port times

why does cunard not put the times in port like 7am to 6pm ect....

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I think because it gives them some wiggle room. For example if they said morning it could be any time, and 8, 9, 10 am are specific. Same for departures late afternoon could be 4, 5 or 6 pm. There are many factors in the time the ship arrives and departs, tides, available docks. passengers on board so they have gone to 'general' time frames. recently.

why does cunard not put the times in port like 7am to 6pm ect....

 

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Anthony,

I miss that too!

Our future cruise, we got the information directly from our travel agent in detail which is helpful for planning land tours and of course shopping.

I first thought it was due to security but those other factors can be also considered.

They used to give times of arrival and departure in the brochures but stopped doing it and cynical people used to say it was to make it difficult for people to find the times and so therefore could not arrange independent tours so therefore booking Cunard excursions. and making them more profit.

I've also found that you can usually get port times from the port websites themselves. (Foreign language sites usually provide English versions, and even without, you can usually figure them out - but beware of international DD-MM-YY dates.)

Also - they list the times reserved for the ship berths - allow time for customs clearance upon arrival.

There is always this website, although I do not know how accurate it may be, however may help.

Presently You do not have to register.

Select your ship.

http://www.cruisecal.com/portal/ItineraryLookup/tabid/2918/Default.aspx

They used to give times of arrival and departure in the brochures but stopped doing it and cynical people used to say it was to make it difficult for people to find the times and so therefore could not arrange independent tours so therefore booking Cunard excursions. and making them more profit.

The catch is that any reputable provider of port tours will know the ship arrival and sailing times.

Some travel agents show the times.

why does cunard not put the times in port like 7am to 6pm ect....

 

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They did at one time.

My thought is too many people complained if they were ten minutes late.

It might also encourage some to book Cunard Excursions as they are uncertain as to arrival times.

They gave me docking times in port when I called about our Norwegian cruise. It matched each cities port listing. If you don't have a travel agent just call Cunard directly. It's weird that they don't post the information, since it is an important factor in choosing a cruise.

The recent discussion about accessing different versions of Cunard's web site via VPN prompted me to do a bit of experimentation. If you're 'in' Spain, cunard.com redirects to http://www.cunardcruceros.com which shows port times if you click through a cruise's itinerary, and you don't have to fiddle around with VPN to see the site (or at least I don't from the UK).

Q737 Port times.pdf

Good spot, thanks

Works from the US also.

I noticed that the itineraries count both the date of arrival and the date of departure; e.g. a two day (two night) itinerary on the US or UK sites is listed as a three day itinerary on the Spanish site.

The recent discussion about accessing different versions of Cunard's web site via VPN prompted me to do a bit of experimentation. If you're 'in' Spain, cunard.com redirects to http://www.cunardcruceros.com which shows port times if you click through a cruise's itinerary, and you don't have to fiddle around with VPN to see the site (or at least I don't from the UK).

Thanks! That's very useful. And, interestingly, they show the UK TA's times to be a work of fiction. (They're all the same for each port, so I was suspicious).

Stuart

For my upcoming QM2 trip, it looks like someone applied simple rules for "early morning, morning, evening", etc. I'd still take the times with a grain of salt.

The recent discussion about accessing different versions of Cunard's web site via VPN prompted me to do a bit of experimentation. If you're 'in' Spain, cunard.com redirects to http://www.cunardcruceros.com which shows port times if you click through a cruise's itinerary, and you don't have to fiddle around with VPN to see the site (or at least I don't from the UK).

Many thanks KentChris - this is very useful! I wonder why this site has the port times but we can't find it elsewhere? It is nice to have so we can plan out our time.

By the way, when I start searching for specific cruises it goes to a Mexican (.MX) website, at least from the US.

For my upcoming QM2 trip, it looks like someone applied simple rules for "early morning, morning, evening", etc. I'd still take the times with a grain of salt.

I wouldn't be at all surprised by that, although the times for my cruise look entirely feasible.

I've been on three cruises so far: on the first we spent an unscheduled night at anchor to minimise the effects of poor weather the following day; on the next cruise we lost a sea day, arriving at port mid-afternoon the day before scheduled, again to avoid poor weather; on the most recent cruise a scheduled port was abandoned mid cruise because of forecast bad weather so the port after that was brought forward by a day and an extra port was slotted in for the day after.

The result of that experience is that I'm very conscious that stuff happens so I hope I'll avoid making financial or personal commitments for port days that I can't afford to ditch at the last minute - I'll go by the times on the dailies and listen out for announcements on the day and wing it accordingly.

Many thanks KentChris - this is very useful! I wonder why this site has the port times but we can't find it elsewhere? It is nice to have so we can plan out our time.

As Underwatr suggests, some of the times look a bit arbitrary, but I'd think the same if they were on cunard.com or cunard.co.uk. Having said that, for my cruise I'd now consider having dinner ashore in Funchal as QE appears to be in port until late evening, but I'm not going to make any great emotional or financial investment in doing that as it's an important day for me: until today I'd been planning on having a feast on board (I'm in QG) but unless I can find somewhere unmissable on shore I'll stick to Plan A.

Great idea to check the Cruise Port schedules - has helped me with times looking at non-cruise offered tours. (Marseille on Victoria in November). Haven't been on Cunard before - and have always had times on Celebrity, Holland America, Princess etc and I was suprised not to see actual times. Many thanks! :)