Tendering in George Town, Grand Cayman

[canadian_cheap]

On Saturday my daughter and I embark on our first ever cruise... with a scheduled stop in George Town, Grand Cayman arriving at 10am and departing at 6pm. I'm looking at a private excursion to swim with the sting rays (because when will I get to do that again?) but am unsure if the time frames work with the ship (the tour operator is confident they do but I'm not so sure). The tour says it's 3 hours long and departs at either 11:15am or 1:45pm but both seem problematic to me as the 11:15am one doesn't seem like it leaves a lot of time to get on a tender and get to the meetup point while the 1:45pm one returning at 4:45pm seems like I would be cutting it tight to tender back to the ship in time.

 

If you've visited George Town recently hopefully you can answer some of these questions for me (the more answers the better since I expect there will be considerable variance in peoples experiences)

1)  We have an inside stateroom (so no privileges) so what time should we expect to be able to get off the ship and onto shore?

2)  What time will all aboard be? and what time should we be back at the tender dock realistically?

 

If it matters I'm looking at a tour booked through Shore Excursions Group who do have a guarantee to get you back on time (I'm just worried that 'back on time' means back with enough time to sprint for the ship)

[dexddd]

Welcome to CC.

[mitsugirly]

Welcome.

 

All aboard is always 1/2 an hour before sail away. So if you are leaving at 6pm, you will need to be on board by 5:30pm. If they return you by 4:45pm, that will give you enough time to get in line for the tenders. If there's still people in line for the tenders to come back to the ship, they will continue to take them back. 

 

We've used many private excursion companies (and we cruise a lot) and they know when they need to have you back by. Their reputation depends on it. The last thing they want to do is have a cruiser come back on here and post something bad about them...especially a timing issue, and ruin their business. All excursion companies in ports rely on the passengers for their income and they are all aware what times the ships are in port each day.