Disembarking

Hi all,

My husband an I are taking our first RSSC Explorer cruise on May 1. We are so excited and reading these threads are very informative. We will disembark in Monte Carlo in the morning and wondering what this process is like and the time it takes. We plan to hire a driver to take us to Nice where we will fly to London later in the day. Not sure what time to have a driver meet us. Is this a lengthy process or can we have breakfast onboard and leisurely disembark?

Many thanks

Hi and welcome to the Regent board!

Monte Carlo is a love place to disembark. Since you have your own transportation, you can pretty much decide when you want to get off of the ship (latest 9:00 a.m.). You need to be out of your suite by 8:00 a.m. The restaurants are open early for breakfast so that isn't a problem.

Sometime in the middle of your cruise you will receive a form to fill out for disembarkation. You can let them know the time that you wish to get off of the ship. This is important because they call passengers by luggage tag colors (that are given to you by Destination Services). Your luggage will be ready outside of the ship when your luggage tag color is called but likely won't be ready prior to that. It is an easy process (I'm probably making it sound more complicated than it is).

Have a great cruise!

My memory is that all passengers are asked to leave their suite by 8:00 A.M. People who need to catch early flights are usually the first ones off the ship, but I think everyone needs to disembark by 9:30 (not totally sure of exact time). A form will be sent to your suite asking which of several half-hour periods you would prefer to disembark: 8:00-8:30, 8:30-9:00, etc. (May even begin before 8:00).

What we've sometimes done when we're not in a hurry is vacate our room and then have breakfast in CR. Btw, your luggage will need to be outside your door by around midnight (or 11:00) the night before. Then all you have to carry is whatever luggage you want to keep with you. Upon leaving the ship, one goes to a luggage storage area a few steps away and claims one's luggage. The whole process is usually smooth and easy. (Sometimes there's a delay in finding one's bags, but not usually.)

If your flight is quite late in the day, you could engage a driver to show you a bit of Nice before going to the airport. Have fun!

Thank you so much for the great info!

While Monte Carlo is beautiful, it can be a pain as far as disembarkation. We have disembarked twice there. We use the same driver each time, alain@dream_tours.com. Highly recommend him. We have also used him two other times for embarkation in Nice and Monte Carlo.

The reason that disembarkation can be stressful is that they only allow a certain number of cars into the port area at a time. And it is pretty small. The last time we did this, he was supposed to pick us up at 8:30. He was there but could not get into the port. So we were stressed because we couldn’t find him, and he was stressed because he couldn’t get to us. He tried calling my husband’s cell phone, but it wasn’t connecting for some reason. Finally he was able to get in at about 9:00. Then we raced to the airport.

Thank you RachelG! I will contact Alain

We’ve used Alain 3 times. All very smooth and easy. Would use him again if we were in Nice or Monte Carlo.

Have also used Alain several times — on the recommendation of guess who. Good company for touring around the area, e.g. up in the hill towns. One time had Alain as driver, another time someone else. All good.

For us hit depends on the flight we take. We try for mid afternoon flights. That way once we decide to leave our suite we go to the coffee house, sit down enjoy a coffee and get off last with all the crowds. So we ask the car service to arrive around 9:45--if we're a little late they wait.

Rick, not sure how you were able to stay on the ship so late but Regent typically wants guests off by 9:00 a.m. (except in Miami when it tcould take until 9:30 a.m. to get off). Regent's crew needs the time to clean the ship - prepare La Veranda, the Pool Grill and Coffee Connection and before embarking guests arrive at noon. We typically have our driver arrive at 9:00 am. unless we have an early flight (all of this depends upon the city of embarkation - how long it takes to get to the airport, etc.).

Make sure you have a way to reach (phone) your driver. On our last cruise (happened to be Explorer), one of the earliest disembarking passengers had a medical emergency on the gangway. This caused a delay for all the rest of the passengers (we were sorry for the person). We called our driver to apprise him of the situation as he had no way of knowing that we were even detained.

Thank you all so much for your help. We have reserved with Alain and exchanged phone numbers. We are so looking forward to this experience.

FlFunGirl

Has anyone booked a car and driver for several hours and had them drop off at the Nice airport?  Alternatively, are there any tours that will drop off at the Nice airport at the end?

4 minutes ago, jashah said:

Has anyone booked a car and driver for several hours and had them drop off at the Nice airport?  Alternatively, are there any tours that will drop off at the Nice airport at the end?

Regent provides an excursion for passengers with late flights (if you booked air with Regent.). The excursion ends up at the airport.

Thanks for the info.  I can’t find anything on the Regent website about this option.  Do you happen to have a link?  

On 3/16/2018 at 9:50 AM, Travelcat2 said:

Rick, not sure how you were able to stay on the ship so late but Regent typically wants guests off by 9:00 a.m. (except in Miami when it tcould take until 9:30 a.m. to get off). Regent's crew needs the time to clean the ship - prepare La Veranda, the Pool Grill and Coffee Connection and before embarking guests arrive at noon. We typically have our driver arrive at 9:00 am. unless we have an early flight (all of this depends upon the city of embarkation - how long it takes to get to the airport, etc.).

We do get off at 9AM, by time we get our luggage, any passport control and taking our time it's 9:15 to 9:30 and the driver is waiting.  Sometimes it does take the full 45 minutes.  We always take it easy as we don't like to rush to anything-always taking a later flight - sometimes over night in London.

Hi,

Would a 1030 AM flight leaving Nice be too early to catch when disembarking at Monte Carlo?

Thx

4 hours ago, jashah said:

Hi,

 

Would a 1030 AM flight leaving Nice be too early to catch when disembarking at Monte Carlo?

 

Thx

I don't think that would work. At best it would be real tight time wise. Although it is only about 40k to the airport, it can easily take over an hour to drive. I suppose if you could get off the ship a 7:00 am and out of the port area by 7:30-7:45 am, it might work, especially if the fight is domestic. Even in Nice airport you still have to deal with security. (and morning traffic). But if there is any hiccup along the way, you'll miss the flight.

J

The longest time it ever took us to get through security screening was in Nice. Every bag was thoroughly checked. Took forever. Of course this can happen anywhere but we were very happy our flight to LHR wasn’t leaving til 12:30. 

The port at Monaco is tiny.  Luggage from the ship is put out on the dock (not in a building) and we have had to really scramble to find ours.  As someone said, cars (and taxis) entering the port area have to wait their turn so be prepared to wait maybe 30mns for your limo transfer.    If you are flying to anywhere in France or to Geneva then domestic flights have a 1 hour check in requirement.  If elsewhere in the EU it is the same.  But inter-continental flights - 2-3 hours.   Plan accordingly but be prepared to wait!!

You always have the option of taking a taxi (for which you queue) to the station and then a train to Nice.   Takes 15-24 mins and trains run roughly every 15mns.   Then taxi to the airport.  That is probably the fastest way but not the easiest.