Cruise line punctuality

[bus man]

I'm curious about something. As you know, the airlines report their on-time performance on both a flight-by-flight and system-wide basis. One can find out what percentage of flights (or the percentage of trips for any given flight) ran on-time, 15 minutes late, 30 minutes late, etc. Many other modes of transportation do the same, or similar.

 

Does anything like this exist for the cruise line industry?

 

As an aside, my own cruising history offers only a small sample, but I have noticed that every single one of my cruises departed their ports of embarkation and ports of call exactly on-time (with the exception of a delayed arrival, and subsequent delayed departure, at one port, one time, due to having to detour around a hurricane). I'm curious as to whether or not this is typical, and whether or not this sort of thing is quantified on an official level.

[nolatravelgirl]

The difference is planes need a clear flight path completely clear of other planes and need a specific strip of land to get in flight. Also most flights are less than 8 hours and have way less time to make up time. Ships have lots of water to navigate and can make up time over an evening.

 

Cruise ships travel at a very low speed similar to a parade. They don't hit the throttle and have plenty of hours to make up time if/when they are delayed.

[leaveitallbehind]

Not sure why they would track or post that information. Cruise ships are tied to a schedule and are for the most part very accurate with the scheduled times. But delays due to weather, passenger emergencies, port of call delays caused by ship sponsored tour delays, etc., can all cause changes in schedule. But I'm also not sure why that type of performance information would even be important to know in the first place.

[jsmeeker]

Cruise ships and cruises really aren't transportation. You don't need to measure on-time performance like you do with planes and trains.

[Cruisin' Chick]

Not sure why they would track or post that information. Cruise ships are tied to a schedule and are for the most part very accurate with the scheduled times. But delays due to weather, passenger emergencies, port of call delays caused by ship sponsored tour delays, etc., can all cause changes in schedule. But I'm also not sure why that type of performance information would even be important to know in the first place.

 

I was thinking this same thing. Ships often have to leave a port by a certain time due to tides or their berth being needed by another ship (or a ship having to pay extra port fees if they don't leave the port on time). And sometimes a ship is delayed because it's waiting for passengers (for embarkation if a flight booked through the cruise is late or if a ship's excursion is not back in time).

 

And as stated above, if a ship leaves a half hour late for any reason, it could often make up the time by speeding up a bit.

 

For passengers, the only concern would be if a ship may be late getting into a port (usually for mechanical or weather reasons). But if a passenger has an independent excursion booked for a port and is late getting in, hopefully the company they've booked with knows which ship they're on (also, a smart passenger would bring a contact number for the company for this reason). As for disembarkation day, passengers know (or should know) that a ship could get in late, or else there's a full customs and immigrations check so you might not get off the ship as early as you wish.

[Keith1010]

The airlines report it because the government made them do it after all of the problems over the years. The cruise lines have not had this as a problem but if they did then they might have agreed to do this with the CLIA.

 

Keith

[popcan]

I'm guessing that in certain situations, ie Panama Canal, there is a specific window they need to make. Time slots are reserved and paid for.

[John Bull]

Punctuality is most important for arriving at the disembarkation / turnaround port because most passengers will be committed to arrangements for onward travel, because the ship needs to readied & re-supplied for the next cruise, and because thousands will be expecting to board.

Scheduled arrival time at that port is normally in the wee small hours, & at a planned gentle speed on that leg, to give leeway for any delays. So for all cruise lines, punctuality for arrival at the end of the cruise is excellent, though of course 100% can't be guaranteed.

 

Punctuality is probably poorest for departure from the embarkation port because there are so many potential reasons for delay. We've experienced delays of several hours, though that's usually made up before reaching the first port-of-call. First cruise day is usually a sea-day because of the distance to the first port or because it's a window to sell excursions, so a small increase in the planned speed spread over 36 hours gets the timetable back in line.

 

Punctuality at ports-of-call is quite variable, distances between ports are sometimes ridiculously short & easy and sometimes quite demanding.

Unless it's dependent on tides, availability of pilots, etc, punctuality is not quite so important. And serious delays during the cruise - mechanical gremlins, heavy weather, etc - can even cause a port to be missed in order to arrive at the turnaround port on time. One reason you should be aware of the cancellation terms of pre-booked local tours.

 

If punctuality of ships were published on the same basis as aircraft - arrival time at final destination - their performance would be way better than aircraft. :)

But like so many statistics, those statistics could be misleading.

 

JB :)

[navybankerteacher]

The nature of cruise ship schedules permits time to "catch up" from delays. While underway, they rarely schedule travel at anywhere near top speed (fuel economy plummets as speeds increase), with the result that most delays can be easily made up overnight. On debarkation days, most ships are alongside the pier well before immigration personnel are ready to start processing. Departure time is usually adhered to because of necessity to schedule, and pay for, pilots.

 

There doesn't seem to be any pressing need for government monitoring/reporting of on time performance -- all we tax-payers need is some additional government "service" to fund.