Ever Miss the Ship? We Did.

[sanger727]

My smart watch will only update the time when connected to my phone.  Because of this I always leave it on manual time zones.  I can't think of any reason where I would change time zones and not be willing to go into my phone to change the zone.  On long flights I like to change my time to the new time zone at the beginning of the flight.  It's easier for me to plan out naps and meals when I am already living on the new time. 

[ronandannette]

1 hour ago, shof515 said:

OP is very lucky that the next port of call was in Halifax, south of Sydney. two ports somewhat close by that is drivable or easy to fly 

 

It could of been much much worse if it was two separate country's like Greenland and Canada or one of many Caribbean islands 

Amen!!

[ronandannette]

25 minutes ago, CruiseMH said:

They were not missing,they just didn`t re-enter the ship.

If they had gone missing during a sea day thats something completely different.

I am sure they simply waited until next day whether OP would re-board or not. They did and so it is just a case of "missed the ship in one port". If they had not re-boarded next day/port as well then there would for sure have been a reaction.

 

This is what I’m wondering about. Had we not boarded in Halifax, the next port was St. John, New Brunswick, where we are today. Still “possible” to get to from Sydney. Would they have waited until we left Canada altogether and headed back to the disembarkation port (Boston)?

 

interestingly, it is now 23 minutes past the intended departure time from St. John. I am listening to the Captain announce he is waiting for the last passengers to cross the gangway. We were 4 minutes late. {{sigh}}

Edited Wednesday at 05:54 PM by ronandannette

[DCGuy64]

26 minutes ago, ronandannette said:

interestingly, it is now 23 minutes past the intended departure time from St. John. I am listening to the Captain announce he is waiting for the last passengers to cross the gangway. We were 4 minutes late. {{sigh}}

Maybe the port agent in NB was nicer than yours. I'm so glad you made it onto the ship, though. I am super paranoid about being late so I always make sure I note the ship's time in every port before leaving for the day.

[kitkat343]

45 minutes ago, ronandannette said:

This is what I’m wondering about. Had we not boarded in Halifax, the next port was St. John, New Brunswick, where we are today. Still “possible” to get to from Sydney. Would they have waited until we left Canada altogether and headed back to the disembarkation port (Boston)?

 

interestingly, it is now 23 minutes past the intended departure time from St. John. I am listening to the Captain announce he is waiting for the last passengers to cross the gangway. We were 4 minutes late. {{sigh}}

That reminds me - if I understand your situation correctly, you didn't realize until you returned that the rental car clock time was incorrect.  But if someone else is in this situation and they realize they will be late, please call the port agent immediately (the port agent's  number is on the daily - it should be in the app but I've never found it there.). Take a picture of the emergency contacts before you leave the ship, and call the port agent with an estimate of when you will arrive.  If they know it will be only four minutes, they are more likely to hold the ship (no guarantee, of course, but it's the best one can do). If you don't contact them, they don't know if you are arriving in 4 minutes or if you are drunk and passed out somewhere.   
 

Edited Wednesday at 06:37 PM by kitkat343

[sanger727]

37 minutes ago, ronandannette said:

This is what I’m wondering about. Had we not boarded in Halifax, the next port was St. John, New Brunswick, where we are today. Still “possible” to get to from Sydney. Would they have waited until we left Canada altogether and headed back to the disembarkation port (Boston)?

 

interestingly, it is now 23 minutes past the intended departure time from St. John. I am listening to the Captain announce he is waiting for the last passengers to cross the gangway. We were 4 minutes late. {{sigh}}

 

If they are on a cruise ship excursion they will do their best to wait for them.  

[julig22]

5 minutes ago, kitkat343 said:

That reminds me - if I understand your situation correctly, you didn't realize until you returned that the rental car clock time was incorrect.  But if someone else is in this situation and they realize they will be late, please call the port agent immediately (the port agent's  number is on the daily - it should be in the app but I've never found it there.). Take a picture of the emergency contacts before you leave the ship, and call the port agent with an estimate of when you will arrive.  If they know it will be only four minutes, they are more likely to hold the ship (no guarantee, of course, but it's the best one can do).  
 

Exactly the advice we got from the captain at an "ask the officers" session. If they know the situation they will wait if they can. If they don't know where you are they will proceed without you. 

[tsahall01]

I used to think that if the port agent's number was in the Freestyle Daily, that I would access the number from the NCL app on my smart phone.  I quickly found out that the app does NOT work when you are off the ship and you cannot access the Freestyle Daily.  I now take a photo of it at every port!  LOL!

[MagnoliaBlossom]

5 hours ago, graphicguy said:

OP....glad you made it to the next port.

 

Cautionary tale that we hear over and over.

 

A.  MAKE SURE YOU SET YOUR PHONE, WATCH, ETC TO SHIP TIME

B.  NO ONE BUT YOU IS RESPONSIBLE TO BE ON BOARD BY "ALL ABOARD" TIME.

FYI, if you are setting your watch to a rime that may not be the local time, be sure to disable the automatic time change setting on your clock feature.   DH always has his on automatic, but I NEVER do that so it has created confusion between which of us is correct but I know I’m always right because I dont have Mr. Smarty pants Watch telling me what time it is.  It can get particularly confusing during DST.

 

[laudergayle]

One other cautionary note:  the ship’s time may be different than the local time.  

This happened to us in Puerta Vallarta, MX.  Local time is CST but the ship stayed on MST.  While you wouldn’t miss getting back on the ship, you could miss independent excursions by an hour if you weren’t aware.  

[ronandannette]

1 hour ago, kitkat343 said:

That reminds me - if I understand your situation correctly, you didn't realize until you returned that the rental car clock time was incorrect.  But if someone else is in this situation and they realize they will be late, please call the port agent immediately (the port agent's  number is on the daily - it should be in the app but I've never found it there.). Take a picture of the emergency contacts before you leave the ship, and call the port agent with an estimate of when you will arrive.  If they know it will be only four minutes, they are more likely to hold the ship (no guarantee, of course, but it's the best one can do). If you don't contact them, they don't know if you are arriving in 4 minutes or if you are drunk and passed out somewhere.   
 

Even after we realized the Newfoundland  time thing we still thought we had another 1/2 hour - we were totally discombobulated on the port times due to them all being changed and none of us had brought the Daily with us. That’s really the thing that would have made all the difference. 

[Cruising Lynne]

I am sorry that this happened to the OP, and am glad that they were able to work things out to catch up to the ship. Very stressful. I appreciate them sharing their experience to give others an idea what to expect if it happens to them. I am also surprised no one from the ship reached out to them after they missed the ship. I guess the ship thought the port agent would help them.

 

I believe Newfoundland time is half an hour different then Sydney time. All aboard time is usually half an hour before the ship leaves. So I guess they were actually more than four minutes late. 

 

Good that they were from Canada and did not need passports, and their phones worked so they could make calls to make reservations. This makes me think that I should get an international calling plan before my next trip. I will have to look into what Verizon offers.

[Cruising Lynne]

Oops, I did not see your latest reply before I posted. Taking the daily with you is a good idea.

[kitkat343]

17 minutes ago, Cruising Lynne said:

I am sorry that this happened to the OP, and am glad that they were able to work things out to catch up to the ship. Very stressful. I appreciate them sharing their experience to give others an idea what to expect if it happens to them. I am also surprised no one from the ship reached out to them after they missed the ship. I guess the ship thought the port agent would help them.

 

I believe Newfoundland time is half an hour different then Sydney time. All aboard time is usually half an hour before the ship leaves. So I guess they were actually more than four minutes late. 

 

Good that they were from Canada and did not need passports, and their phones worked so they could make calls to make reservations. This makes me think that I should get an international calling plan before my next trip. I will have to look into what Verizon offers.

Verizon has a 10 per day travel pass that lets you use your phone at its normal rate in the US.  

[julig22]

55 minutes ago, laudergayle said:

One other cautionary note:  the ship’s time may be different than the local time.  

This happened to us in Puerta Vallarta, MX.  Local time is CST but the ship stayed on MST.  While you wouldn’t miss getting back on the ship, you could miss independent excursions by an hour if you weren’t aware.  

Also be super cautious if traveling when it's time to switch to/from DST. People's watches changed but unfortunately the port we were visiting did not change, lots of people early and really upset, thinking the ship had neglected to notify them.

[JSar]

5 hours ago, CruiseMH said:

They were not missing,they just didn`t re-enter the ship.

If they had gone missing during a sea day thats something completely different.

I am sure they simply waited until next day whether OP would re-board or not. They did and so it is just a case of "missed the ship in one port". If they had not re-boarded next day/port as well then there would for sure have been a reaction.

 

Obviously "missing at sea" and "missing/failing to re-board" would trigger different response systems.  But at some point - cruise ships DO have to follow up in cases where people fail to re-board because from the ships perspective, they are missing and unaccounted for. Especially if the passenger(s) did not remove their belongings from the ship when they went to shore. Knowing the passenger left the ship isn't enough for absolve the cruise from the need to account for their passengers who were expected to return to the ship. Again... I was asking AT WHAT POINT would cruise ships deem enough time has passed that would trigger an attempt to reach the person who is "missing/failed to return to the ship" and/or their emergency contacts. Is it 24 hours? Longer? Shorter? Enquiring minds want to know... if I fail to return to a ship, at what point would the ship acknowledge that I am missing and attempt to reach out to me and notify emergency contacts? 

 

And in this case - the OP did fail to re-enter the ship due to human error with the different time zones, but the cruise line didn't know that. The OP could also have just as easily gone missing due to some sort of medical emergency and/or another less fortunate event... in which case - family at home needs to be notified that they are INDEED MISSING. And fact is - those who flag whether or not an individual returned to the ship as expected, would be the first people to know whether an individual or group might be missing. So - once again - at what point does NCL or other cruise lines follow up?

 

I don't blame the OP for being concerned that no one reached out to them or their emergency contacts when they failed to return to the ship. I personally wouldn't expect that to happen immediately - but at some point - it definitely SHOULD happen. WHEN would it happen? 

 

 

[JSar]

6 hours ago, yakcruiser said:

And I also would not go on here letting everybody know how I would never miss the ship for fear of jinxing myself.

I was thinking that too! I am super paranoid about things like this... I am often the first person back to meet tour guides and I go out of my way to be back on the ship at least an hour before it is supposed to debark... I think the first cruise I returned to the ship at least 2 hours ahead... 

[Ellis1138]

I always get worried about missing the ship, so I do take a photo on my phone of the port agent, the number of the US embassy (if we're in another country) and take our passports and the 'can't be without it' medicine when we go out at a port.

 

Because of the time zone stuff and my phone is really bad with it anyway, I do a timed alarm based on the amount of hours we have. Like if the ship is at a place from 8 am to 6 pm, and we get off the ship at 9 am, I set an alarm to go off in 7 hours, letting me know to head back to the ship.

 

I'm glad you were able to get back on at the next port.

[kitkat343]

4 hours ago, JSar said:

 

 

And in this case - the OP did fail to re-enter the ship due to human error with the different time zones, but the cruise line didn't know that. The OP could also have just as easily gone missing due to some sort of medical emergency and/or another less fortunate event... in which case - family at home needs to be notified that they are INDEED MISSING. And fact is - those who flag whether or not an individual returned to the ship as expected, would be the first people to know whether an individual or group might be missing. So - once again - at what point does NCL or other cruise lines follow up?

 

 

 

 

According to the OP, they arrived at the port 4 minutes after all aboard and spoke immediately to the port agent.  I would assume the port agent is in email or phone communication with the ship, and would relay to them that the OP is not in any danger.  

 

I would assume a passenger who is delayed returning from a tour would either:

 

a) return to the port to see if they got lucky and the ship either waited or was delayed 

 

or 

 

b) would call NCL's main headquarters to discuss the logistics of boarding at the next port stop or ask how they could retrieve their belongings (and please bear in mind much of the time one of the missing belongings is their passport, so if a passenger who is safe has a lot of incentive to contact NCL).  

 

If a passenger did not arrive at the original port, and did not contact NCL's headquarters, then after a certain period of time the passenger can be considered missing and I would hope that NCL would try to call both the passenger and the passenger's emergency contacts, and if the passenger doesn't pick up their phone and the emergency contacts did not know where the passenger is, then they should contact the local authorities.  NCL wasn't worried about the OP because they are only going to worry if the missing passenger is an unaccompanied minor they accidentally let off the ship, a person with a cognitive impairment, or a passenger who hasn't had any contact with the port agent or NCL headquarters for a significant amount of time.

[ClwtrBoi]

This, the port agent knew the OP was OK as they had somesprt of interaction. Regardless of the seeming lack of help from the port agent. The port agent probably sends a report to the ship about many things including this,  so I'm not sure how the OP knows the ship didn't know or care.   

[dobiemom]

I’m so glad the OP @ronandannette made it to the ship at the next port. Whew! 
 

When on a cruise I turn OFF the automatic time on my phone* and set it manually, changing it when necessary. Then I KNOW I’m on ship time. (Sometimes the ship is NOT on local time.)

 

*I need to change it in 2 places on my phone, in the settings and on my clock widget. 

[Bobby Winds]

Question that is kind of regarding to this topic.

 

On NCL site it says "Due to security reasons, all guests must be on board 2 hours before sailing". I am guessing this doesn't apply to when you are visiting ports but rather on the initial boarding of the vessel in your embarkment port ? ? ?

 

Some of the port times are short and if we have to be back to the ship 2 hours before the ship intends to sail it makes some port excursions very difficult to accomplish without "missing the boat".

[shof515]

15 minutes ago, Bobby Winds said:

Question that is kind of regarding to this topic.

 

On NCL site it says "Due to security reasons, all guests must be on board 2 hours before sailing". I am guessing this doesn't apply to when you are visiting ports but rather on the initial boarding of the vessel in your embarkment port ? ? ?

 

Some of the port times are short and if we have to be back to the ship 2 hours before the ship intends to sail it makes some port excursions very difficult to accomplish without "missing the boat".

 

this message only applies to embarkation day on day 1 when you first board the ship. it does not apply to the port of calls visits. for port of call visits you need to back on the ship at least 30 minutes prior to departure time

[ronandannette]

11 hours ago, JSar said:

Obviously "missing at sea" and "missing/failing to re-board" would trigger different response systems.  But at some point - cruise ships DO have to follow up in cases where people fail to re-board because from the ships perspective, they are missing and unaccounted for. Especially if the passenger(s) did not remove their belongings from the ship when they went to shore. Knowing the passenger left the ship isn't enough for absolve the cruise from the need to account for their passengers who were expected to return to the ship. Again... I was asking AT WHAT POINT would cruise ships deem enough time has passed that would trigger an attempt to reach the person who is "missing/failed to return to the ship" and/or their emergency contacts. Is it 24 hours? Longer? Shorter? Enquiring minds want to know... if I fail to return to a ship, at what point would the ship acknowledge that I am missing and attempt to reach out to me and notify emergency contacts? 

 

And in this case - the OP did fail to re-enter the ship due to human error with the different time zones, but the cruise line didn't know that. The OP could also have just as easily gone missing due to some sort of medical emergency and/or another less fortunate event... in which case - family at home needs to be notified that they are INDEED MISSING. And fact is - those who flag whether or not an individual returned to the ship as expected, would be the first people to know whether an individual or group might be missing. So - once again - at what point does NCL or other cruise lines follow up?

 

I don't blame the OP for being concerned that no one reached out to them or their emergency contacts when they failed to return to the ship. I personally wouldn't expect that to happen immediately - but at some point - it definitely SHOULD happen. WHEN would it happen? 

 

 

Yes, that was my point. WHEN would they reach out. What is the protocol? Perhaps I will find out if I pursue it further with shore-side Guest Relations. I have no expectations that they will follow-up with me.

[ronandannette]

1 hour ago, ClwtrBoi said:

This, the port agent knew the OP was OK as they had somesprt of interaction. Regardless of the seeming lack of help from the port agent. The port agent probably sends a report to the ship about many things including this,  so I'm not sure how the OP knows the ship didn't know or care.   

Knew? Yes, based on the manifests and us not checking back in. But I don’t recall the Port Agent asking our names (he may have; it was a stressful moment) and he definitely didn’t check our ID or boat cards. He also DID NOT have our Passports. Had we been foreign, I’m not sure we would have been able to rent a car or board a flight without them. We lost our Passports while cruising the Med a few years ago. We couldn’t board our flight home and were stuck in Barcelona for days getting it sorted out.