Anyone Missed the Ship Due to a Private Tour Company?

I've heard lots of people say that they take the ship's excursions because if anything happens to cause a delay, the cruise line will hold the ship. I understand that.

However, I'm wondering if anyone on a private tour has ACTUALLY been returned to the port after your ship has left? I'm not looking for a hypothetical but actual experience of it happening.

Would you mind sharing the details and how did you meet up with the ship later?

Thank you.

I've heard lots of people say that they take the ship's excursions because if anything happens to cause a delay, the cruise line will hold the ship. I understand that.

 

However, I'm wondering if anyone on a private tour has ACTUALLY been returned to the port after your ship has left? I'm not looking for a hypothetical but actual experience of it happening.

 

Would you mind sharing the details and how did you meet up with the ship later?

 

Thank you.

If you do your research and pick a company that has good reviews on Cruise Critic and TripAdvisor it is very unlikely that would happen. Private tour companies are dependent on good reviews so they are not going to get you back after the ship leaves!

Also a ships excursion does not guarantee that the ship will be held. Sometimes they have to leave because another ship is coming in or the tides. The ship would get you to the next port for sure if that happened. A private tour company might too but that would not be guaranteed.

I have seen people miss the ship but they were not on private tours or ships tours. They went off on their own. The most common reason is losing track of time or the fault of a local taxi driver.

There are several tour booking agencies that guarantee you will return to your ship in time or they will get you to your next port of call.

We arrange private tours & use the Port section on cruise critic & double check their reputation on tripadvisor.com .In 63 cruises we have never had a problem with a private tour company .:D The reason is checking out that vendor thoroughly :D

I've never had that happen and we have mostly taken private excursions.

These people make their living doing this. They'd be out of business in a nano second if they arrived late.

On some ports and some excursions it's wise to take the ship's tour, such as in Colon, Panama for a bus ride down to the Canal and a ferry ride through it. There can be MAJOR delays on that one, due to canal traffic. We experienced this. There were at least 6 full large buses that did the trip when we went and we were about 2 hours late arriving to the ship. The ship waited, even for the private tours.

On private tours I can't tell you how many times the van driver has said something like "we do the farthest away thing first and work back to the port, avoiding at all times the big buses of tourists."

If you go with a reputable company and do just a wee bit of research, you should have no problem. And likely have a better, more personal tour.

As has been mentioned, tour operators make their living off tourists. The Internet has made researching easy, so any tour operator who doesn't make cruisers happy, won't be in business long.

It's part of the scare-tactic policy Celebrity and all the other lines have to scare you into buying their very expensive excursions.

Go with a reputed company and leave a reasonable margin and all will be well. After all, Celebrity use the same local companies.

Stuart

Never missed the ship but once at Toulon France, (port in Provence area), we got back late and arrived about 5 minutes before the last on board time. Our driver missed a freeway exit and the next exit was about 40KM down the road and then we hit heavy rush hour traffic in the port city. I was the last on board and they had the gangway area cleared of all the usual items and pulled it up immediately after I boarded.

I see a lot of posts in this thread, including me, from people who took private tours and didn't miss the ship and are stating that it doesn't happen, but I know it does. I'll post the question a different way: Has anyone been late to the ship (at least 15 min or so past the sailing time) and had the ship wait for them?

Never missed the ship but once at Toulon France, (port in Provence area), we got back late and arrived about 5 minutes before the last on board time. Our driver missed a freeway exit and the next exit was about 40KM down the road and then we hit heavy rush hour traffic in the port city. I was the last on board and they had the gangway area cleared of all the usual items and pulled it up immediately after I boarded.

 

 

I see a lot of posts in this thread, including me, from people who took private tours and didn't miss the ship and are stating that it doesn't happen, but I know it does. I'll post the question a different way: Has anyone been late to the ship (at least 15 min or so past the sailing time) and had the ship wait for them?

Private or ship's tours? I have had a ship's tour be over an hour late leaving. Our tour (on NCL)was the longest one and we arrived to catch the last tender. Someone on our tour didn't follow directions and was left by the guide at Lamanai in Belize. We all waited while the tour company went and got the person. No fun. Another time (on HAL) the ship waited over an hour for their excursion which flew to remote Mayan ruins. Both times the gangway came up as soon as the excursion people got on.

We've not been late from a private tour off X....but have missed seeing anything due to leader's fear of our missing the ship and driving aimlessly most of the day never arriving at the destination.

I agree with everything said above, but we also know that accidents and unforeseeable can happen when out with a private tour. For that reason, my husband has a policy not to book a private tour that does not get back at least 2 hours before the ship sails. ;)

I agree with everything said above, but we also know that accidents and unforeseeable can happen when out with a private tour. For that reason, my husband has a policy not to book a private tour that does not get back at least 2 hours before the ship sails. ;)

I have the two hour rule for private tours as well and have never been late.

Our very charismatic tour guide in St. Lucia told us before we left on our tour: "I have never been late in getting a group back to their ship - if this were to happen today, don't worry ladies, you can all come home with me (with a wink)." After the cheering stopped (from the women), the men were a bit quiet (though my husband and I still laugh about that one). It's always good to have a back-up plan! :)

I've heard lots of people say that they take the ship's excursions because if anything happens to cause a delay, the cruise line will hold the ship. I understand that.

 

However, I'm wondering if anyone on a private tour has ACTUALLY been returned to the port after your ship has left? I'm not looking for a hypothetical but actual experience of it happening.

 

Would you mind sharing the details and how did you meet up with the ship later?

 

Thank you.

Best policy is: never pay any money upfront but only when returning to ship

I agree with everything said above, but we also know that accidents and unforeseeable can happen when out with a private tour. For that reason, my husband has a policy not to book a private tour that does not get back at least 2 hours before the ship sails. ;)

LOL, Does your husband have a weather policy? I recall a tour to Ljubljana when it was cold and pouring cats and dogs. Miserable weather.:D

We have been very happy with all our private excursions on 10 cruises and never been late. The only problem we had was in Koper when the private tour driver did not have the correct insurance and was not allowed to leave the port. It took an hour to get figured out and by then it was raining and cold. It was one of the very well known companies. All others from Hawaii to St. Petersburg to Le Harve have been great. We have made sure to take ship's tour in places like Rome and Berlin where the city is a long way from the port.

When we were in Egypt a couple of years ago on a Royal Caribbean ship, we did an overnight tour to Cairo with a highly recommended tour operator. There was a bus full of Cruise Critic folks who arranged the tour together on our Roll Call.

The second day we were there was the beginning of a sacred holiday for Egypt that involved every family slaughtering and sacrificing a goat/sheep. Because of this the streets of Cairo were packed with herds of animals that farmers had brought to the city to sell. The traffic in Cairo is the worst I have ever experienced to begin with and adding a couple of million animals to the streets, you can only imagine the chaos!!

We couldn't get out of the city. I never heard a more quiet bus of people as it dawned on us that we might miss our ship....we were all freaked out and wondering to ourselves and spouses what we would do if the ship sailed without us. Bruce and I have adventurers spirits and figured it would be rather exciting to fly from Egypt to our next port in Israel.....a good story to tell, huh?? :)

As we inched our way out of the city, clearly too late to make our ship on time, our tour guide, who was wonderful, was busy on the phone trying to make arrangements and trying to see if the ship was waiting or not.

Suddenly he stands up and turns to us and says, "There are many excursion buses having the same difficulties as we are having and good news, 2 of the ship's buses are BEHIND us and one of them is broken down! The ship is going to wait for everyone to return!" The whole bus exploded into relieved cheers!

We ended up arriving to the ship a couple of hours after it was supposed to have sailed, and it was still 2 hours until all the buses arrived and the ship left port.

As a side note: The excursion to Cairo was one of the most amazing tours EVER, I will never forget it. We prefer private tour companies and we have only had good experiences....all over the world.

What a great story!! A travel adventure to remember for sure:D

Has anyone been late to the ship (at least 15 min or so past the sailing time) and had the ship wait for them?

Twice, both times on ship's excursions.

The first time was on a Royal ship's excursion, when we got back to the ship several hours late. The ship was supposed to set sail at 6:00 PM, but by the time we got back, it was so late that the MDR had already closed.

The second time was on a Celebrity ship's excursion. I had Select Dining, so I booked the excursion before the cruise, and I called Celebrity and asked what time I should book dinner for that night. I was told no earlier than 7:30 PM. So I booked dinner for 7:30 PM. I got on the end of the line for a tender to go back to the ship at 6:45 PM. 7:30 PM came and went, and still no tender. By the time I got back to the ship, it was after 11:00 PM, and the MDR was closed. So I went to get pizza, because the newsletter said that the pizza place would be open until 1:00 AM, only to find at 11:15 PM that the pizza place was locked up tight.

Once on a ship's excursion in Costa Rica, the bus was late in arriving and we felt confident because we were on a ship's tour. Another time, we were on a private tour in a Chilean port and thought we caught the last tender back to the ship. However, as we neared the ship, we saw two buses with ship's excursions pull into the parking lot and we had made it to our room, showered and changed clothes before the ship left and it was now an hour later than the stated time. One time in Livorno, we had the experience of pulling up to the ship when they already had one side of the gangplank up. We were the last people on board and the ship left within 10 minutes. That was cutting it very close but 2 people with our group wanted to buy wine before we returned and as the van driver was driving through the port, many streets were no longer open. He was doing his best and if we missed the ship, it would have been our own fault and not that of the driver. As others have said do your research on the private companies, and listen to your driver about timing back to the ship.

It hasn't happened to me, but I have read a review here in the review section, it was a Princess cruise it might have been as long as 10 years ago and 4 people booked a tour at a stop in Italy and encountered bad traffic due to an accident and then had to get from Italy to Greece to rejoin their ship and miss a sea day. I'm not sure if reviews that old are still accessible??

I'm not sure how the frowny face got up there, but I can't get rid of it, I didn't mean for it to be there.

We were a few minutes late arrived from a tour in Scotland, but just made the ship. Had me missed the tour, it would have taken a flight to Copenhagen to catch the ship. Not good.

We were in Alaska, in a golf excursion. In our group was a member of the ship, the onboard pro at the time, as well as a gentleman from the other Celebrity ship in port. His final onboard was at 5pm, while ours was 7pm. We took a ferry to meet the van from the golf course and had a great time. We were done, in the van, and almost back at the very landing when our golf pro from the ship realized that she'd left her purse at the golf course. The van driver took us back to the golf course, she retrieved her purse and we headed back to the ferry landing...just in time to see the ferry pull out. Our golf pro was frantic, making phone calls...she returned to us and said that the ship was going to charter a small island hopper plane, but that it wouldn't be ready on time to get us back in time for the other gentleman's ship. More phone calls, and apparently, his ship, again also a Celebrity ship, was going to wait. We had a great wait for the plane in a tiny, very local microbrewery, followed by a beautiful flight back. We headed for our ships, and as my husband and I got out to our balcony, we were able to watch the other Celebrity ship sail...almost an hour late, but they did wait for the ship's golf excursions to get back.

We've completely given up on excursions booked through Celebrity. As mentioned before good research will ensure you arrive on time. Funny story from our last cruise. Celebrity was charging $360 per person for the same excursion that we paid $40. Craziness.

I was on a Princess Cruise about 15 years ago. We had left our port and wondered what everyone was leaning over the railings were looking at. We went to take a look and saw a tugboat sailing alongside of the ship at a pretty good speed. There were two middle-aged women climbing up a rope ladder the cruise ship had dropped down for them. They climbed to the cargo hold area they had opened up. These had to have been some VERY brave women because the ship never stopped but just slowed down some for them. I told myself then that I would NEVER be late to a ship!!! I bet they had some good stories to tell when they got home.

We were in Alaska, in a golf excursion. In our group was a member of the ship, the onboard pro at the time, as well as a gentleman from the other Celebrity ship in port. His final onboard was at 5pm, while ours was 7pm. We took a ferry to meet the van from the golf course and had a great time. We were done, in the van, and almost back at the very landing when our golf pro from the ship realized that she'd left her purse at the golf course. The van driver took us back to the golf course, she retrieved her purse and we headed back to the ferry landing...just in time to see the ferry pull out. Our golf pro was frantic, making phone calls...she returned to us and said that the ship was going to charter a small island hopper plane, but that it wouldn't be ready on time to get us back in time for the other gentleman's ship. More phone calls, and apparently, his ship, again also a Celebrity ship, was going to wait. We had a great wait for the plane in a tiny, very local microbrewery, followed by a beautiful flight back. We headed for our ships, and as my husband and I got out to our balcony, we were able to watch the other Celebrity ship sail...almost an hour late, but they did wait for the ship's golf excursions to get back.

Moral of the story:

Golf excursion: $150/per person approx.

Local microbrewery sample pack: $15

Peace of mind knowing that Celebrity would reunite us with the ship: priceless

We've completely given up on excursions booked through Celebrity. As mentioned before good research will ensure you arrive on time. Funny story from our last cruise. Celebrity was charging $360 per person for the same excursion that we paid $40. Craziness.

It's not really funny. That particular mark up is outrageous. Mark ups were but one of the reasons I stopped doing most cruise line excursions. In addition to the mark ups the cruise line excursions are usually on buses or boats with 30 or 40 persons to a guide. Private tours tend to be 6 to 10 persons. I pay less and get a better tour or excursion with a private tour.