Missed ship while in port.

[newlywedcruisers]

I don't know if this is the best place to post this but since I'm gonna be (I guess I am right now) a first time cruiser I wanna hear anyones horror stories of missing their ship while in port.

 

Thanks,

Look forward to it

[PelicanBill]

It doesn't happen all that often and the readers of Cruise Critic are smarter than average so we don't make the mistakes that lead to this!

 

I don't get the impression that many people book tours outside the ship that have late return times.... we are doing a tour that goes from 2-5pm in St. Thomas but our ship leaves 11pm... so plenty of room to recover from problems.

[Planer's Edge]

Actually a few years ago there was a CCer who was traveling on the innaugural caribbean sailing of the Sun who missed the ship in two ports during one cruise. He missed the ship in Key West and caught up with her in Cozumel and proceeded to miss it again that night in Cozumel. :confused:

 

PE

[Nitemare]

If you use the search function here, you should be able to find a couple of threads on this very subject. Check this baord and the Ask A Cruise Question board. Some great stories there.

[wwinfl91]

There was a real horror story about people who missed a cruise in Naples awhile back on the Europe board. They missed the ship because of traffic when they were on a private tour. Luckily they had the port agent's # for their cruise line and after two days were able to catch up with their ship in Greece. But they had to pay for air travel, hotels, taxis, etc. It was a very expensive adventure.

 

Have a great next cruise and get back to the ship on time.

[wrp96]

My personal favorite was the couple on the honeymoon cruise on NCL. When stopped at I believe Roatan, they went off on their own and didn't pay attention to the fact that ship time was different than port time or the fact that they needed to be back onboard ship 30 minutes prior to the ship leaving. They went to a beach that was far away from port and waited until about 45 minutes before the ship was supposed to leave to even start heading back to the ship. Of course, they made the mistake of asking locals what time it was, which meant that it was actually 15 minutes after the ship left when they started back to the ship. Apparently though, even if ship time and port time had been the same time, they would have still missed the ship, because the beach was that far away from the ship.

 

In addition they had no IDs with them or cash. In order to leave Honduras they needed to go to the US embassy, which was on the mainland. Unfortunately for them, they needed ID to even be able to get to the mainland to the US embassy. It was several days at their own expense before they made it back to the US.

 

And they tried to blame NCL for all of it - because the ship didn't wait for them.

[jlp20]

High entertainment leaving Mazatlan. Stand on the portside rail as the ship pushes back and watch the drunks get off the tram with floppy hats and souvenir drink glasses. As they jump around and scream while the ship inches away and hundreds of fellow passengers jeer them on. Always good for a laugh.

[newlywedcruisers]

Wow, missing the ship twice on the same cruise... kinda sad. No scratch that, its REALLY sad.

[CaptData]

The closest I came was in San Jaun. The tour was through the ship because I knew we would not be in port long. Traffic was very bad and took an hour to go 400 yds. We were 30 minutes late but the ship waited for us. Once back on board friends were clapping their hands because the Captain was about to leave anyway. Even so, two members of a on board band did not make it in time. The band was fired when we returned to Norfolk. This was on the Maasdam.

[dkjretired]

people missing the ship and leaving their kids alone on board. That would be a real horror story, at least for the parents, maybe not for the kids.

[Host Walt]

Back to the point. Most lines provide the name and phone number of their port agents in each port so if there's a possibility you will have a problem, make sure you call them right away.

 

Also, make sure you know whether the clock time on shore is the same as the ship's time.

 

If you take those two precautions, you should do fine.

[serene56]

WRP-- I remember those posters...lol boy were they pissed. Said the cruiselines never told them to be on the ship 30 minutes before.. and didnt leave their stuff at the pier.. sheesh responsibilty people..

I like sitting on my balcony watching all the late arrivals running to catch up at the last minute.

 

like some one said-- it doesnt happen much

 

Listen for the PA system for names over and over to report to the pursers desk-- these people are not onboard.

[wrp96]

WRP-- I remember those posters...lol boy were they pissed. Said the cruiselines never told them to be on the ship 30 minutes before.. and didnt leave their stuff at the pier.. sheesh responsibilty people..

I like sitting on my balcony watching all the late arrivals running to catch up at the last minute.

 

like some one said-- it doesnt happen much

 

Listen for the PA system for names over and over to report to the pursers desk-- these people are not onboard.

 

Yep, that was right after I started reading cruise critic.

 

Of course, I've had my name called out before onboard, when my cruise line excursion in Grand Cayman left without me (it left 45 minutes early) and they threw me on another excursion by the same company, but didn't note it. Then that particular excursion ran late getting back to Georgetown. Believe me I was running fast to the tender they were holding, and made sure I was ahead of the other people on the boat with me - since RCCL didn't seem to know I was on that excursion. We were literally on the last tender to the ship (an hour after the ship was supposed to leave) and as the tender left for the ship we saw other people running up and waving - we left them behind.

[dodukes]

I have a fairly (maybe ) dumb ?. We ar looking at uor first cruise in October, and i was reading thru this thread and i wanted to know if you are on a ship sponsored tour, meaning i booked my excursion thru carnival and for some reason we get delayed , dont they have to wait for us since it is THEIR excursion??? Im just curios cuz that way ill be careful in booking htem but i was planning on bokoing thru them for this very reason. ???

[wrp96]

It depends on the ship sponsored excursion. Read the description carefully. Most will wait for you - except for the ones that read something like "cruiser is responsible for making his way back to the ship on his own."

 

In my case, the excursion I was booked on went too early - and was back to the ship on time. The ship did not know that the company had decided to throw us on one of their later excursions since it was the company's fault that we didn't make the excursion. So according to the ship, we should've been back on board - so that is why they called our names out. At that point, we had to make sure that we were on that last tender with the other people with us on the boat (that the ship was waiting for).

 

That was the only time on a ship's excursion that I was worried the ship wouldn't wait for me. I've since done 2 more ships excursions that were very late back to port, and haven't worried at all, because the ship knew that I was on those excursions - and the ship did wait.