Reboarding time from cruise ports

[cfly]

I will be on a Baltic cruise on Zuiderdam and I have not been able to find out what time I need to be back on ship before departure. If it departs at 6pm do I need to be back one or two hours before that? How long after arrival can we disembark? What ports have sailaways that are worthwhile watching? SPB? Stockholm? Others?

[Krazy Kruizers]

You need to be back on the ship 1/2 hour before she sails. We always make certain we are back 1 hour before the ship sails --many times sooner than that so that we can make a cocktail and sit out on the verandah and watch the ship leave the port.

In the morning, you need to wait for the ship to be cleared by the local authorities -- which usually takes only a few minutes. There will be announcement made when the ship is cleared. If you are docked, you can join the mobs to get off right away.

If it is a tender port and you don't have a ship's excursion booked, you will need to read your When and Where daily program to see where to report to get tender tickets and then wait for your number to be called so that you can go down and get a tender. Once the main mob of people and tours are off the ship, an announcement will be made that you can go directly to the tenders to go ashore -- that could be a 2 or 3 hours after tenders have begun their runs.

[Keith1010]

Always pad the time for the unexpected whether that is traffic congestion or even a breakdown of the vehicle you are in if on a private tour.

 

Keith

[Floridiana]

Stockholm has a particularly beautiful sail away. St.Petersburg's is nice as well but not as long and a bit less interesting. I don't know which other ports you will see. Kiel? Gdansk?

[WisRiver]

As you disembark, there will be a sign board with the departure time posted. Take a moment and use your camera (cell phone or otherwise) to take a picture of the board. As you wander around in port when the question pops into your head "what time are we supposed to be back on board?"-you can look at your photos.

[cfly]

thanks for the info. A half hour does seem very last minute; I agree an hour sounds safer.

I don't think there are any tender ports on this cruise-Stockholm, Helsinki, Berlin, Hamburg, Tallinn, SPB. So it sounds like we will be able to disembark before several hours have passed. Otherwise, half the day will be gone.

[OCruisers]

Normally, you will need to be back on the ship a half hour before sailing.

We like to be back an hour before we sail.

If you're on a ship's excursion, don't worry about it because the ship won't leave without you. :D

[Boytjie]

If you're on a ship's excursion, don't worry about it because the ship won't leave without you. :D

 

Not necessarily! There have been the odd occasion where the ship did not wait even then!

[Dreams42Day]

You need to be back on the ship 1/2 hour before she sails. We always make certain we are back 1 hour before the ship sails --many times sooner than that so that we can make a cocktail and sit out on the verandah and watch the ship leave the port.

In the morning, you need to wait for the ship to be cleared by the local authorities -- which usually takes only a few minutes. There will be announcement made when the ship is cleared. If you are docked, you can join the mobs to get off right away.

If it is a tender port and you don't have a ship's excursion booked, you will need to read your When and Where daily program to see where to report to get tender tickets and then wait for your number to be called so that you can go down and get a tender. Once the main mob of people and tours are off the ship, an announcement will be made that you can go directly to the tenders to go ashore -- that could be a 2 or 3 hours after tenders have begun their runs.

So...does this mean that at any stop that requires a tender I may have to wait 2-3 hours to get off the ship? What if I have an excursions booked (not through the ship) that requires me to be ready to go at a certain time??

[3rdGenCunarder]

So...does this mean that at any stop that requires a tender I may have to wait 2-3 hours to get off the ship? What if I have an excursions booked (not through the ship) that requires me to be ready to go at a certain time??

 

Get yourself to the place where you get tender tickets ASAP.

 

Depending on how long the tender ride is and how many early excursions there are, excursions may get priority over independent passengers. They try to accommodate both, but in a pinch, excursions will get into tenders first.

 

I don't know if they always do this, but on past cruises I've been told that I can't have a tender ticket unless I've got everything with me and am ready to go. In other words, we couldn't grab low number tickets and then go to our cabins to get ready.

[3rdGenCunarder]

Has anyone been on a cruise where they had to leave HMC early?

 

On our cruise this winter, we were told that if the ship needed to leave early, they would blow the horn and passengers were to get themselves to the tenders asap. It was in the daily program and the CD included it in her AM announcements, too. It didn't happen, so I don't know how well it would work.

[kazu]

Has anyone been on a cruise where they had to leave HMC early?

 

On our cruise this winter, we were told that if the ship needed to leave early, they would blow the horn and passengers were to get themselves to the tenders asap. It was in the daily program and the CD included it in her AM announcements, too. It didn't happen, so I don't know how well it would work.

 

Not on HMC but I had this happen at a tender port in the Azores. We were crossing the pond on NCL and had a planned stop there and we had a lot of Portuguese on board. It was a national holiday and, a lot were planning on getting off to visit family or even to disembark here.

 

It was a tender port and the waves were really rough. The captain decided after 2 hours that he would try it but we were warned that if the waters turned at all, to head to the tenders if we heard the three toots.

 

The 3 toots sounded (they were VERY loud) and the ship had every tender there to scoop everyone up as fast as they could and get us back. By the time we were back to the ship, it had gotten very rough and one lady on our tender was badly hurt, when the waves moved too hard and she fell between the ship and the tender.

 

The crew did everything they could to keep her from going in but it was just too rough.

 

Everyone that was supposed to be back to the ship was indeed back. No one was left behind, but if they had been, I don't know how a tender would have been able to go back to get them at that stage.

[Copper10-8]

Has anyone been on a cruise where they had to leave HMC early?

 

On our cruise this winter, we were told that if the ship needed to leave early, they would blow the horn and passengers were to get themselves to the tenders asap. It was in the daily program and the CD included it in her AM announcements, too. It didn't happen, so I don't know how well it would work.

 

It has happened in the past, and can happen again at HMC, which has a totally unprotected (from the elements) anchorage