Hi everyone, me and 5 other friends are going on a cruise on April 2006. VERY EXCITED I've read some review about porting. It seems like a hustle for many people to get off the ship on time if they are not joining the excursion from the ship. Can anyone tell if that is going to be a problem if I'm joing a shore excursion that is not offer through the ship? Does anyone have any problem with getting back to the ship on time????

carmen

A lot depends on the port itself. Ports where the ship is docked is no problem and some tender ports that use shoreside tenders present no problem. However, some ports can become very crowded. As an example, I was just in Grand Cayman and there were 7 different ships there all tendering. The tender wharf was a nightmare. I decided to simply stay on the ship.

If you are on a ship's shore excursion in such an example, you would have no problem (well other than a 45-minute delay) but if you were on your own it would be a different situation entirely.

Hope that helps.

Tom

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the reply, I've heard about the gigantic line and that's why I'm a little worry if we are on our own. I would like to join the ship excursion, but it seems to cost sooooooooo much more than the one off dock, and since we have like 6 people, we can save a whole bunch.

thanks,

carmen

I agree with Tom, it really depends on the port you are at and how many ships are in port that day. Typically if you dock, there is not a problem getting off the ship when you want to. However, it can be very slow when everyone has to tender.

If you have something you really want to see in a tender port, I would probably pay more money to take the ship's tour. On every ship I have been on they have always let the people on the ship's tours get on the tenders first.

I booked my own excursion at Grand Cayman. I just pretended I was doing a carnival excursion and got off with the first tender.