Late To the Ship? Does Carnival Wait on You?

[drafterdw]

Have you ever missed the cruise ship or seen someone else that did? Will Carnival wait on you before they leave you, or does the ship leave right on time no matter who is back onboard.

 

I was watching some pier runner videos on YouTube and in some cases the people don't make it make onboard because the ship started to depart. If you have ever been a pier runner how did it feel and if you missed the ship how did you feel?

 

back when we first started cruising we were on ship tour (did not realize you could even book yourself). We were late getting back and did not think ship would wait - there were 8 of us and we were running down the pier but they did wait. Most of the time we do ship tours (do not flame me) if not we plan on being back 1 hour before on board time.

[mzloolue]

back when we first started cruising we were on ship tour (did not realize you could even book yourself). We were late getting back and did not think ship would wait - there were 8 of us and we were running down the pier but they did wait. Most of the time we do ship tours (do not flame me) if not we plan on being back 1 hour before on board time.

 

No. If you feel more comfortable on a ship tour, then that is what you should have. It is your vacation after all.

 

We have been on ship tours when we were concerned about timing.

Like Chichen Itza and Uxmal.

[FlyingCruiserNJ]

Are you guys sure about this? It has been reported several times on these boards that they don't "actually" have to wait, but most do because of it being a ship sponsored tour. It's completely at the discretion of the Captain because if they are waiting, they are incurring more port charges that come out of the companies pocket. My TA also told me that they are not required to wait. There's just multiple cases of this being stated although I can say that I normally see them wait for ship sponsored tours and that has been my experience when cruising and a van of people are pulling up late. But I guess in reality, they don't "have" to wait. :(

 

I read through all the responses on this thread and am surprised to see that they don't actually have to wait if you are late on a ship sponsored excursion but they do have to pay to get you to the next port. I know my mom likes to book with Carnival tours for the guarantee reason but I will be passing this info along to her that the ship will not necessarily wait even if your excursion is late getting back. It makes sense but I can never remember a time that we were on an excursion that was scheduled to be back to the ship within just an hour or so before sail time. I would never book a tour that cut it that close anyway. I do wonder if companies that don't get their customers back to the ship in time lose their contracts with Carnival though. If so, they really do have an incentive to get people back to the ship before it leaves without them.

[mzloolue]

There were quite a few people on the tour. Would not have been happy if the ship left without us regardless if they would take care of expenses. Was hungry and looking forward to some late night pizza. :D

 

Another thing is that you would have no clean clothes or even a toothbrush.

 

My darling daughter was famous on the cruise when she missed the boat.

She also spent four days catching up to the ship with only a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, flip flops, and a swim suit.

When she and her bf made it back onboard the cruise director, who was Wee Jimmy, had them get up and talk about their experience.

He said that everyone knew about them missing the boat and that people wanted to know.

They had made friends with the cd before they were left behind and had asked him if they could bring him back anything.

He asked for some kind of candy, I think, and they did bring it back to him.

 

This daughter was also "famous" on another cruise after she met the cruise director. She had a web site at the time dedicated to speedos.

She just found them funny and then people started sending her photos of guys in speedos.

Anyway the cruise director thought it was really funny and soon everyone knew her name and would say hello.

She was funny as a kid.

Maybe she should have been a cruise director.

[BallFour4]

One of our Thanksgiving week cruises from Galveston we waited in Progreso for a tour that experienced mechanical problems on the bus. What was to have been a 4:00pm departure turned into 8:00pm. The sunset was beautiful and we came back on deck after dinner to watch the group arrive.

 

Perhaps what made this possible was the next day was Cozumel, so the distance needed to sail overnight was not as far.

 

.

Edited April 1, 2015 by BallFour4

[tinlizzy]

I just wanted to add another warning about missing the ship.

 

Time change - DST. Without going thru all my old posts I don't remember the ship or the country.

 

We booked an excursion thru a very popular CC tour operator and when we got in the van I noticed that the clock was behind an hour. I actually mentioned it to the driver and got the response that the van clock was probably wrong or that it was set to local time and he knew what time we needed to get back to the ship. Since I didn't know what the local time really was I accepted his answer. My watch was on ship time.

 

For some reason I clocked the ride to the excursion - it was a little under an hour. The excursion was great and we had a little sightseeing afterward. At our first sightseeing stop I mentioned that I thought we would be cutting it close getting back to the ship and a few others expressed the same concern. We were all poo-pooed and the excursion continued. Another 15 minutes passes and my watch said it was the cut off for boarding. I was nearly panicked and because of the sightseeing really had no idea where we were or how close to the ship we were. A few of us were literally arguing with the driver to take us back to the ship immediately. The driver is actually irritated with us! I was considering jumping out and trying to get a cab. A few minutes after our heated discussion with the driver a call goes out on the CB to the excursion driver to immediately return to the ship! It's now about 20 minutes until the ship sails and we are speeding toward the ship. At sail away we are still driving! The driver won't say how far we are from the ship and we quit asking and the entire van is quiet.

 

We pulled into port long after sail away (1/2 hr I think) and there are at least 100 people waiting to get on!!! I've never been so happy to see a line in all my life!

 

We board, get ready and go to dinner.. The ship sailed an hour late. Our servers tell us that over 400 people were missing at sail away! The Carnival and private excursion operators were all confused over the DST change and the ship had no option but to wait. The servers said that the Captain announced that they would stay until all passengers were on board no matter what time, ship sponsored or private excursion because of the confusion. (I'm sure the thought of CNN covering a story on 400 stranded ship passengers entered their minds, too...lol)

 

So now I make absolutely sure the excursion operators ship time is the same as what I know it to be. I've never run into this situation again but I would never leave on an excursion again if the operator doesn't agree with me as to what time it is...it was way too stressful!

[loxley]

When I get in the van, I usually sit up front because of car sickness problems that my crew know very well, I always make it understood we will be going by my watch. When we get to where we are going, I go over again what time we will be leaving by my watch. Never had a problem.

[cruisin2015]

I just wanted to add another warning about missing the ship.

 

Time change - DST. Without going thru all my old posts I don't remember the ship or the country.

 

We booked an excursion thru a very popular CC tour operator and when we got in the van I noticed that the clock was behind an hour. I actually mentioned it to the driver and got the response that the van clock was probably wrong or that it was set to local time and he knew what time we needed to get back to the ship. Since I didn't know what the local time really was I accepted his answer. My watch was on ship time.

 

For some reason I clocked the ride to the excursion - it was a little under an hour. The excursion was great and we had a little sightseeing afterward. At our first sightseeing stop I mentioned that I thought we would be cutting it close getting back to the ship and a few others expressed the same concern. We were all poo-pooed and the excursion continued. Another 15 minutes passes and my watch said it was the cut off for boarding. I was nearly panicked and because of the sightseeing really had no idea where we were or how close to the ship we were. A few of us were literally arguing with the driver to take us back to the ship immediately. The driver is actually irritated with us! I was considering jumping out and trying to get a cab. A few minutes after our heated discussion with the driver a call goes out on the CB to the excursion driver to immediately return to the ship! It's now about 20 minutes until the ship sails and we are speeding toward the ship. At sail away we are still driving! The driver won't say how far we are from the ship and we quit asking and the entire van is quiet.

 

We pulled into port long after sail away (1/2 hr I think) and there are at least 100 people waiting to get on!!! I've never been so happy to see a line in all my life!

 

We board, get ready and go to dinner.. The ship sailed an hour late. Our servers tell us that over 400 people were missing at sail away! The Carnival and private excursion operators were all confused over the DST change and the ship had no option but to wait. The servers said that the Captain announced that they would stay until all passengers were on board no matter what time, ship sponsored or private excursion because of the confusion. (I'm sure the thought of CNN covering a story on 400 stranded ship passengers entered their minds, too...lol)

 

So now I make absolutely sure the excursion operators ship time is the same as what I know it to be. I've never run into this situation again but I would never leave on an excursion again if the operator doesn't agree with me as to what time it is...it was way too stressful!

 

How do you know if your ship is on a certain time zone or not and what the port is currently on? This seems like a recipe for confusion.

[l2f]

How do you know if your ship is on a certain time zone or not and what the port is currently on? This seems like a recipe for confusion.

 

I believe Carnival always stays on the time (time zone) of the ships departure port. There are website where you can compare to cities and find out the time difference. We do this and make note of it so there is no confusion.

Edited April 2, 2015 by l2f

[Tapi]

I have 2 experiences with the ship waiting for me. First, aboard the Viking Serenade out of LA (for a college spring break). Too much time at Carlos and Charlie's, too many drinks, and nobody paying attention at the time. We made it to the port PAST departure time and miraculously, the ship was waiting for our group. There were about 20 of us. At least we could've driven back to LA from Ensenada if the ship had left without us.

 

Second time was when we sailed on the Sensation from Port Canaveral. It was the first cruise we took after we moved to Georgia and I grossly miscalculated how long it would take us to drive to Port Canaveral. We were driving past Jacksonville when I realized that we were not going to make it. I called Carnival and told them that we would be there late, and the agent told me that she couldn't guarantee anything but that she would call the port and let them know (I thought: "yeah, right").

 

We pulled up to the deserted cruise terminal right at 4pm. There was an agent with a walkie talkie standing on the sidewalk and as soon as we opened the car door, she called us by name. When we confirmed that it was indeed us, she called upstairs. We ran to the check in desk and another agent already had our sail and sign cards in hand. She just verified our credentials quickly and told us to complete the check in process once onboard which we did. Not even 5 minutes had gone by before the ship started moving. Lesson learned on that one!

[steph7021]

We were late for embarkation in Venice this last summer. We had been on one of the islands and the ferry back to Venice was late. We still had to run back to our hotel and get luggage....then run (navigating the streets of Venice) to the water to hire a water taxi. Water taxis can not speed through the canal. We were freaking out!! We pulled up to the pier next to the ship about 45 min before departure....our paperwork had said 90 min before was our deadline. The Italians were waiting for us and were VERY NON-anxious and amused by our panic. However, the terminal was completely deserted and I'm sure we were last on. The rest of the cruise the "back on-board" time seemed to be a suggestion. Many times people were leaping onto the ship minutes before....lots of people! We needed to catch a train when we arrived back in Venice....so for this cruise we were last on and first off. This was MSC

[cruisin2015]

Could you imagine missing the Ecstasy and sailing back to the US on the Allure? What an upgrade that would be! :eek::D

 

That would be great. If I knew that would be the case I would miss the ship just for a chance to try the Allure!

 

I can only dream... :)