Miss the ship

[fscool]

They should change their invoices and itineraries to say the All Aboard time then.  

[123funcruiser]

30 minutes ago, fscool said:

They should change their invoices and itineraries to say the All Aboard time then.  

 

Why? It´s Pretty obvious a Departure time can´t be the all aboard time, regardess if it´s a ship, plane, Train, bus…..

 

Ia a vessel is supposed to leave at a certain time, passengers Need to be OnBoard Prior to this. With a ship docked it´s mostly 30 min. for Pax, can be earlier for crew. For a tender port this can vary even more.

[brillohead]

 

10 hours ago, 123funcruiser said:

11 hours ago, fscool said:

They should change their invoices and itineraries to say the All Aboard time then.  

 

Why? It´s Pretty obvious a Departure time can´t be the all aboard time, regardess if it's a ship, plane, Train, bus…..

 

Exactly.  Most airlines require you to be on the plane 15 minutes before departure time.  Once the door to the plane's boarding gate is closed, it can't be opened again.  

I had one time I was doing a "there and back" flight to drop my son off to visit his grandma -- she met us at the airport, and I was getting right back on the same plane to return home (he was too young to fly as an unaccompanied minor at the time).  There was a delay getting his checked bag, so by the time I got back to the gate, the door had closed.  

Even though I was there and the plane was still there, they wouldn't let me on it.  The worst part was that there were delays due to weather (Buffalo in winter), and so I sat at the gate looking right at my plane for well over an hour before it finally pushed back.  (Fortunately, it was early enough in the day that I was able to fly stand-by on the next flight... I hadn't packed a bag because I wasn't spending the night!)  

The time listed on the invoice is the time that the ship is scheduled to be in the port.... nothing guarantees that you'll be able to get off the ship at that time or that you won't be required to be back before the departure time listed.  

 

 

Edited August 11, 2019 by brillohead

[soremekun]

On 8/7/2019 at 2:21 PM, A&L_Ont said:

 

I agree.  When I read the "news" article seemed to play out like a normal pier runner story, except for the waving bye sign which really wasn't referenced to be directed to the runners.  They left that up to the reader's imagination.

I was there and saw the bye sign buy not the pier runners.  The ships were side by side and the pier runners would not have been able to see the sign. 

[fscool]

18 hours ago, 123funcruiser said:

 

Why? It´s Pretty obvious a Departure time can´t be the all aboard time, regardess if it´s a ship, plane, Train, bus…..

 

Ia a vessel is supposed to leave at a certain time, passengers Need to be OnBoard Prior to this. With a ship docked it´s mostly 30 min. for Pax, can be earlier for crew. For a tender port this can vary even more.

 

Add a column to the itinerary and the invoices to include All Aboard time.  Then people that like to maximize their time in port can plan their days accordingly.  Who's to say if the All Aboard time will always be 30mins or perhaps it creeps to 45mins or an hour?  In fact, in order to hit the All Aboard time you actually need to be back to the ship prior to the All Aboard time.   

 

I get the comparison to flights and trains and other modes of transportation but cruises are different.  They are offering you a chance to visit ports along the way.  The least they could do is be upfront ahead of time so you could plan your port stop accordingly.   On my last trip I planned private excursions starting at 8:15am only to find out on the ship that the gangway down time was 8:30.  I also planned my afternoon excursion to get back to the port by 3:30 only to find out that the gangway could be closed by then.   

 

I am willing to accept the risks of missing an excursion start time or miss the ship leaving port without me if the cruise ships would be upfront ahead of time.  

[S.A.M.J.R.]

8 hours ago, brillohead said:

 

Exactly.  Most airlines require you to be on the plane 15 minutes before departure time.  Once the door to the plane's boarding gate is closed, it can't be opened again.  

I had one time I was doing a "there and back" flight to drop my son off to visit his grandma -- she met us at the airport, and I was getting right back on the same plane to return home (he was too young to fly as an unaccompanied minor at the time).  There was a delay getting his checked bag, so by the time I got back to the gate, the door had closed.  

Even though I was there and the plane was still there, they wouldn't let me on it.  The worst part was that there were delays due to weather (Buffalo in winter), and so I sat at the gate looking right at my plane for well over an hour before it finally pushed back.  (Fortunately, it was early enough in the day that I was able to fly stand-by on the next flight... I hadn't packed a bag because I wasn't spending the night!)  

The time listed on the invoice is the time that the ship is scheduled to be in the port.... nothing guarantees that you'll be able to get off the ship at that time or that you won't be required to be back before the departure time listed.  

 

 

I had something similar happen to me.  I was returning from a work event.  My first leg was delayed because of weather.  When I got to the connecting airport, I ran to the connecting gate.  It was 5 minutes before departure time the plane was still at the gate, but the door was closed and they wouldn't let me on.  

 

They got me on the next flight... 3 hours later.  It was a 20 minute flight. 😛 

[S.A.M.J.R.]

2 minutes ago, fscool said:

 

Add a column to the itinerary and the invoices to include All Aboard time.  Then people that like to maximize their time in port can plan their days accordingly.  Who's to say if the All Aboard time will always be 30mins or perhaps it creeps to 45mins or an hour?  In fact, in order to hit the All Aboard time you actually need to be back to the ship prior to the All Aboard time.   

 

I get the comparison to flights and trains and other modes of transportation but cruises are different.  They are offering you a chance to visit ports along the way.  The least they could do is be upfront ahead of time so you could plan your port stop accordingly.   On my last trip I planned private excursions starting at 8:15am only to find out on the ship that the gangway down time was 8:30.  I also planned my afternoon excursion to get back to the port by 3:30 only to find out that the gangway could be closed by then.   

 

I am willing to accept the risks of missing an excursion start time or miss the ship leaving port without me if the cruise ships would be upfront ahead of time.  

Did you let the excursion operators know what ship you're on?  They're going to know whether you'll be able to make the excursion or not.

 

And cruises are not different than flights and trains.  Those also allow you to visit areas.  The only difference is you get to pick when you leave, not so on cruise ships.  

 

Presumably your itinerary showed 8a-4p (or 3:45p) so you were trying to make an 8:15 excursion and a 3:30 return?  Do you not allow any "what if" time in your planning (ie: What if there's a problem with customs and we can't get off the ship on time?  What if there's a massive line to leave the ship at 8 and we don't get off the ship in time?  What if there's some problem returning from our excursion and we're late?)

 

Even on our first cruise, we used private excursions BUT I made sure the excursion operators knew what ship we were on, what time the ship was supposed to dock and leave, AND confirmed with them that we take the excursion with no issues. 

[123funcruiser]

13 minutes ago, fscool said:

 

Add a column to the itinerary and the invoices to include All Aboard time.  Then people that like to maximize their time in port can plan their days accordingly.  Who's to say if the All Aboard time will always be 30mins or perhaps it creeps to 45mins or an hour?  In fact, in order to hit the All Aboard time you actually need to be back to the ship prior to the All Aboard time.   

 

I get the comparison to flights and trains and other modes of transportation but cruises are different.  They are offering you a chance to visit ports along the way.  The least they could do is be upfront ahead of time so you could plan your port stop accordingly.   On my last trip I planned private excursions starting at 8:15am only to find out on the ship that the gangway down time was 8:30.  I also planned my afternoon excursion to get back to the port by 3:30 only to find out that the gangway could be closed by then.   

 

I am willing to accept the risks of missing an excursion start time or miss the ship leaving port without me if the cruise ships would be upfront ahead of time.  

 

I guess I´ll just have to disagree here. I see no difference as in flights, Trains and other Transportation. All of them have Departure times and it´s common sense that I can´t maximise my time up to the listed Departure time, but instead have to take into account an earlier time to be there to not be left behind. Same goes for arrivals, I Always Need to take delays into account. 

There´s really no Benefit in listing those times in Addition other than generating more complaints and unhappy guests.

 

 

[fscool]

We go down and stand in line to get off at least 30 or more minutes before the ship is due to "arrive" at the port. For getting back to the ship, the private excursions that end closer to departure time we take ones that are really not far from the port to limit potential issues.

 

I get that I am the only one making a big deal out of this.  I just felt a little ripped off that I was told the ship was in port at the times on the invoice/booking but in reality you have to shave off 30mins at the start and 30mins at the end + get back a bit earlier than that to get back on the ship. 

[Wanderista]

11 minutes ago, fscool said:

We go down and stand in line to get off at least 30 or more minutes before the ship is due to "arrive" at the port. For getting back to the ship, the private excursions that end closer to departure time we take ones that are really not far from the port to limit potential issues.

 

I get that I am the only one making a big deal out of this.  I just felt a little ripped off that I was told the ship was in port at the times on the invoice/booking but in reality you have to shave off 30mins at the start and 30mins at the end + get back a bit earlier than that to get back on the ship. 

 

I agree that it might not be readily clear if you aren't familiar with cruising. Comparing it to a boarding time for an airplane makes a lot of sense. I've been fortunate to never unintentionally miss a travel arrangement. It's definitely true though that unexpected things can happen. I've had to run through a few airports to make flights due to unpredictable reasons before. 

 

Generally speaking though, it sounds like with cruises, it is not a good idea to cut it too close in terms of returning.