Extremely useful port information

This was posted in my roll call. This is so useful that I am posting it here. http://www.tomsportguides.com/

I love his guides! Thanks.

This was posted in my roll call. This is so useful that I am posting it here. http://www.tomsportguides.com/

Wow!! This is good stuff. It will take me while to read thru it all. Very helpful. Thanks for posting. :):):)

Another option -

https://www.whatsinport.com/

John in Denver

I have read Tom's port guides. I think they are fabulous.

I love Tom's Guides also. But, a word of warning, they are a labor of love, created by one individual, so they are not updated with new information annually. Always double check other sources to make sure things haven't changed. We used the guide in Marseille to locate the ship shuttle to return to the ship (we had taken a cab into the city) and the location he showed was very different from where we eventually found it.

In the interests of providing links to very useful travel websites can I offer http://www.seat61.com/

Its the best website for rail information I have found. I must apologise for deviating from the topic and providing land based information rather that cruise or port information but cruisers (particularly for Australia and I suspect new Zealand) sometimes take a longer break and rail might be an option for them.

AllanWW

I love Tom's Guides also. But, a word of warning, they are a labor of love, created by one individual, so they are not updated with new information annually. Always double check other sources to make sure things haven't changed. We used the guide in Marseille to locate the ship shuttle to return to the ship (we had taken a cab into the city) and the location he showed was very different from where we eventually found it.

Good illustration of a couple things: Just because Princess (or whatever cruise line Tom uses) docks in one location doesn't mean all cruise ships dock there. Many ports (Stockholm and Copenhagen come to mind) have fairly widely spaced out dock locations, and since the assignment of where a cruise ship docks is ultimately up to the port, there can be surprises. There can also be last minute surprises, although we've only had one or two of those. I like to google to find the port website of each place we go. It's usually pretty easy, starting with something like "port" and name of city. Most port sites give you the location your ship is scheduled to dock. Looking this info up is also helpful in telling you if multiple cruise ships are there the same day you are.

Cruisecrodile.com is another site that's not as comprehensive as Tom's Port Guides - but I still find it helpful for some cruises.

ditto whatsinport.com--invaluable for many ports that are not in Europe!!!

Another one that we use is passageweather.com. Just keep clicking on the squares until you get to the port area you're interested in.

This is a good website so that when the guy in the elevator is fuming about missing a port, you can tell him how high the seas and winds are there!!!!

ditto whatsinport.com--invaluable for many ports that are not in Europe!!!

 

 

Another one that we use is passageweather.com. Just keep clicking on the squares until you get to the port area you're interested in.

 

This is a good website so that when the guy in the elevator is fuming about missing a port, you can tell him how high the seas and winds are there!!!!

Hhm, that's a new site for me. I'll have to check it out. It also could come in handy the next time we miss a port due to weather - although so far that has only been one port (Grand Turk) and one day of one port (Easter Island).

roothy123--

on ATW16 we missed a couple of ports due to weather and we really did have an elevator guy fuming. He said "everybody should call O and complain about the captain refusing to go into Picton, NZ when everybody could see that the weather was wonderful."

My husband showed several of our fellow passengers the info from passageweather for Picton area and one of our friends said "every lawyer and CPA thinks he knows more than the captain"; the colors of the maps for Picton were red and orange (not good news for people on ships!!)

as we know, it's not the weather now that is important when cruising, but what's ahead of us!!!

Well, I certainly don't know anything much about sailing, so if the Captain says he/she can't go there, I accept it. But some people just don't understand. It's not just whether the sky is blue or black, or even how big the swells are. It also has to do with whether tendering's involved, what the pier's like for docking, and stuff I don't even think about when I'm a passenger. I guess I'm lucky, though, because on our Caribbean cruise, the port we missed (Grand Turk) was the one I was least looking forward to seeing. I was disappointed, but it could have been worse. I think that was the year there was an earthquake on Haiti or the Dominican Republic, and those countries are not all that far from Turks and Caicos. Now Easter Island was a different case, and I was pretty disappointed to hear we wouldn't be going back ashore the second day. But at least I had done some homework and read that many cruise ships don't make it. And at least we had one absolutely fabulous and fascination day on the island.

I'm a little surprised you had a complainer on an Oceania cruise, as the people on O are a pretty savvy group. But I suppose there's one in every crowd, and plenty of cruisers who haven't read the infamous Contract of Carriage!