Port of Call Exiting Ship Strategy Questions

[The Broski]

Hello, First time NCL cruiser and and a self proclaimed excursion on our own planner. Super excited about our 10 day trip embarking 5-16-24 in Trieste. Each and every port our group would like to get off the ship as early as possible especially in Cannes as F1 is in Monaco that day (practice) but still F1. We are in a family balcony and also solo cabin accommodations, I am asking your opinion on:

1. What time will we be allowed to disembark compared to the arrival in port time which is typically 6-6:45 am on this voyage.

2.  If we are tendering from the moored  ship to Cannes what is the estimated earliest but conservative time we could set foot on the cruise port dock and what is the or a  strategy to accomplish that? Do we need to purchase $$ Priority Access for $279 a cabin or is it even worth it? Any insight on these questions and the benefit of Priority Access is greatly appreciated.

 

Kind regards

 

The Broski

Edited May 5 by The Broski
miss spelled a aword

[Ellis1138]

1. It will depend on when the ship clears customs. Whatever time it generally says on the Freestyle Daily for arrival is usually the time they will let people get off, not when the ship starts docking. This can vary based on weather, port issues, etc. My strategy is: get up early, eat as early as possible and go down to the deck with the gangplank so that when it does open, we're close and not waiting on elevators.

 

2. Check the Freestyle Daily for tendering instructions on "Early Bird, no tickets". You don't need to pay for Priority Access, nor should you, since it won't get you off earlier than Early Birds. And for tendering, you don't get Priority Access on the way back; you have to stand in line. Get to the waiting place for Early Bird and wait until they let you on the first tenders. 

[The Broski]

Thank you Ellis 1138!

[JustAllie]

On a couple of recent cruises, I noticed that people were given tender tickets the night before, but those who were out of bed and ready to go first thing in the morning could get on the tender no matter what their ticket number was. They must not have had a lot of early risers on those sailings, so there wasn't a ton of demand for the early tender boats. Maybe you will have the same luck! 

[The Broski]

Thank you 🙏 

[BirdTravels]

On 5/5/2024 at 4:23 PM, The Broski said:

Hello, First time NCL cruiser and and a self proclaimed excursion on our own planner. Super excited about our 10 day trip embarking 5-16-24 in Trieste. Each and every port our group would like to get off the ship as early as possible especially in Cannes as F1 is in Monaco that day (practice) but still F1. We are in a family balcony and also solo cabin accommodations, I am asking your opinion on:

1. What time will we be allowed to disembark compared to the arrival in port time which is typically 6-6:45 am on this voyage.

2.  If we are tendering from the moored  ship to Cannes what is the estimated earliest but conservative time we could set foot on the cruise port dock and what is the or a  strategy to accomplish that? Do we need to purchase $$ Priority Access for $279 a cabin or is it even worth it? Any insight on these questions and the benefit of Priority Access is greatly appreciated.

 

Kind regards

 

The Broski

 

The gangway will be open at or shortly after your advertised arrival time. I.e., the ship will dock a bit earlier as it waits for clearance from the local port authorities to disembark passengers. There will be 4000+ other passengers who will want to get an early start or who have early shore excursion times. So, grab a quick bite to eat and get in line. The lines will be long and slow. 

 

It is hard to find a good strategy. You will be disembarking from Deck 4. They usually prevent people from going to Deck 4 and 5, holding you on Deck 6 or higher. Even to the extent of disabling the elevators from stopping on the lower decks. There are always those who can find a way to bypass the mob being held on Deck 6 and sneak their way onto a lower deck...

 

For your tender port, ask about when tender tickets are available. And make sure you try to grab one as soon as possible for a low board group number.  

 

Priority tendering just means you can join the back of the tender line without a boarding group number. You are the same as anyone with a shore ex ticket or anyone with Latitudes status. All can join the back of the line at any time. That is Priority. That being said, lately, Latitudes has been escorting their people to the front of the line at some ports. I have no idea what they will do at Cannes. 

[Middleager]

2 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

 

lately, Latitudes has been escorting their people to the front of the line at some ports. I have no idea what they will do at Cannes. 

Ever since we became Platinum two years ago, we were told to wait at a certain place, and they'd escort us to the tender, usually the first tender.

[Travelling2Some]

If there is an inexpensive (sometimes almost free with FAS/Latitudes discounts) shore excursion, we have booked it just to get priority tendering.  Then we let the guide know that we are going off on our own so they know not to worry about their headcount being short.

[AlaskaGoer]

On 5/5/2024 at 4:35 PM, Ellis1138 said:

1. It will depend on when the ship clears customs. Whatever time it generally says on the Freestyle Daily for arrival is usually the time they will let people get off, not when the ship starts docking. This can vary based on weather, port issues, etc. My strategy is: get up early, eat as early as possible and go down to the deck with the gangplank so that when it does open, we're close and not waiting on elevators.

 

2. Check the Freestyle Daily for tendering instructions on "Early Bird, no tickets". You don't need to pay for Priority Access, nor should you, since it won't get you off earlier than Early Birds. And for tendering, you don't get Priority Access on the way back; you have to stand in line. Get to the waiting place for Early Bird and wait until they let you on the first tenders. 

 

Hi, could you explain #2 a bit more? I thought you needed tickets if you weren't latitude level gold and above?

[AlaskaGoer]

On 5/7/2024 at 6:21 PM, BirdTravels said:

 

The gangway will be open at or shortly after your advertised arrival time. I.e., the ship will dock a bit earlier as it waits for clearance from the local port authorities to disembark passengers. There will be 4000+ other passengers who will want to get an early start or who have early shore excursion times. So, grab a quick bite to eat and get in line. The lines will be long and slow. 

 

It is hard to find a good strategy. You will be disembarking from Deck 4. They usually prevent people from going to Deck 4 and 5, holding you on Deck 6 or higher. Even to the extent of disabling the elevators from stopping on the lower decks. There are always those who can find a way to bypass the mob being held on Deck 6 and sneak their way onto a lower deck...

 

For your tender port, ask about when tender tickets are available. And make sure you try to grab one as soon as possible for a low board group number.  

 

Priority tendering just means you can join the back of the tender line without a boarding group number. You are the same as anyone with a shore ex ticket or anyone with Latitudes status. All can join the back of the line at any time. That is Priority. That being said, lately, Latitudes has been escorting their people to the front of the line at some ports. I have no idea what they will do at Cannes. 

 

Does this apply to the majority of ships or just his specific one?

[Ellis1138]

6 hours ago, AlaskaGoer said:

 

Hi, could you explain #2 a bit more? I thought you needed tickets if you weren't latitude level gold and above?

 

So on just about every NCL sailing I've been on, for tendering, it goes like this:

The first lifeboats/tenders are dropped and crew goes over to the land to set up the security area and where people get on and off the tenders. (Edited to add: I remember there was a post from someone who got to over with the crew, due to a super early excursion. That was dependent on the crew being really nice, though.)

 

Next, there is a 90 minute window, called Early Bird, where you don't need any tickets. You go down to the deck where the tendering will take place and just get on. 

 

After that Early Bird window is done, now starts the ticket parts, with Groups 1 to whatever. Never having been Gold or above, I have no idea how the ticketed groups work, since I always go early bird. I assume that I would have had to go to the assigned place to ask for my tickets and hope that I get a good time. High level Latitudes might be able to just get on, I don't know... someone with high Lat status can chime in.

 

The alternative is if you have an NCL excursion, that is your tender ticket and you meet at the assigned place for that excursion.

 

After a certain number of hours, when the ticketed groups and NCL excursion tenders have gone, now is open tendering. You will no longer need a ticket.

 

I hope this explained the process.

 

Edited May 10 by Ellis1138

[AlaskaGoer]

3 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

 

So on just about every NCL sailing I've been on, for tendering, it goes like this:

The first lifeboats/tenders are dropped and crew goes over to the land to set up the security area and where people get on and off the tenders. (Edited to add: I remember there was a post from someone who got to over with the crew, due to a super early excursion. That was dependent on the crew being really nice, though.)

 

Next, there is a 90 minute window, called Early Bird, where you don't need any tickets. You go down to the deck where the tendering will take place and just get on. 

 

After that Early Bird window is done, now starts the ticket parts, with Groups 1 to whatever. Never having been Gold or above, I have no idea how the ticketed groups work, since I always go early bird. I assume that I would have had to go to the assigned place to ask for my tickets and hope that I get a good time. High level Latitudes might be able to just get on, I don't know... someone with high Lat status can chime in.

 

The alternative is if you have an NCL excursion, that is your tender ticket and you meet at the assigned place for that excursion.

 

After a certain number of hours, when the ticketed groups and NCL excursion tenders have gone, now is open tendering. You will no longer need a ticket.

 

I hope this explained the process.

 

 

Thank you much. As I have never been on a cruise that I needed to tender for the port, does the Freestyle give the location on the ship to  meet for the Early Bird drop off in addition to the time?

[Ellis1138]

51 minutes ago, AlaskaGoer said:

 

Thank you much. As I have never been on a cruise that I needed to tender for the port, does the Freestyle give the location on the ship to  meet for the Early Bird drop off in addition to the time?

 

It should say where and when, although by the time you need to tender, you'll know where the gangway is. You can always call guest services and ask them. There might be an extra slip of paper in the night before, telling you the information.

[Middleager]

14 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

 

So on just about every NCL sailing I've been on, for tendering, it goes like this:

The first lifeboats/tenders are dropped and crew goes over to the land to set up the security area and where people get on and off the tenders. (Edited to add: I remember there was a post from someone who got to over with the crew, due to a super early excursion. That was dependent on the crew being really nice, though.)

 

Next, there is a 90 minute window, called Early Bird, where you don't need any tickets. You go down to the deck where the tendering will take place and just get on. 

 

After that Early Bird window is done, now starts the ticket parts, with Groups 1 to whatever. Never having been Gold or above, I have no idea how the ticketed groups work, since I always go early bird. I assume that I would have had to go to the assigned place to ask for my tickets and hope that I get a good time. High level Latitudes might be able to just get on, I don't know... someone with high Lat status can chime in.

We've been on several NCL cruises, including 6 since Covid.  Never heard of "Early Bird" window for tendering.

 

Before we became Gold/Platinum, we always had to either get a tender ticket or an excursion.  For excursion, we'd go to a specific area and are given/assigned tender tickets there, and basically followed the group as we're called.

 

For Gold/Plat and up, we were told to wait in a (different than the excursions) specific area.  While waiting there, we don't need tender tickets and we're just escorted to get on a tender.  There's usually not that many people, and we thought we were on the first tender going out, for guests.

 

Never heard of "Early Bird" tendering, for all of the NCL cruises we had been on.

[zqvol]

14 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

 

So on just about every NCL sailing I've been on, for tendering, it goes like this:

The first lifeboats/tenders are dropped and crew goes over to the land to set up the security area and where people get on and off the tenders. (Edited to add: I remember there was a post from someone who got to over with the crew, due to a super early excursion. That was dependent on the crew being really nice, though.)

 

Next, there is a 90 minute window, called Early Bird, where you don't need any tickets. You go down to the deck where the tendering will take place and just get on. 

 

After that Early Bird window is done, now starts the ticket parts, with Groups 1 to whatever. Never having been Gold or above, I have no idea how the ticketed groups work, since I always go early bird. I assume that I would have had to go to the assigned place to ask for my tickets and hope that I get a good time. High level Latitudes might be able to just get on, I don't know... someone with high Lat status can chime in.

 

The alternative is if you have an NCL excursion, that is your tender ticket and you meet at the assigned place for that excursion.

 

After a certain number of hours, when the ticketed groups and NCL excursion tenders have gone, now is open tendering. You will no longer need a ticket.

 

I hope this explained the process.

 

I have never heard of early bird tendering on any of my over 10 NCL cruises. Pretty sure it doesn’t exist. 

[Ellis1138]

I thought it was called early bird. I don't usually keep all my FS dailies, but here's an example of the "get off during an early window with no ticket", and there was something similar on the Escape when I went. 

free-style-daily-5 (3).pdf

[zqvol]

47 minutes ago, Ellis1138 said:

I thought it was called early bird. I don't usually keep all my FS dailies, but here's an example of the "get off during an early window with no ticket", and there was something similar on the Escape when I went. 

free-style-daily-5 (3).pdf 745.27 kB · 2 downloads

Might be a Pride of America thing.

[AlaskaGoer]

16 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

I thought it was called early bird. I don't usually keep all my FS dailies, but here's an example of the "get off during an early window with no ticket", and there was something similar on the Escape when I went. 

free-style-daily-5 (3).pdf 745.27 kB · 12 downloads

Interesting. Might have been that specific ship / port thing?

 

I browsed through a few threads on here to find other FS dailies, and none had that either. All stated to get a ticket.

 

I guess I'll be the chosen one to get in line for tickets 😉

[AlaskaGoer]

16 hours ago, Middleager said:

We've been on several NCL cruises, including 6 since Covid.  Never heard of "Early Bird" window for tendering.

 

Before we became Gold/Platinum, we always had to either get a tender ticket or an excursion.  For excursion, we'd go to a specific area and are given/assigned tender tickets there, and basically followed the group as we're called.

 

For Gold/Plat and up, we were told to wait in a (different than the excursions) specific area.  While waiting there, we don't need tender tickets and we're just escorted to get on a tender.  There's usually not that many people, and we thought we were on the first tender going out, for guests.

 

Never heard of "Early Bird" tendering, for all of the NCL cruises we had been on.

I'm about 10 to 12 points shy after this cruise from Gold level.

 

Something to look forward to I guess. 

[Ellis1138]

18 minutes ago, AlaskaGoer said:

Interesting. Might have been that specific ship / port thing?

 

I browsed through a few threads on here to find other FS dailies, and none had that either. All stated to get a ticket.

 

I guess I'll be the chosen one to get in line for tickets 😉

 

I must have been on some cruises or specific port things where I was able to mosey off early, or the crew were just amenable to letting me off without a ticket. I guess I'll see on the upcoming Prima cruise, assuming we tender.

[ontheweb]

25 minutes ago, Ellis1138 said:

 

I must have been on some cruises or specific port things where I was able to mosey off early, or the crew were just amenable to letting me off without a ticket. I guess I'll see on the upcoming Prima cruise, assuming we tender.

The Prima's lifeboats are not certified for tendering. So, the only way you will tender is if the port provides the tender boats.

 

Last summer, the Prima missed every port call in Isafjordur because the port had not finished its dock construction and the ship could not tender.

[Ellis1138]

8 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

 

Last summer, the Prima missed every port call in Isafjordur because the port had not finished its dock construction and the ship could not tender.

 

That's why I simply booked an NCL excursion for Isafjordur. While the dock is supposed to be ready, if it's not, then I want to be able to be refunded for NCL's last minute decision to not dock there.

[Middleager]

18 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

I thought it was called early bird. I don't usually keep all my FS dailies, but here's an example of the "get off during an early window with no ticket", and there was something similar on the Escape when I went. 

free-style-daily-5 (3).pdf 745.27 kB · 16 downloads

In that example, the ship's time in Kona is 7am - 5pm.  Most excursions in Kona don't start that early, and from experience most people don't get off the ship when it begins to tender at 7am.  From their experience, it'll be closer to 8am when people will start to want to get off, so from 7:45am they start with ticketed tendering.  The tendering from ship to shore isn't too long.
 

In Kona's, 7am is the earliest.  There is no special treatment or "Early Bird" that is 90minutes before everyone else.  It's everyone, not everyone else, starting at 7am.
 

We've been on NCL cruises to Hawaii twice, and we did remember the tendering process there.

[Ellis1138]

I didn't say we got special treatment. Just that if you go down to the gangway when the Freestyle Daily tells you that you won't need a ticket from X time to Y time, you get to tender and not worry about a ticket or group number. I might have heard some crew member call us "early birds" and just assigned that name to it. But yeah, it wasn't priority of any sort; just being ready and needing to get off that early for a rental car pickup.

[BirdTravels]

On 5/10/2024 at 2:01 AM, AlaskaGoer said:

 

Does this apply to the majority of ships or just his specific one?

The majority of ships. 
 

Yeah, stuff happens all the time. Weather delays. Harbor traffic. Twice on on last cruise, the harbor pilot was late coming to the ship.  But as a rule, they try to dock and have the gangways set around the advertised arrival time. . 

Edited May 11 by BirdTravels