Ascent early tender question

[llarsen]

Hi,

We will be on the Ascent this September and booked an independent tour in one of the ports which we will tender (Villefranche).

Port arrival is at 8:00am and our tour departs at 8:50am. We are not Elite and do not have priority tender.

Most of the ships shore excursions depart at 8:30-9:00am. 

I was wondering if we can get a tender ticket very early and exit before the ship tours depart? I do not want to hold up our tour (a couple others joining our tour are Elite) or miss it, if we have to wait for all the ships excursions to tender ahead of us. 

On Oceania they let us get off early without hesitation, but not sure about Celebrity. Can concierge help? Any suggestions or experiences? 

Thank you!

[Jim_Iain]

If not in a Suite and have no Loyalty you pretty much only have one option.    Line up for Tender Tickets before they open and get on one of the first Tenders.  

 

If you are being accompanied by an Elite you may be able to get the CC host to accommodate you.  I was on an E-Class and on a tour with about 20 guests.   Most had no status but the Retreat host allowed me to invite them to the retreat and escorted us off as a group.   So I don't get flamed... I planned it in advance and the Port Yorky Knob 90% of the ship had booked Ships Tours as there is nothing in the port.    When I escorted the guests in we were the only guests in Retreat, which is why they may have permitted it.

[jelayne]

If others on your tour are Elite one of them could speak to the Captain’s Club rep and ask if you can depart with them as you are on a tour together.  We did that recently and it wasn’t a problem btinging 2 non elites with our group of 10.
 

Personally I think 8:50 is too early to expect to be on shore.  Even if the ship is on time and the tenders are ready to board at 8 it takes time to load the tender.  While Elite has priority, shore excursions and Suite guests and Zeniths have higher priority.
 But if the whole group is late the guide will wait. 

[1025cruise]

If it's a ships tour, you will meet onboard and tender together. Otherwise, get to the line up early.

[mrgabriel]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they offer early tender tickets the day before? Seems to me that there was an opportunity to get early tickets in advance.

 

OP - if you don't secure an early tender ticket in advance, plan to be in line EARLY. Like don't think you can get in line at 7:30 AM and be on the tender at 8:10. On our Ascent cruise in December, we got in line 45 minutes before our ship sponsored excursion and only managed to get on a tender in time because we managed to get on with the last batch of E+ passengers. (We are E+ but were standing in the regular line.)

[jelayne]

11 minutes ago, mrgabriel said:

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they offer early tender tickets the day before? Seems to me that there was an opportunity to get early tickets in advance.

 

OP - if you don't secure an early tender ticket in advance, plan to be in line EARLY. Like don't think you can get in line at 7:30 AM and be on the tender at 8:10. On our Ascent cruise in December, we got in line 45 minutes before our ship sponsored excursion and only managed to get on a tender in time because we managed to get on with the last batch of E+ passengers. (We are E+ but were standing in the regular line.)

On our recent cruises tender tickets were not given out until morning.  Directions were show up with your entire party to get tickets.  

[Northern Aurora]

18 minutes ago, mrgabriel said:

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but don't they offer early tender tickets the day before? Seems to me that there was an opportunity to get early tickets in advance.

 

OP - if you don't secure an early tender ticket in advance, plan to be in line EARLY. Like don't think you can get in line at 7:30 AM and be on the tender at 8:10. On our Ascent cruise in December, we got in line 45 minutes before our ship sponsored excursion and only managed to get on a tender in time because we managed to get on with the last batch of E+ passengers. (We are E+ but were standing in the regular line.)

 

 

Our experience has been that tender tickets have never been distributed until the morning when they begin tender operations.  And since you were on a ship sponsored excursion I am surprised that you were not assembled in the theater or other such venue, handed your ship excursion sticker number and then taken off as a group (such as Blue number 3).

 

We have tendered in Villefranche three times.  Our OP may have a problem.

[phoenix_dream]

7 hours ago, llarsen said:

Hi,

We will be on the Ascent this September and booked an independent tour in one of the ports which we will tender (Villefranche).

Port arrival is at 8:00am and our tour departs at 8:50am. We are not Elite and do not have priority tender.

Most of the ships shore excursions depart at 8:30-9:00am. 

I was wondering if we can get a tender ticket very early and exit before the ship tours depart? I do not want to hold up our tour (a couple others joining our tour are Elite) or miss it, if we have to wait for all the ships excursions to tender ahead of us. 

On Oceania they let us get off early without hesitation, but not sure about Celebrity. Can concierge help? Any suggestions or experiences? 

Thank you!

Based on many years of experience sailing Celebrity, I would predict that it is pretty unlikely that you can catch a tour that departs at 8:50.  Not saying impossible, but unlikely.  If the ship truly does not enter the port until 8:00 it will likely be 30-45 minutes or so before any disembarkation starts.  Add to that the tender consideration and the odds get much worse.  Besides just the logistics of it all, and others with higher priority, tendering also depends on how the seas are that day, how many tenders will be in use, if there are independent tenders like in Grand Cayman and on and on.  I would discuss this with the tour company.  It is possible that they will have many passengers from the ship and in that case they may wait for you all.  Also find out what happens if you miss it - is there another, later time or do you just lose the chance and your $$.  I suspect even on Oceania with tenders you might not have been able to make it either

[jelayne]

29 minutes ago, phoenix_dream said:

 I suspect even on Oceania with tenders you might not have been able to make it either

On Oceania they have about 2200 less passengers odds are better. Still iffy.

[Denny01]

The OP is on a private tour. They could check the day prior at the Customer Service Desk to see if they will provide early tendering when tickets are distributed and have the tour reservations info to show them. 
 

my experience w private tours is they are well aware of how long it takes to get off a ship when tendering especially since this is a port I assume has lots of tendering. they will wait. We’ve been late and the tour knew what was occurring and waited. 
 

den
 

 

[llarsen]

Thanks everyone for your help. 

I'm going to contact one of the other tour guests who are Elite and see if it's possible to find out how many in our group do not have priority and see if we can get off together with the Elite guests. There are only 8 in our group.

Also, we will ask Concierge or Captains Club about it.

Thanks for the info!