Disembarking tickets

[Sparrow3131]

This is a new one for me. Now on the Coral Princess, you need a ticket to disembark at a port, not just tenders. The lounges are all packed with passengers with numbered tickets waiting to get off. People hunting for somewhere to sit.

Edited May 5 by Sparrow3131
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[MicCanberra]

Must be crowd control out for the shuttle buses

[BuzzBuzzen]

Probably Princess shore excursion people. Do they have coloured numbered stickers on their shirts ? 

[Ozwoody]

Quite possibly customs have asked to flow people through slowly, instead of having people waiting standing in que for long periods. Happens on World Cruise, have experienced a couple of times during previous WC's.

Better sitting down in the dining rooms than standing in a hot shed.

 

Edited May 5 by Ozwoody

[Hogbay]

Just dress up as a photographer , first one off 🤣

[MicCanberra]

1 hour ago, Hogbay said:

Just dress up as a photographer , first one off 🤣

Wear a kangaroo suit and hop off.

[ceeceeDee]

Or, make like a shepherd and flock off 😆

[MicCanberra]

1 hour ago, ceeceeDee said:

Or, make like a shepherd and flock off 😆

Lol

[OzKiwiJJ]

I think it was more to spread out the flow of people outside the terminal. Pacific Explorer was also in port, doing a changeover by the number of passengers arriving with suitcases as we were heading out for the day. It was a bit chaotic. The disembarkation groups on Coral moved fairly quickly so it wasn't a big issue.

[arxcards]

Coral Princess had the same arrangement in Newcastle in February. It was to create a flow of passengers to match the loading of shuttle buses out of the restricted port area. Not for shuttle buses yesterday, but better to be waiting in a lounge than in a queue in the terminal or on the pier.

[OzKiwiJJ]

It isn't anything new. I vaguely recall tickets being required at a port or two way back. They were probably shuttle bus ports. 

[MicCanberra]

That is what I had presumed, but either way, it was to reduce congestion once off the ship.

[matamanoa]

We recently experienced this in Darwin as Princess only let us know a day ahead that the usual main city dock was occupied and we were going to have to put in at an industrial dock further away.  It turned out that from the industrial dock, the only way into town was by shuttle bus and it would be a 45 minute drive there and another 45 minute drive back from town.  We got our bus tickets at the designated time and place as listed in the Patter.  We got number 11 tickets.  Well, by 2:00 p.m. we were still waiting for our number to be called and we finally just gave up and let someone else have our tickets.  We changed into our bathing suits, went upstairs to the pool and lounged away the rest of the afternoon.  We heard the last group of ticket holders called at 4:00 p.m.  Absolutely ridiculous!  Princess had not arranged for the proper number of buses against the number of people who would want to get off and as a result many passengers were left waiting and getting frustrated.  Keep in mind that most of the attractions and museums closed at 5:00 and that there were also very few shops open that day (it was a weekday), a lot of passengers were left with a very bad taste in their mouths over the poor organizational skills of Princess.  Due to this experience, every time we had to get a shuttle ticket for a bus, people would start lining up two hours beforehand, just to secure an early ticket number.  The crew started to become aware of this as there were long lines of passengers standing around with their coffees, lining the hallway and they always asked us why we had lined up so early.  Passengers just gave them the evil eye.  A similar experience on the B2B cruise ending in San Francisco where we put in at pier 80, an industrial parking lot for cars being off loaded from container ships.  The only way into the tourist areas of Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf would be to take a taxi or call an Uber and in the Patter, Princess warned us that those two types of transportation might be limited.  So, to appease all those who had started to complain about the arrangements, Princess offered to put on free shuttle buses to both Union Square and Pier 27.  Sounded good, right!  Once off the ship we had to stand in long snaking lines for over an hour, with our luggage( for those of us who were getting off in SF but not going to the airport)  and we waited while the few buses which had been called into action loaded the appropriate people and their bags and made off towards the city.  Due to traffic, it took over an hour for the trip to be made, start to finish.  Luckily it was a gorgeous day with warm temps and sunshine but I can't image what would have happened had it not been good weather.  Once we were off the ship, Princess just didn't care and we have heard rumblings about more cruisers being let off at out of the way piers just because Princess does not want to pay higher port fees.  This may or may not be true but in any case it has left a bad taste in the mouths of some Princess cruisers.  Sorry if this is long winded but it was an opportunity to let you know what is happening out there.

[Yaya_in_Oz]

I've often wondered how they work out who goes where when there are number of ships in port.

I doubt it would be to save money on port fees as the alternative to docking at the cruise port seems to be more trouble than its worth. I'm surprised the Captain didn't relay the reason for the last minute change at Darwin. I assume it was last minute as the transport into the City was poorly organised and sounds like it was half the way to Katherine. Thanks for the heads up, if it happened somewhere like Darwin where I've been a number of times I would stay on the ship, if not I'd book a shore excursion to actually see something and minimise wait times.

[MicCanberra]

Number one thing to pack when travelling is your patience. It is always needed at some point.