Port Overcrowding and Corporate Responsibility

[kitkat343]

34 minutes ago, raitch said:

Santorini would be a tricky port even with only 3,000 passengers. You tender to a pier and then need to walk up 600 steps, or ride a mule up those same steps, or take a cable car.

 The cable car can move a maximum of 1,200 people per hour (600 per direction). There are VERY few other ways to get from the pier to… anywhere.

 

It’s a bottleneck even on good days. And going down is worse/longer lines than going up.

 

My understanding is that there are no NCL excursions that allow you to depart from the pier (or at least my sailing in August doesn’t have any). I know other lines have other set-ups.

 

Looking at the port schedule there are days with 7 ships in port. 7!

I bet sunset would be gorgeous there, and most cruises aren't sailing far to the next port so one option might be for some ships to arrive midday and stay until 11 or 12 pm.  But it currently is very challenging logistically.  

[tsahall01]

When we were in Santorini, we were the only ship in port (NCL Epic).  We thought it would be an easy day with the cable cars.  WRONG!!  Since we were the only ship in port, they decided to do maintenance that day on the cable cars!!  So the cars were delayed by about 45 minutes.  Line grew outrageously long.  Once it opened, though, it moved pretty fast.  We were on an independent tour and our guide was aware of the situation with the cable cars starting late.  We had a wonderful day and a wonderful tour.  Our guide dropped us off towards the cable car pickup spot--there, we noticed a HUGE line of people waiting to go down--the line went down streets around corners and down some more streets--it was incredible.  Since we were the only ship in port, I knew that the ship would NOT leave this many people behind (lots more people joined the line after we got in line).  Some people got nervous and decided to walk down--poor choice when it is dark out and you cannot see well.  Very dangerous situation.  When we finally got down and boarded the tender, so many people were saying NEVER AGAIN.  What a sad ending to a wonderful day, but I agree with them--one and done!!  If I ever go to Santorini, I will either stay on the ship, or just take the tender to the little shore area.  There are boats that leave from that area and will return you to that area, so that may be an option to avoid the cable cars.  It is my understanding that the cable cars and donkeys are owned by one family that has a monopoly over the situation.  They are making money hand over fist and have no desire to improve things for the betterment of everyone.  This attitude may be their undoing in the future!

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, tsahall01 said:

When we were in Santorini, we were the only ship in port (NCL Epic).  We thought it would be an easy day with the cable cars.  WRONG!!  Since we were the only ship in port, they decided to do maintenance that day on the cable cars!!  So the cars were delayed by about 45 minutes.  Line grew outrageously long.  Once it opened, though, it moved pretty fast.  We were on an independent tour and our guide was aware of the situation with the cable cars starting late.  We had a wonderful day and a wonderful tour.  Our guide dropped us off towards the cable car pickup spot--there, we noticed a HUGE line of people waiting to go down--the line went down streets around corners and down some more streets--it was incredible.  Since we were the only ship in port, I knew that the ship would NOT leave this many people behind (lots more people joined the line after we got in line).  Some people got nervous and decided to walk down--poor choice when it is dark out and you cannot see well.  Very dangerous situation.  When we finally got down and boarded the tender, so many people were saying NEVER AGAIN.  What a sad ending to a wonderful day, but I agree with them--one and done!!  If I ever go to Santorini, I will either stay on the ship, or just take the tender to the little shore area.  There are boats that leave from that area and will return you to that area, so that may be an option to avoid the cable cars.  It is my understanding that the cable cars and donkeys are owned by one family that has a monopoly over the situation.  They are making money hand over fist and have no desire to improve things for the betterment of everyone.  This attitude may be their undoing in the future!

The Epic might just be 1 ship, but it is a very, very large ship. It's the largest ship we were ever on, and I do not intend to ever again go on a ship that large or larger.

[AlaskaGoer]

On 5/31/2024 at 8:21 PM, RocketMan275 said:

Oh, I see the difference.  But this isn't a cruise ship problem.  As long as Santorini allows up to 10,000 passengers, you'll have this problem regardless of the number of ships or the size of the ship.  

 

 

The funny part is they far exceed the 10k.

[complawyer]

while it's easy to throw stones, you cant make ncl a target for this one. they have no ability to control the itineraries of other cruise lines/their ships. even if one of their smaller ships is in santorini port, it's still a massive hassle to wait in line for the cable car down. we were in that line a few years again, and i can swear my 1st marriage didnt last that long

[Wayward Son]

1 hour ago, complawyer said:

 it's still a massive hassle to wait in line for the cable car down. we were in that line a few years again, and i can swear my 1st marriage didnt last that long

 

🤣 That's the funniest thing I've read this week. Thank you!

 

[Liljo22]

This is a new one on here.  First time I have seen someone complain that NCL made it to a port.  

[Cruising Lynne]

On 5/31/2024 at 5:27 PM, ontheweb said:

We are all overlooking the real problem here. The ships are getting too big! And that is why some ports are beginning to say no to cruises or at least limiting the number of passengers they will allow in a single day.

I agree. 

 

This is why I will not cruise on RCCL anymore. They insist on always having the "largest cruise ship" in the world. I feel that these behemoths overcrowd ports and give cruising a bad name. It leads ports to want to ban ships altogether instead of just allowing more reasonable sized ships. 

[Cruising Lynne]

16 hours ago, ontheweb said:

The Epic might just be 1 ship, but it is a very, very large ship. It's the largest ship we were ever on, and I do not intend to ever again go on a ship that large or larger.

Epic and similarly sized ships are the largest I will go on. I also enjoy smaller ships like the Spirit. It is fun to mix things up if you can handle all the extra walking you get on the bigger ships. Mostly, I am really looking forward to checking out Agua next year.

[Laszlo]

We ran into the same issue in St Lucia on the Getaway. We were there with the Epic and a Carnival ship. All of us docked about the same time. We made the mistake of signing up for a beach excursion. The beach was 5 miles away. It took us over 90 minutes to get to the beach with traffic, this after the busses were already 45 minutes wait due to traffic. So our excursion which was supposed to give us 4 hours on the beach turned into less than two hours. While back on the ship so many people complained about it we all got a full refund

[ontheweb]

3 hours ago, Cruising Lynne said:

I agree. 

 

This is why I will not cruise on RCCL anymore. They insist on always having the "largest cruise ship" in the world. I feel that these behemoths overcrowd ports and give cruising a bad name. It leads ports to want to ban ships altogether instead of just allowing more reasonable sized ships. 

Our first 2 cruises were with RCCL before they started building their oversized ships.

 

Funny, the first was in 2002 on the Splendour of the Seas. Everyone on our plane to Barcelona seemed to be either going on our cruise or a similar Princess cruise. Our ship was next to the Princess ships which was actually BIGGER than our RCCL ship.

[Cruising Lynne]

19 hours ago, ontheweb said:

Our first 2 cruises were with RCCL before they started building their oversized ships.

 

Funny, the first was in 2002 on the Splendour of the Seas. Everyone on our plane to Barcelona seemed to be either going on our cruise or a similar Princess cruise. Our ship was next to the Princess ships which was actually BIGGER than our RCCL ship.

Times have definitely changed. Our very first cruise was also in 2002 on RCCL Adventure of the Seas. At the time, it was one of  the largest cruise ship in the world.. Now it is overshadowed by the mega ships. It did get me hooked on cruising though! That and the warm Caribbean itinerary. We went to Aruba, Curacao, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. Our first NCL cruise was the Wind in Hawaii in 2006. Much smaller than Adventure, but I really enjoyed that ship and itinerary as well. It was our Honeymoon.

 

 

[eileeshb]

Having experienced the tender process to Great Stirrup cay I prefer to avoid itineraries with tenders if possible. I know I won’t do the Greek islands on a breakaway/+ class of ship if I ever were to do that itinerary.  In some ways my work schedule actually works in my favour for avoiding crowds.. I normally cruise in January but have done cruises in early October for itineraries that are not available in January. 
There are many places that want to cut back on tourist numbers or set additional requirements to help the local area. In my local area there is the most popular natural landscape attraction in Ireland, the day trip bus tours are required to stop in the locale for a meal or a stop for their passengers for 30mins+ in one of the nearby towns. We sell a LOT of our shop t-shirts to tourists. The local residents of Dun Laoighaire in Dublin blocked a proposed cruise ship pier development to discourage cruise ships including it on their itineraries. Right now it’s a tender port and given the weather in Ireland it’s a high risk one. 
Videos of the tour buses causing chaos in Cobh appear quite regularly and that’s with only 1 pier in operation, there are plans to upgrade a second pier to accommodate cruise ships as second ships have to go to the commercial port in Cork harbour. Tourism has always been a big industry in Ireland, my grandmother and mother both ran B&Bs in their homes at various times due to our proximity to a number of tourist attractions and big festivals. 
Those housewife run b&bs have practically disappeared from our region now because bus tours day tripping from Dublin have taken over so there isn’t the same demand. 

[pc_load_letter]

Looks like OP and others will be happy. But not the cruise lines making the change, it's the government.

 

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/cruise/greece-plans-to-limit-cruise-ships-at-popular-islands

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/greece-cruise-ship-cap-santorini-mykonos-b2563943.html

[cruiseny4life]

29 minutes ago, pc_load_letter said:

Looks like OP and others will be happy. But not the cruise lines making the change, it's the government.

 

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/cruise/greece-plans-to-limit-cruise-ships-at-popular-islands

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/greece-cruise-ship-cap-santorini-mykonos-b2563943.html

As a cruiser, this makes me sad. As a human wanting to experience fantastic places, it makes me happy. From the sounds of it, Mykonos and Santorini are absolutely miserable when a couple of cruise ships are in port. 

 

From experience, I can't even imagine how Bar Harbor handles a large ship. I'd think Juneau would be the same way.

 

I'm all for these bans, even if it means repeated adventures to the same ports that can accommodate ships (i.e. Nassau). 

[Mr. Grizb]

4 hours ago, pc_load_letter said:

Looks like OP and others will be happy. But not the cruise lines making the change, it's the government.

 

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/cruise/greece-plans-to-limit-cruise-ships-at-popular-islands

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/greece-cruise-ship-cap-santorini-mykonos-b2563943.html

Yes, I did see that. Hopefully this helps to alleviate the problem.

[Etta1213]

I've never sailed to Greece. Am thinking maybe ships could be staggered better to arrive on different days? Or do ships typically come in all seven days a week anyway? 

[kitkat343]

7 hours ago, Etta1213 said:

I've never sailed to Greece. Am thinking maybe ships could be staggered better to arrive on different days? Or do ships typically come in all seven days a week anyway? 

During the height of the tourist season, Santorini  will have multiple ships everyday.  But there are other destinations where this might be an option - like St. Lucia.  But someone posted a thread about them upgrading their port, and perhaps that would no longer be the case after the upgrade.  

[sailingships]

Unfortunately, even with an NCFL shore excursion you might still have to fight your way onto the cable car coming back down. In April we were abandoned in Thira by our NCL guide several blocks from the top of the cable car. and had to join hundreds of other desperate passengers all anxious to get back down to the tenders and thus to the ship on time. We arrived back onboard 2 hours after the time for the end of our excursion.

[zqvol]

7 minutes ago, sailingships said:

Unfortunately, even with an NCFL shore excursion you might still have to fight your way onto the cable car coming back down. In April we were abandoned in Thira by our NCL guide several blocks from the top of the cable car. and had to join hundreds of other desperate passengers all anxious to get back down to the tenders and thus to the ship on time. We arrived back onboard 2 hours after the time for the end of our excursion.

Should have walked down. Super easy and quick. 

[ontheweb]

11 hours ago, zqvol said:

Should have walked down. Super easy and quick. 

And a lot easier than walking up (which we did, and would never do again!)

[Wayward Son]

On 6/18/2024 at 7:20 PM, zqvol said:

Should have walked down. Super easy and quick. 

 

Good for you. Unlikely for nearly anyone over the age of 50. Have you ever hiked down from the Gold Belt Tram back to Juneau? I have.

 

Try it. I'm sure it's just right for you.

 

[zqvol]

Just now, Wayward Son said:

 

Good for you. Unlikely for nearly anyone over the age of 50. Have you ever hiked down from the Gold Belt Tram back to Juneau? I have.

 

Try it. I'm sure it's just right for you.

 

I’m well north of 50 and have no trouble walking down the steps at Santorini. 

[Wayward Son]

1 minute ago, zqvol said:

I’m well north of 50 and have no trouble walking down the steps at Santorini. 

 

Proud of you. I'm 60, and last August I hiked down from the tram in Juneau. I will never walk down anything, ever again.

 

Or up, to be honest.

 

[ontheweb]

8 hours ago, Wayward Son said:

 

Proud of you. I'm 60, and last August I hiked down from the tram in Juneau. I will never walk down anything, ever again.

 

Or up, to be honest.

 

My parents were walkers. When people did not see them walking after my father fell and broke his hip when he was 98, I was asked are they ok. BTW, at that point he had been legally blind since the age of 89. Also, he survived that broken hip even though one time when we went to visit him in the ICU after the operation, we were told that he was expected to die the past night.