"morning" and "early morning"

The arrival times at all our ports on a Med cruise are given as either "morning" or "early morning". This doesn't help if we want to arrange independent excursions.

Do those familiar with Cunard-Speak have a rough idea of what sort of times these terms might mean?

Your best bet is to look up the ship call information at the particular port(s) of call. I've made plans based on an assumption of ship arrival to be 8:00 AM only to learn after boarding that the actual arrival would be at 9:00 AM.

I don't think there's a reliable predictor based on published "morning", " early morning" etc. One thing in our favor is that with lower energy prices Cunard seems to be scheduling higher transit speeds again.

I had to call Cunard to get more precise times for our Med port stops. They didn't even show up on VP.

Cheers!

This is a very annoying aspect of Cunard's scheduling. Other cruise lines seem to be able to advise arrivals and departures with much more accuracy. I did find a website that showed virtually all our July 1 Med arrivals at 8:00 am and departures at 6:00 pm except for the Venice overnight. Now I don't know how accurate that website is, but it would be much preferable if it were Cunards.

I had to call Cunard to get more precise times for our Med port stops. They didn't even show up on VP.

 

Cheers!

looking at excursion departure and return times on VP especially all day ones will give you a good estimation

also look at port authority websites although not all of these give required info

From our own experience, if you are dealing with a reputable local tour company to book your own shore excursions, they will know when the ship is coming in and leaving, and will advise you of timings accordingly, and adjust them as necessary if the arrival and departure times change. That might vary from port to port and from company to comany, of course, but it has certainly been our experinece, e.g. in St. Petersburg, Norway, Iceland (and Alaska, too, though that wasn't with Cunard). The companies we have used have communicated with us in advance and kept us informed of all we needed to know. Of course, there is still always the responsibility of getting back to the ship on time, which isn't a risk if you book through Cunard, but our personal experiences have been good in that regard, too.

Thanks everyone for all your helpful tips.