Tendering at Grand Cayman

[cruizincrazy]

Will be on Triumph at Grand Cayman on 3/8/06. We have a tour planned and need to be on shore by 8:45 a.m. I was wondering what the tendering procedures were on the Triumph, mainly how you go about getting the tender tickets and how early you can get them, Any input is greatly appreciated.

[LUCY55]

Interestingly, the answer depends. On the Valor last week we arrived at Grand Cayman before 7:00 am. We were told the night before we would have to get tender tickets. But the next morning no one seemed to be in a hurry to get off--no tickets were necessary. They made anouncements for anybody who wanted to get off regardless of carnival tour. My personal opinion is if people are up late and partying the night before there will be less demand to get off early in the morning. Roatan was another story. Port time was 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. In this case lots of people were ready to get off and there was considerable clogging of the stairwells. I have concluded that all the possible situations that people describe can occur. It just depends on the circumstances of that particular cruise.

[Ev1995]

Cruizincrazy, somehow I missed this, but now I found it today , that you asked us for dinner at bubba gumps on friday evening, sorry about taking so long, if the offer is still good , we would be happy to meet you there. You name a time , and we will be there, apparently it is a short walk from the hotel.

 

What tour are you taking on GC, last spring on the Miracle we just walked down, and got onto a tender ,no tickets, and no crowd, not sure if that allways happens, but it was no problem last time, we got there sometime before 8:30 , because we walked around for quite a while , just browsing , because nothing was open.

 

It should be the same tenders regardless of the ship , they are all pretty much the same size, and they dont take long , so I would think you should have no problem for your excursion, but it wouldn't hurt to see the purser's desk sometime before GC to inquire about tender tickets, I will go with you for backup, if you want , because the excursion we are going on is at 9 , so it wouldn't hurt for us both to find out about this ?

[Ev1995]

Hey cruizincrazy, hopefully you will find this or they will bump it to GC board so that it will stay somewhere we can find it.

[cruzin4our10th]

We were on the Triumph in GC on 1/11 - no tender tickets were needed. It was really smooth getting off. We docked at 7:30 and went down at 8:00 and got right off.

[Ev1995]

Hey cruizin4our10th, thanks for the info, how was your trip, and where did you go in cozumel?

[cruizincrazy]

Cruizin4our10th, thanks for the info about my question. We were in Grand Cayman several years ago, but I couldn't remember how long it took to get off the ship.

 

Ev1995, Hi how are you doing? I'm sure you're getting just as anxious as we are for our cruise, I'm sure we will all have a great time. As I believe I mentioned before, there are 6 people ( 3 couples ) in our group. We arrive around 3:30 in Ft. Lauderdale, not sure how long it will take to get to hotel and ready to eat. I will get with the other members of my group and I will get back with you about dinner, it would probably be between 6:00 to 7:00. We are going on Rays, Reef, and Rum Point excursion with Nativeways Tour group. Will talk with you later.

[Ev1995]

Hi cruizincrazy, we are also booked with Native Way in GC, come on over to the roll call board again, it is easier to find these posts. We will see about makeing a reservation at Bubba Gumps for 10 people the night before, we will talk with you later about the time.

[sunrise&set]

Interestingly, the answer depends. On the Valor last week we arrived at Grand Cayman before 7:00 am. We were told the night before we would have to get tender tickets. But the next morning no one seemed to be in a hurry to get off--no tickets were necessary. They made anouncements for anybody who wanted to get off regardless of carnival tour. My personal opinion is if people are up late and partying the night before there will be less demand to get off early in the morning. Roatan was another story. Port time was 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. In this case lots of people were ready to get off and there was considerable clogging of the stairwells. I have concluded that all the possible situations that people describe can occur. It just depends on the circumstances of that particular cruise.

Glad I found this post. I am on the Valor in Feb and have a private tour booked in Roatan. I guess I'll have to get there early to stand in line. So much for a leisurely morning!!

[smack22]

I know I'm going to sound stupid for asking this...but what are tender tickets? thanks :o

[cruizincrazy]

smack22, I'm a firm believer that the only stupid questions are the ones that are not asked. To answer your question, at some ports there are so many people wanting to get off the ship early that you have to get a numbered tender ticket to get onto the tenders. If you get a #1 ticket you will be the 1st off the ship after the people who take the Carnival shore excursions. Hope this answers your question.

[smack22]

thank you, cruizincrazy!

[brijack]

We are cruising on the Valor on 2/5 and have some diving in GC at 9am. Anyone with recent experience have any idea if we will be able to meet this? It is not a 'ship excursion' and there are 3 other ships in port that day.

 

Would appreciate the feedback.

 

Thanks

[LUCY55]

We were off the Valor. If you dock early in the morning and others are not in a rush to get off you should have no problem. It all seems to depend on how many people want to get off early. When you do an early morning docking--for those without tours there is no rush to get off because stores/museums/submarine etc. are not open yet.

[bellybutton]

We were off the Valor. If you dock early in the morning and others are not in a rush to get off you should have no problem. It all seems to depend on how many people want to get off early. When you do an early morning docking--for those without tours there is no rush to get off because stores/museums/submarine etc. are not open yet.

 

 

 

Do you know what time they open and what time they close?

[Chrome Dragon]

We were on the Valor Christmas 2004-2005 (Last Year) and tendering was a mess. We bucked heavy seas and winds from Roatan, and were late at GC by three hours with six other ships in port. We did not have a shore excursion booked so went in when it was not busy, but there was an hour wait to get back on the ship. The line for the three Carnival Ships extended right into the other lines areas, and some of their crew were quite rude. In my opinion the problem was that all the other lines suplimented the shore tenders with ship lifeboats to lessen the wait, but Carnival do not do that. I complained to Carnival but really didn't get much of an answer.

 

To be fair however, that is the only time I have ever had a problem with tendering. I was annoyed because I felt it was a problem that Carnival could have fixed by using lifeboats like the other lines.

[LUCY55]

The national museum in walking distance from the dock was supposed to open at 9:45 I think. But they never did open. Maybe they saw the eight cruise boats and decided not to. Reminds me of 10-years ago we stopped at St. Barts (off the then NCL Windward) and all the cute little french shops closed because there were two ships in and they said there were too many people.

[popcorngal]

To be fair however, that is the only time I have ever had a problem with tendering. I was annoyed because I felt it was a problem that Carnival could have fixed by using lifeboats like the other lines.

 

I'm really glad that on our cruise, Carnival didn't use their own lifeboats. In every port that we tendered into (3 out of 4) we had very heavy seas. The tenders are bigger and hold more people than the lifeboats and are used to cutting through the waves. In Coz, an NCL ship pulled up intending to use their own lifeboats, and the seas were way too rough for them to even attempt it. Thus, they had to go on without stopping. We had a pretty bumpy ride on all the tenders, but at least we were able to go ashore!

[andnickali]

I was on the Triumph last week- we tendered and had no problems. They were not passing out tickets or anything, we just walked down to deck 0 and got the next boat over. Same with coming back I think we waited maybe 10 minutes (at the most).

 

In Cozumel we did not have to wait for a tender (they are huge and probably hold 200+ people), but before we left they put a sticker on us with a tender number, but it didn't seem to mean anything- because we walked right on the tender.

 

Shannon