4 star tendering?

[sail7seas]

Yes, unless the ship tells you something else!

 

It beats having to go and get a tender ticket, then sit around until they call your number, be herded from the Lounge to the stairs, then to the tender area! I used to hate that!!

 

I agree.

I don't remember why we had to get a tender ticket years ago even though we were in a Suite. We had to sit around the lounge for ages. :( That never happened again. :)

 

 

 

 

[ScottishMaid]

Thanks, I think. Let me see if I got it right. HAL excursions still get to go first. Then, when we're ready, we go directly to the tender deck and show our cards? Is that it?

No, not on all ships. Often we have been 5 star on a tender with shore excursion passengers. If the shorex organizers are sensible they do not send down a full tender load of passengers at one time. So as a 4 or 5 star you can go down the stairs with any shorex passengers and the "authorities" at the bottom of the stairs will let you on if, as usual, there is some space. Usually the cruise director is controlling traffic and they will recognize you since you will have been to the 4 and 5 star cocktail party.

Many people here are saying "just wait 30 minutes" but I have been to ports worldwide where there is a lot to see in a short port time and it takes two hours or more to get everyone of the ship (20 minute loading plus tender ride, so 40 minutes for a tender to come back).

One thing I do is to read the shore excursion booklet to see when the first shore excursion is leaving. Often tendering starts before this - they may not announce anything but if you just go down they will be ready to take you. On a well run ship the Captain gets to the port before the time on the itinerary and everything is set up for tendering earlier than the posted time in the On Location guide.

The best tendering operation I've seen was organized by Cruise Director Tam Hurley on the Volendam last fall. Those who needed tender tickets collected them the previous day and they got to pick a time. So everyone could relax knowing they had a time slot. The ship was so efficient that often they were calling the numbers earlier than stated but never if there was a back up of passengers. So everyone, 4 and 5 star, shorex passengers, tender ticket holders, went down with no hold ups. Tam was down there checking everyone and with her two way radio so no-one cheated.

[ICUQT]

If I did this right the card is attached.

eurosept.pdf

[cruz chic]

No, not on all ships. Often we have been 5 star on a tender with shore excursion passengers. If the shorex organizers are sensible they do not send down a full tender load of passengers at one time. So as a 4 or 5 star you can go down the stairs with any shorex passengers and the "authorities" at the bottom of the stairs will let you on if, as usual, there is some space. Usually the cruise director is controlling traffic and they will recognize you since you will have been to the 4 and 5 star cocktail party.

Many people here are saying "just wait 30 minutes" but I have been to ports worldwide where there is a lot to see in a short port time and it takes two hours or more to get everyone of the ship (20 minute loading plus tender ride, so 40 minutes for a tender to come back).

One thing I do is to read the shore excursion booklet to see when the first shore excursion is leaving. Often tendering starts before this - they may not announce anything but if you just go down they will be ready to take you. On a well run ship the Captain gets to the port before the time on the itinerary and everything is set up for tendering earlier than the posted time in the On Location guide.

The best tendering operation I've seen was organized by Cruise Director Tam Hurley on the Volendam last fall. Those who needed tender tickets collected them the previous day and they got to pick a time. So everyone could relax knowing they had a time slot. The ship was so efficient that often they were calling the numbers earlier than stated but never if there was a back up of passengers. So everyone, 4 and 5 star, shorex passengers, tender ticket holders, went down with no hold ups. Tam was down there checking everyone and with her two way radio so no-one cheated.

 

Do you really believe that the cruise director remembers everyone they "may" meet at the party? Some people love to make themselves known to the cruise staff because it makes them feel important. I'm not one to do that. I highly doubt anyone would remember meeting me at a party. I think the take away from here is that you "may" get off the ship before the Hal shorex or you may not. I don't think it's appropriate behaviour to "throw a fit" if you don't. Ymmv.

[SilvertoGold]

No, not on all ships. Often we have been 5 star on a tender with shore excursion passengers. If the shorex organizers are sensible they do not send down a full tender load of passengers at one time. So as a 4 or 5 star you can go down the stairs with any shorex passengers and the "authorities" at the bottom of the stairs will let you on if, as usual, there is some space. Usually the cruise director is controlling traffic and they will recognize you since you will have been to the 4 and 5 star cocktail party.

Many people here are saying "just wait 30 minutes" but I have been to ports worldwide where there is a lot to see in a short port time and it takes two hours or more to get everyone of the ship (20 minute loading plus tender ride, so 40 minutes for a tender to come back).

One thing I do is to read the shore excursion booklet to see when the first shore excursion is leaving. Often tendering starts before this - they may not announce anything but if you just go down they will be ready to take you. On a well run ship the Captain gets to the port before the time on the itinerary and everything is set up for tendering earlier than the posted time in the On Location guide.

The best tendering operation I've seen was organized by Cruise Director Tam Hurley on the Volendam last fall. Those who needed tender tickets collected them the previous day and they got to pick a time. So everyone could relax knowing they had a time slot. The ship was so efficient that often they were calling the numbers earlier than stated but never if there was a back up of passengers. So everyone, 4 and 5 star, shorex passengers, tender ticket holders, went down with no hold ups. Tam was down there checking everyone and with her two way radio so no-one cheated.

 

I seriously like to hear about a CD who runs a tight ship for tendering! The worst CD we had really seemed to have an attitude problem with the priority tendering and made things unpleasant and inefficient.

 

Your CD sounds as if she should be cloned!

[SilvertoGold]

If I did this right the card is attached.

 

Standard card going back many years. All there, except the bit about shorex first (most of the time).

 

Would be nice if HAL could fine tune the card and the process fleet-wide.

Edited January 25, 2016 by SilvertoGold

[ScottishMaid]

I seriously like to hear about a CD who runs a tight ship for tendering! The worst CD we had really seemed to have an attitude problem with the priority tendering and made things unpleasant and inefficient.

 

Your CD sounds as if she should be cloned!

Yes, she lives in Sydney and is a well organized CD who gets the support of those who work for her.

I asked her why all the ships don't follow her tender ticket method. She said she'd suggested it to other CDs but they weren't interested. It did require having two Exploration team members at each of two locations, Atrium and Explorer's Lounge, for a couple of sessions the previous day.

[ICUQT]

Standard card going back many years. All there, except the bit about shorex first (most of the time).

 

Would be nice if HAL could fine tune the card and the process fleet-wide.

Exactly! If they (HA) did that I would have no gripe.

[SilvertoGold]

[/b]

Exactly! If they (HA) did that I would have no gripe.

 

Simple, isn't it?

 

HAL has had this for many, many years now and it appears to be, still, a work in progress.

 

As ScottishMaid noted, one CD came up with a new idea, mentioned it to her fellow CDs, but they were't interested.

 

Seattle should take more interest in working towards a more consistent fleet.

[kazu]

Simple, isn't it?

 

HAL has had this for many, many years now and it appears to be, still, a work in progress.

 

As ScottishMaid noted, one CD came up with a new idea, mentioned it to her fellow CDs, but they were't interested.

 

Seattle should take more interest in working towards a more consistent fleet.

 

Agree. Silver to Gold, if you can, would you be kind enough to email me (in my signature) - have a question - thanks :)

[Hlitner]

The priority tendering can be a non-issue on some Grand and other long cruises. For instance, on one of our longer Prinsendam cruises approximately 75% of all the passengers were either 4 or 5 Star. So the CD had to essentially suspend priority tendering since nearly the entire ship was eligible :). On another cruise we were simply told to proceed down to the tender area and cut in line. When we got down to the proper deck there was a very long line and the cruise director immediately told us to simply cut in! Although we followed his instructions we did feel somewhat bad about the experience since we knew many of those in line had been waiting a long time.

 

Hank

[ScottishMaid]

I seem to remember that during a Grand Asia or World cruise the Amsterdam opened up a tender platform at the back of the ship for 4 and 5 star and suites for the rush in the first hour and a platform at the front for shorex passengers. That helped the bottleneck of passengers slowly negotiating the stairs to the tender.

However I think all the R class ships have 4 tenders and they are each filled with around 75 people for tendering so that's 300 total, if they use all 4 tenders. As I said earlier it can easily take 40 minutes for a tender to make a round trip - think how long it takes to unload and reload when full. So with 1200 passengers it could be up to 3 hours to move everyone, especially in rocky weather or with a difficult pier.

Our worst experience was some years ago around the South Pacific when we were new mariners. The inexperienced captain would arrive at the port at the advertised time, say 8 am, THEN start anchoring, letting the tenders down, sending the first one to set up at the pier. Sometimes an hour later he would be ready to start tendering. By 9 am most passengers were ready to go but faced a long wait. Experienced captains have the tenders ready at 7:50 am for the early birds and well ahead of the first tour.

[sail7seas]

I've seen mention of people blaming CD for poor tendering experiences but actually it is Staff Captain who runs tender operations, isn't it? CD follows the orders of Bridge Officers for tendering.

[ScottishMaid]

I've seen mention of people blaming CD for poor tendering experiences but actually it is Staff Captain who runs tender operations, isn't it? CD follows the orders of Bridge Officers for tendering.

I think the Staff Captain and bridge give orders to the sailors to control the actual tenders in operation, hence ship officer(s) at the tender platformwith radios, but the Cruise Director decides how, when and where to issue tender tickets.

[sail7seas]

Only one time did I witness it but we were Suite Priority Five Star Mariners waiting, waiting, waiting in line at the gangway and the Captain came 'at a pace' to the gangway with a very stern expression. While did not hear what he quietly said to those at the head of the line directing the pax down the stairs to the tenders, it was clear who was in charge. He did not like something and no CD was going to tell Captain, or for that matter Staff Captain, how to manage getting pax from ship to shore.

 

IF CD is not handling the procedure well, Staff Captain would be aware. I cannot guess what action he would take.

 

[SilvertoGold]

[quote name='ScottishMaid']I think the Staff Captain and bridge give orders to the sailors to control the actual tenders in operation, hence ship officer(s) at the tender platformwith radios, but the Cruise Director decides how, when and where to issue tender tickets.[/QUOTE]

Yes, that is how it is done. Some CDs do a better job than others.