How long does tending take?

[bar1986]

We arrive at 7am on Carnival Paradise. Can we be on the island by 8am for a private tour? Any advise on getting off the ship quicker/easier?

 

Thanks

[cb at sea]

Just get in the line...the tenders hold at least 150, if not more...no worries! If you have a private tour, the guide understands tendering. No need to push and shove and stress!

[SeaPA1]

Carnival's tender system in GC works like this - priority is given to those who are on official ship-sponsored excursions. For everyone else, they will make an announcement that morning as to where to go to pick up tender tickets. They say your entire party must be with you to pick up the tix; sometimes they enforce that, sometimes not. You'll get tickets with a "group number" - first in line gets group 1, etc.

After the ship-excursion folks are gone, they'll start calling the numbers for everyone else. Eventually, after they've gone through the group numbers, they'll announce that it's open to everyone - so for those in no rush, you don't HAVE to go get a tender ticket, you can just wait until everyone else is gone.

We were there a few weeks ago on Paradise. IIRC, it was about 30 to 45 minutes from the time that the first ship-sponsored group tendered to the point that they announced "open tendering for anyone without a ticket."

If you want to get off as early as possible without overpaying to book something through the ship, just make sure you are awake early & go get an early number tender ticket.