First Time Cruiser - Excursion Timing Question

[eqshadimar]

Hello there. My sisters and I will be taking our first cruise ever on Edge from Rome to Barcelona on Sept. 30th.  I have just a couple questions on the start times for the excursions.

 

• I assume that the start time is the time that we need to be off the boat and on the bus or meeting point.  Is that correct?
• On average how much time does it take to get off the boat and to the meeting point?
• How much longer if it is a tender port?

 

I was looking for some sort of chart from Celebrity showing something like this but I could not find anything.

 

Thanks for reading!

[jelayne]

If you are taking a Celebrity excursion your tickets will be in your cabin when you board the ship.  The tickets will have a time and meeting location for the tour. You will exit the ship as a group in most cases.  If it is a tender port the tour participants will be taken in groups to tenders.

For some excursions ( scuba diving and others) you will be given a time to meet on the dock.  Exiting the ship when it is docked is very quick.  There will shore excursion staff on the pier to direct you to your group.

[RichYak]

More often than not, I have found that the meeting points are on the ship, usually in the theater. You get a sticker with a tour number and disembark en masse when your number is called.

[Izzywiz]

Congratulations on taking your first cruise!

I am guessing that you are talking about excursions booked through Celebrity.
In my experience, you will find the tickets for your excursions in your cabin when you board the ship. 

On the ticket you will find the name of the excursion and the date, meeting place and time.

There are 3 possibilities for getting to your excursion transportation;

* Sometimes, you will be told to meet at a venue on the ship…..most often the ship’s theatre….where you will show your tour ticket and collect a numbered sticker which corresponds to your transport vehicle. 
You will then be asked to wait in the venue until your ticket group number is called.
At that point you, and the rest of your excursion group, will be guided down to the quayside and directed to your transport.

 

* The second possibility is that you are asked to meet at your transport on the quayside. I

n that case, you make your own way to the quayside…..you will be told which deck the exit is on as it may vary according to the tide and size of the dock. The information will be announced over the ship’s PA system and will be signposted on the stairs and in the lifts.

Once on shore, there will be crew members directing you to your tour transport. 
The coaches could be directly on the quayside or in a car park once through the terminal building.

 

 * The third possibility is if your excursion involves tendering to the shore.

Once again, you will meet in a shipboard venue, collect your sticker and then be escorted to the tender when your group number is called.

 

A couple of things to be aware of;

1. Make sure you take your excursion tickets with you. If you wish to be with other members of your party on the same transport, one person needs to take all the tickets together to get the stickers. There may be several vehicles being used for the same excursion so stickers need to show the same group.

2. Have your cruise card with you as it will be scanned as you disembark the ship and again when you embark at the end of your time ashore.

 

[tigervixxxen]

Agree with what has been stated, often you will have a meeting point on the ship. If you are asked to meet on the pier I’d budget for about a half hour for a non-tendered debark, an hour for a tendered debark (I believe in this case you will most likely meet on the ship though). There will be people standing on the pier holding signs with the name of your excursion (sometimes name is slightly different so check in and confirm with sign holder) and you’ll usually line up behind them until everyone has arrived and then you’ll be escorted to the bus together. 
 

If the excursion is early and close to your arrival time you will more likely meet in theater, if it’s a bit later in the day they tend to just ask to meet on the pier.

Edited September 11, 2023 by tigervixxxen

[Mike45LC]

The above explanations pertain to excursions booked through Celebrity.  On our Rome to Barcelona cruise (Edge), we booked our excursions through outside vendors.  In all cases, we met off the ship, "quayside" as izzy so charmingly put it [speaking English as opposed to American].  There was no problem at all finding the tour.  Sometimes, there was a person with a sign; for one tour, there was a mini-van that pulled up and the guide called out our names.  

 

If not a tender port, I tried to leave the ship 30 minutes before the tour's announced start time, so that I was standing by at the announced time.  Others were not always so considerate, and we never left anyone behind.

 

Enjoy a fantastic cruise!

[DCPIV]

Just to clarify and expand on what's been said here: morning tours usually meet on the ship (usually in the theatre), and afternoon tours usually meet on shore.  There are some exceptions, so always pay attention to what it says on your ticket.  Also make sure you look at the notes that come in with daily mail as times and meeting places may change.

 

As for how long it takes to get to an onshore meeting place, it really depends on the port.  Some meeting places are right off the ship, but others might be a good 10-minute, brisk walk from the gangway.  If we are meeting on shore, we usually made sure we were leaving the ship a good 15 minutes before the meeting time just in case we have one of those long walks ahead of us.  If you really are trying to time it perfectly, you probably can find a crewmember who is familiar with the port.

 

As for a tender port, you probably want to get down to the tender at least 30 minutes before meeting.  The tender could take 10-15 minutes to get from ship to shore, and you might have fir a tender to get to the ship, tie up, unload, reload, etc.  The good news is that there almost never is a long line to get off the ship to tender after mid-morning.

 

One other thing is that the meeting time you'll see on your ticket usually is 15 minutes before the actual start time of the tour.  That's to allow the tour guides to finish whatever paperwork they need to do before starting.

[eqshadimar]

This is our first cruise so we did go with Celebrity excursions even though we understand this is possibly more expensive and not as varied.  Thank you all for the input!  This makes so much more sense than people just randomly trying to get to buses or whatever.

[CaribbeanBound]

Hey, for what it's worth, you shouldn't have any worries about taking pre-arranged tours with independent tour operators that receive good reviews on these boards.  I wrote a VERY detailed review of a similar trip I took to your ports that I think you'll find very useful.

 

Celebrity Reflection and 8 Western Mediterranean Ports
Detailed information on cruising aboard Celebrity Reflection and the ports of Rome (Civitavecchia) and La Spezia in Italy; Nice (Villefrance & Monaco) in France; Barcelona, Malaga, Cartegena and Ibiza in Spain; and Gibraltar, United Kingdom.

 

https://www.lavasurfer.com/info/western-mediterranean.html

 

Feel free to post any follow-up questions.