Mariner Eastern Caribbean question

[star58]

Does anyone who has recently sailed on the Mariner Eastern Itinerary know what time you truly arrive in Nassau and whether we will be able to get off the ship promptly at 8am?

 

We have a reservation to swim with the dolphins at 8:30 as it was the only time available and we want to know whether there is a good chance of getting to the Paradise Island Ferry in time. We were told that the Ferry is only 5 min. away from the port.

 

We have been on three other Voyager class ships and usually we always docked ahead of the scheduled arrival times per the itinerary. The only exception was when a passenger had a heart attack and we made an unexpected stop at Grand Turk island. This caused us to be late arriving in Nassau and our excursion was cut short.

 

If we are late because the ship arrives late we will get our money back but not if the problem is that we can't get off the ship early enough. The ship does not offer the Dolphin swim only the Encounter so it is impossible to book with the cruise line.

 

We are booked in a Junior Suite and I know there is supposed to be priority debarkation because we are in a suite but on our last trip on the Navigator we were booked in a Grand Suite and were told there was no priority system on that ship at the time.

 

Any information will be appreciated.