarmigan said:

I guess I just had to vent on here to finally get an answer. Got an email back from NCL that they are making an exception and will allow us to disembark a day early. Not sure if we’ll still be able to take the NCL transfer into Venice that morning with our luggage, but I’ll figure that all out at the port. Can always take the train or a taxi. 
 

NCteacher, I’ll let you know here if we have any other challenges. You may not hear back until closer to your trip as they did mention that they had to work with the local authorities to allow early disembarkation and I doubt they do that very far in advance. 

Print the e-mail and bring it with you so that you have it in writing.

[Pptarmigan]

NC, not sure what your itinerary looks like right now this far out, but we were supposed to be tendering into Venice on the last day as well.  I had asked about getting off then, but didn't push it when I got a no as it wasn't that bad to just tender back to the ship and take the airport transfer in the morning.  A couple of weeks ago, we got the notification that Venice wasn't allowing them to tender in right now, so changed our itinerary to dock at Trieste.  That's when I started pushing it so that we don't have to do that drive three times in a day and a half.  

[Pptarmigan]

11 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

Print the e-mail and bring it with you so that you have it in writing.

For sure, I'm still expecting confusion when we get there.

[hawkeyetlse]

49 minutes ago, NCteacherlovescruising said:

I thought we were docking in Trieste both days. 

 

I'm just going by what the NCL website says for your Pearl itinerary. You may have more up-to-date information in your booking documents. But if it were an overnight stop, they wouldn't indicate an 11 pm departure from port (because there would be no departure).

[NCteacherlovescruising]

49 minutes ago, Pptarmigan said:

NC, not sure what your itinerary looks like right now this far out, but we were supposed to be tendering into Venice on the last day as well.  I had asked about getting off then, but didn't push it when I got a no as it wasn't that bad to just tender back to the ship and take the airport transfer in the morning.  A couple of weeks ago, we got the notification that Venice wasn't allowing them to tender in right now, so changed our itinerary to dock at Trieste.  That's when I started pushing it so that we don't have to do that drive three times in a day and a half.  

Maybe I had read that one here somewhere. 🤷‍♀️

17 minutes ago, hawkeyetlse said:

 

I'm just going by what the NCL website says for your Pearl itinerary. You may have more up-to-date information in your booking documents. But if it were an overnight stop, they wouldn't indicate an 11 pm departure from port (because there would be no departure).

I don’t know where I got this in my mind, but it had to come from somewhere. I do see where it’s showing tender to Venice. 

[insidecabin]

Venice is getting messy because there are kind of three locations being used as nominal "Venice"

 

Trieste, Ravenna and Venice (the long tender Venice not real Venice.

 

Seen cruises do all 3 in a row and can be very confusing for those not familiar with the locations thinking I just want to do Venice.

Also the main airport people use is Marco Polo not near Trieste or Ravenna.

 

You can easily end up going over the same roads multiple times 

 

I don't think the tender Venice is an option to disembark

 

Cruise lines really need to rethink how they deal with Venice on the schedules especially if turnaround that can no longer use Venice proper.

 

[RD64]

Not to be a Debbie Downer - but an email sent from NCL transfers to nothing when faced with Italian bureaucracy four thousand miles away. You can bring your printed email, and all I have to say is good luck when the Italians say no - they’re country their rules. 
 

As @insidecabin said, I cannot see a tender disembarkation as a feasible option. Best to have a backup plan.

[NCteacherlovescruising]

2 hours ago, RD64 said:

Not to be a Debbie Downer - but an email sent from NCL transfers to nothing when faced with Italian bureaucracy four thousand miles away. You can bring your printed email, and all I have to say is good luck when the Italians say no - they’re country their rules. 
 

As @insidecabin said, I cannot see a tender disembarkation as a feasible option. Best to have a backup plan.

The Italians would much prefer cruise passengers sleep on land. That ensures we spend more money there, with hotel and food expensive just the most obvious. 

[Pptarmigan]

9 hours ago, RD64 said:

Not to be a Debbie Downer - but an email sent from NCL transfers to nothing when faced with Italian bureaucracy four thousand miles away. You can bring your printed email, and all I have to say is good luck when the Italians say no - they’re country their rules. 
 

As @insidecabin said, I cannot see a tender disembarkation as a feasible option. Best to have a backup plan.

NCL says in the email that they've worked with the local authorities to allow it.  I'm guessing I'm not the only one doing this and they'll just have immigration officials ready to go that morning.  We're not tendering in, we're docking at the same port as the boat will be for disembarkation day.  As long as NCL lets me off with my luggage, I don't think the Italian officials are going to care.  

[Pptarmigan]

Just a quick followup.  No issues with the Italians, but NCL almost screwed us trying to get off early.  I was told by corporate that I didn't need to notify them on the ship as they already knew about us departing a day early.  When we went to get off, they had a separate line and a list of everyone disembarking early.  Of course, we weren't on it.  I had to go to guest services and they told me I couldn't leave until noon as they had to deal with the authorities since I wasn't on the list.  I pushed back telling them I had received permission and had a driver waiting for us.  They then managed to get my final account sorted out (not the Italian authorities after all) and let us leave.  So, long story short, it's totally possible to do this on this itinerary if you wind up stuck at Trieste overnight.  I wouldn't bother with trying to contact NCL corporate, just talk to guest services early in the cruise.  There were a lot of people that got off early.