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I repost on this board part of what I posted on the main Royal Caribbean board on a thread with a video showing a couple missing the ship in Bahamas. I just wanted to share our experience of what can happen despite what I thought was a pretty safe option to do the tour.

 

Some say that missing the ship would be their worst nightmare, but, as terrible as that would be, there are worse things that could happen in our lives. Still, I personally have never enjoyed watching similar videos in the past.

 

We have always been conscious of not missing the ship & mostly have done ship excursions &/or been back well in time. We have never been close to missing the all aboard time previously.

 

On our recent Radiance cruise in NZ, our only real option for our preferred tour in Wellington was with a private operator who 'guaranteed' to have us back in time. It was an afternoon tour, as arrival time into port prevented us taking the morning option. The tour itinerary had us back at ship by 5:30pm which was all aboard time & we told the driver/guide when we joined the tour at 1:15pm that we want to be back by 5;00 pm. He said no problem. We had done our research & at no stage on the tour would we be more than 30mins drive from the ship. This was not a 'ship only' tour as there were others picked up en-route. From the ship was just us & a lovely couple from Southern California. 

 

We left the last stop on the tour [WETA workshops of Hobbit & LOTR fame] at 4:20pm, giving us 40mins to meet our target time of 5:00pm, and 70 mins to all aboard time. Almost immediately we hit traffic, making very slow progress. At times we were barely moving. Turns out that the local authorities had closed 2 lanes of a major 3 lane road for roadworks, coinciding with peak hour & this was something our driver did not know, until we reached that point. By now it was 5:00pm.

 

At one point it was clear that the driver was starting to 'panic' about getting us back in time. We kept going, becoming more and more concerned about being late. I had various scenarios running around in my head, as the next port was on the South Island of New Zealand & we were on the North Island.

 

DW then suggested that perhaps the driver should drop us at the ship shuttle bus stop downtown, rather than try and take us to the ship. He made a few turns and at the next intersection he said, there is a bus still there. He took the corner, pulled up and we raced across the street to get the shuttle bus. Relieved at making the shuttle, we relaxed a little, but the bus just sat there for several minutes waiting for any others, there was just the 4 of us. None came and finally at around 5:15 the bus headed off to the ship, with the driver saying that with the traffic it will take 20 mins to get to the ship 

 

We finally got into the port area & the driver announced that the ship was still there - that was not so funny for us as he intended. To get to the ship the bus had to go past the ship, under a fly-over, back past the ship & finally toward the ship once again. When we pulled up at was 5:35pm - all the barricades etc were gone & we had 200m walk to get to the gangway, which was still in place. We went up the ramps and onto ship & stopped just past security scanners and the 4 of us hugged each other in nervous celebration of making it back 'in time'.

 

With all that we enjoyed our tour & we have now a 'funny' story to tell.

 

Footnote: shortly after we boarded, there was an announcement for two passengers (same last name) to contact Guest Services. I said to DW, "maybe we were not the last 4??". We went up to our cabin & out onto our balcony. The gangway was still in place. Next thing a small bus drives down the wharf & right up to the gangway. Two people get out and go up onto the gangway, and board the ship. They were barely aboard, and the gangway was moved aside. Captain Marek came over the speaker, saying "thanks to Mary & Fred (I didn't get their actual names) for finally joining us, & thanks to all the others that were on time, we are departing now!" Captain Marek also made mention of these two people a few days later, laughing and saying "don't do that again".

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Yeah, traffic can get you.

 

I had a similar experience in Valencia, but was on foot. There was a festival, the bus routes were terminated short, and they'd actually barricaded off the access to the ship! Had to clamber some fences, and wasn't the last one back, but it's certainly a panic that you don't enjoy at the time.

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Reminds me of the time in Naples we got back - several hours early but the cruise terminal doors we had exited from was blocked and were no entry. Had us in a bit of a quandary as to what to do. We found some security guards which directed us to another building entrance. We then had to work our way through a maze of corridors and through many stairs first up and then down again before getting us to the upstairs shop area and security and finally back to the gangway to  the ship. Too bad for people with accessibility issues.

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Took a private tour to Las Tombas (?) penguin colony in South America, all good but about 20 km out from port van overheated.  One suggested solution was the six of us stand on the road and wave our cruise cards as the Celebrity shore excursion bus came along. Lol. Thankfully our driver poured cold water into the steaming radiator, wow, and we got back to port in time.  

The money saved by taking a private excursion was not worth the stress.

Also remember six gentlemen in Cobh sprinting, read huffing and puffing down the pier as the ship was blowing horn and ready to go.  They had been at the Irish pub and lost track of the time. Lol

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We took a private tour from Port Douglas to Cape Tribulation across the Daintree River.  No problems on the way up even though the road had suffered Cyclone damage and was narrower than usual as there was no traffic.  The way back was a little different as we joined a long line of traffic where the road narrowed. We were worried as we needed to make the next ferry across the Daintree to get the tender to the ship.  The hold up turned out to be a long truck that had got stuck on one of the narrow bends, blocking the way.  We had arrived near the end of the intricate maneuvering to free the truck and within 50 mins we were on our way.  The best part was that all the ferry customers were caught by the incident and the ferry waited so we did made it back for the last tender.

In all the private tours we have taken from ships this was the closest we came to being left behind.

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1 hour ago, Birubi said:

We took a private tour from Port Douglas to Cape Tribulation across the Daintree River.  No problems on the way up even though the road had suffered Cyclone damage and was narrower than usual as there was no traffic.  The way back was a little different as we joined a long line of traffic where the road narrowed. We were worried as we needed to make the next ferry across the Daintree to get the tender to the ship.  The hold up turned out to be a long truck that had got stuck on one of the narrow bends, blocking the way.  We had arrived near the end of the intricate maneuvering to free the truck and within 50 mins we were on our way.  The best part was that all the ferry customers were caught by the incident and the ferry waited so we did made it back for the last tender.

In all the private tours we have taken from ships this was the closest we came to being left behind.

In traffic hold ups there is often a ship tour caught up in it as well. Cross fingers and hope that's the case.

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When we went to the leaning tower of Pisa some idiots had lit a fire in the hills above the town. We went on the rci tour to Pisa but the bus had to go the back way through the bush to get us to a boat to take us up to the town. The police stoped the bus and checked all us passengers out looking for an idiot who had lit the fires.....

because of the fires the roads back to the ship were gridlock. We ran late but so did most of the other ship tours. The ship waited that made others on private tours greatly relieved! Captain merek announced the names of those whom missed the ship but when they met us at the next port he welcomed them back.

 

As we sailed out of the port you could see the hills on fire above the town.

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1 hour ago, Esilef said:

Captain merek??? I thought he was our captain on vision of the seas from Barcelona last September..... he mentioned he was leaving that ship.... if it’s the same one he’s brilliant & sings wonderfully

 

That's him! He just joined Radiance the cruise (Syd-Akl) before ours

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