Royall mess on Liberty

[Desert Cruizers]

Set Sail, your welcome. When we did our Australia trip last March they were colored but noticed many changes after we got back, one being your Set Sail Pas and online Checkin to be done 90 days out now.

 

Tiessa if I travel Solo I will stay with a ships tour unless I am with a group of friends. Most of the time we are seeing new Ports so we stay with ship tours. We have done private tours through our Roll Call and I have organized a couple.

[trev71]

They did that to us on the Adventure a few weeks ago. I though the same thing this is stupid they cattled us all into one room and it was like a zoo and only to go outside and have the people standing there with the signs for the tour. We already had our tickets in hand so there was no point to go in there.

 

After the second time let me tell you we just went outside and stood in line and was there before everyone else got out. I did mention this on the survey when I got home. Everything else about the cruise was pretty decent :)

[Ocean Boy]

The rare times that we have used ship excursions the tickets were placed in our cabin and we simply met on the pier. We have never, fortunately, encountered what the OP did. It sounds ridiculous to put people through that.

[trev71]

The rare times that we have used ship excursions the tickets were placed in our cabin and we simply met on the pier. We have never, fortunately, encountered what the OP did. It sounds ridiculous to put people through that.

 

 

Us too it was the first time they made us do that I wasn't going to do it a third time. sooner or later people will stop doing that and just go outside again

[scooter90]

I don't have any ship's excursions booked for our trip in July on the Liberty, but this would discourage me from doing so. It makes more sense, if stickers are required, to have them with the excursion tickets which are delivered to your cabin.

[Paulette3028]

We are on Liberty. Yesterday before we arrived in St Martin, they had everyone who had booked an excursion report to the theater. Since we had already gotten our tickets we thought maybe the we having the groups meet there instead of the dock. We had never seen this done before but we went down . what a diisaster. Everyone was there at the same time and the theater wasn't even open. By the time it was open nearly 50 min later the crowds were backed up to the 5th floor. They then had every walk to the front of the theater to get a sticker, which served no purpose, because you still had to go to the dock and find the person with the sign for your excursion.Some people just gave up after standing and waiting for over an hour, others just went to guest services and cancelled. There were handicapped people struggling to stand that long and also trying to go down the stairs of the theater get the sticker and come up the stairs on the other side, and no one offered assistance.There were many people whose excursions ran late or were cut short for time loss. We had 31 people missing from ours, I think they were still waiting in line. Lol The moral is if they tell you to report to the theater before your excursion, DON'T Go. Just go to the dock, find the sign for you excursion, and have a great time.

 

We had what you have described happen on Allure in July 2013. It was awful. We did not have it happen when we sailed on Indy in February 2015.

 

Very unpredictable as to which ship will use this crazy system and which won't.

[DebJ14]

We had to meet in the theater to get stickers when we took a tour in Grand Cayman last August on the NOS. They said it was because they wanted everyone on each tour on the same tender so that the tours could depart from the pier promptly without having to wait for tour members.

 

They tried to dismiss people from the theater one tour at a time, but nobody seemed to be cooperating - just a mad dash to the doors and then a crush on the stairway.

 

It was still a mess on the pier because some people didn't show up to the theater so we still ended up waiting for all the tour participants. Some of the guests started complaining and the staff told them to blame their fellow passengers who couldn't or wouldn't follow directions.

 

HAL and Carnival do it this way at tender ports too and it was much more organized than RCCL. They had signs in the theater and you had to sit in the assigned section for your tour, get your sticker and then were escorted down. RCCL had everybody all jumbled up.

Edited May 27, 2015 by DebJ14

[steveru621]

We had to meet in the theater to get stickers when we took a tour in Grand Cayman last August on the NOS. They said it was because they wanted everyone on each tour on the same tender so that the tours could depart from the pier promptly without having to wait for tour members.

 

They tried to dismiss people from the theater one tour at a time, but nobody seemed to be cooperating - just a mad dash to the doors and then a crush on the stairway.

 

It was still a mess on the pier because some people didn't show up to the theater so we still ended up waiting for all the tour participants. Some of the guests started complaining and the staff told them to blame their fellow passengers who couldn't or wouldn't follow directions.

 

HAL and Carnival do it this way at tender ports too and it was much more organized than RCCL. They had signs in the theater and you had to sit in the assigned section for your tour, get your sticker and then were escorted down. RCCL had everybody all jumbled up.

 

Fortunately I have never experienced that chaos. RCI has always placed lollipops at the end of the seating row with your sticker number and everyone with that sticker number sat together and was escorted out at the same time. Too bad there was no cooperation.

 

What I have seen is a lot of upset passengers at a tender port when the ship is late getting cleared. Those on ship excursions get priority and others have to wait. Most of the time there are two tender runs, one for ship excursions, the other for everyone else.

[palofmine]

Have not booked a rci excursion for years, but I do remember them meeting somewhere on the ship. I have to ask, what is the sticker for if you already have the excursion tickets?

 

Never had this happen. We just got off the shop and went to where the signs were being held.