arrive and departure times of the ports

Has anyone recently cruised with Oceania???

on oceania's site they list arrival time and departure time, but when you go to book an excursion, they are sometimes the same time or a few minutes off. if i wanted to book my own excursion, i have no way of knowing what time the boat actually gets there and when it actually leaves, in order to book my tour.

i know they do this to try to force you to buy their excursions, but come on; sometimes there are better tours or i want to schedule a local tour guide.

The departure time will be as posted you NEED to be ONBOARD 30 min prior to the posted departure 45 mins is better

Arrival time they usually arrive before the posted time & once the ship is cleared by authorities you can disembark

if you plan for 20 -30 mins after the ship arrives you should be OK unless there are some delays by port authorities, weather or other circumstances

If you are booking a private local guide they usually will know what time you will getting off so will wait for you

JMO

The departure time will be as posted you NEED to be ONBOARD 30 min prior to the posted departure 45 mins is better

 

Arrival time they usually arrive before the posted time & once the ship is cleared by authorities you can disembark

if you plan for 20 -30 mins after the ship arrives you should be OK unless there are some delays by port authorities, weather or other circumstances

If you are booking a private local guide they usually will know what time you will getting off so will wait for you

 

JMO

+1 ..it has been my experience that when I use a highly rated Trip Advisor tour, or local guide recommended by CC posts, they all know our arrival time, and will wait for you if ship is late. They have their reputation staked on getting you from the ship and back again in the time allotted. Good advise given to allow aprox 20-30 min (or more if tender port) for tour start, and be back at least 30 - 45 min prior to the announced time of departure. We have never used an O tour, and have always booked independent, and in all but one case, have had tour guides that are in some cases more informed than we are on arrival times!

the confusing part is that the itinerary might say the tour starts at 8am and the ship arrival is 8am. the ship departure says 6pm and the tour end is 5:45pm. so i guess the tour times are approximated.

we will probably book some non-oceania tours because we can find the same tour for about half the price.

Good advise given to allow aprox 20-30 min (or more if tender port)/quote]

 

How long would you estimate for a tender port, please?

 

We have our own plans for one tender port and am trying to decide on what time to disembark, so we can catch a taxi to our venue. Does O give priority to folk who are on organised tours (in which case we might be kept hanging about for an unknown period), or is it more of a free for all - "first come, first served" so to speak?

Good advise given to allow aprox 20-30 min (or more if tender port)/quote]

 

How long would you estimate for a tender port, please?

 

We have our own plans for one tender port and am trying to decide on what time to disembark, so we can catch a taxi to our venue. Does O give priority to folk who are on organised tours (in which case we might be kept hanging about for an unknown period), or is it more of a free for all - "first come, first served" so to speak?

You go to the lounge when you are ready to disembark

 

O will give you tender tickets then as the space is available they will call the ticket colour/number & you head to the gangway

 

If O tours are departing early they will get priority but if the tender is not full they will also take independants

 

I would go 30 min before you want off just in case there is a large line

Look in the daily Currents it usually will give the time for the O tours just try to avoid that time slot & you should be fine

Make sue when you go to the lounge all your party is there with you & ready to go

Each tender (which are the motorized life boats) can hold up to 150 passengers. I don't believe O loads them up to this limit when using them as tenders. But, a large number of passengers are transported with each departure. Independents are usually also accommodated. .

I believe Oceania recommends being at the terminus 1 hour before sailing. We have seen that the last boat arrives at the ship 15 minutes before departure time. They must have time to stow the lifeboats used for the transfer before the departure time.

For return, it is first come first served and usually an orderly line. For departing the ship in the morning- the Oceania tours have priority but they will work a few private tour people into each boat. You will be given color coded tickets based on your check in time in the lounge and the number of people in your group. They will call each color based on how much room they have in the specific boat.

One additional item when setting up a tour from a tender port- the weather can be a factor in the tendering. We were in Waterford, Ireland- in the AM, the Capt. made a weather decision based on the wind forecast for the afternoon, instead of a 4PM return, the last return was moved up to 2:30PM.

Each tender (which are the motorized life boats) can hold up to 150 passengers. I don't believe O loads them up to this limit when using them as tenders. But, a large number of passengers are transported with each departure. Independents are usually also accommodated. .

I think they limit them to 100 per trip

You will notice the crew use the click counter as pax enter the tender & will stop people when they reach the maximum count

Thanks, all. I hadnt appreciated there was a ticket system - good idea, IMO.

We just had a sad experience. We had $2,000 of Independent plans at one port (there were six of us) and the ship didn't stop. This was because of two passengers, both of whom did not live. They were trying to make another port with better hospital facilities. I didn't insure that and lost the money.

On several other occasions the ship has not docked due to the weather.

If you are doing independent tours take these experiences to heart.

On my cruise ending two days ago, we missed two port days entirely. One was missed because of a decision made by the Captain and agreed to by Miami, the other caused by the Russians. Those with prepaid private tours were most probably SOL. We were two hours late into another port.

Best laid plans of mice and men. Have to take life as it comes.

We just had a sad experience. We had $2,000 of Independent plans at one port (there were six of us) and the ship didn't stop. This was because of two passengers, both of whom did not live. They were trying to make another port with better hospital facilities. I didn't insure that and lost the money.

 

On several other occasions the ship has not docked due to the weather.

 

If you are doing independent tours take these experiences to heart.

That is sad news about the other passengers

Will the tour company not refund you at least part of the costs since it was beyond your control?

On my cruise ending two days ago, we missed two port days entirely. One was missed because of a decision made by the Captain and agreed to by Miami, the other caused by the Russians. Those with prepaid private tours were most probably SOL. We were two hours late into another port.

 

Best laid plans of mice and men. Have to take life as it comes.

For those reasons, when planning private tours, I prefer to (whenever possible)

1 pay in full after the tour

2 place a deposit only

3 book with a company that will refund deposit when the ship cannot dock

4 rarely would I pay in full unless refund is guaranteed if the port is missed (i.e. not my cancellation).

I understand that the tour operators want to have some sort of guarantee that you will show up but I want the same guarantee that if I cannot make it because the ship cannot dock that I will not lose my money. I think that is fair for both sides.

On my cruise ending two days ago, we missed two port days entirely. One was missed because of a decision made by the Captain and agreed to by Miami, the other caused by the Russians. Those with prepaid private tours were most probably SOL. We were two hours late into another port.

 

Best laid plans of mice and men. Have to take life as it comes.

Mind sharing which ports this was as we will be in that area at the end of next month on Nautica?

the confusing part is that the itinerary might say the tour starts at 8am and the ship arrival is 8am. the ship departure says 6pm and the tour end is 5:45pm. so i guess the tour times are approximated.

 

we will probably book some non-oceania tours because we can find the same tour for about half the price.

As others have mentioned, the private excursion operators generally (at least the organized, professional outfits) know when the ship will dock and will wait for you. Instead of booking a specific time, perhaps you could see if you can book a "X time after ship docks". This was how it was done on a Mexico excursion, where the you had to make your way to the tour operator's office by X a.m. (e.g., 9:00 a.m.), unless it docked later than X-1 a.m. (e.g., 8:30 a.m.), in which case you had an hour of the ship docking (e.g., 9:30 a.m.) to get there.

It is also likely that you have opted for O-Life which comes with unlimited internet. This will be very helpful for you to keep in touch by e-mail with the operator as the day approaches to confirm, and if itinerary for the port changes, to adjust the times as needed. In our experience, it is not that uncommon for O's final itinerary to be different than on the brochure/website.

ORV;

We missed Alesund completely. Was suppose to be our first port of call. The Russian Navy screwed us upon entering their waters outside of Murmansk and had us drifting around the Barents Sea for hours. We arrived there to late for the tours on the scheduled day so we did them the following day. That meant we had one day in the Slovesky Islands instead of two. We were late getting into Bergen .

For those reasons, when planning private tours, I prefer to (whenever possible)

1 pay in full after the tour

2 place a deposit only

3 book with a company that will refund deposit when the ship cannot dock

4 rarely would I pay in full unless refund is guaranteed if the port is missed (i.e. not my cancellation).

I understand that the tour operators want to have some sort of guarantee that you will show up but I want the same guarantee that if I cannot make it because the ship cannot dock that I will not lose my money. I think that is fair for both sides.

Absolutely agree with everything Paul says. We always book private tours and have never had a problem with trusted tour operators as recommended through CC, TripAdvisor or other personal references.

Paulchili and 2tsquared;

While I agree with all you wrote, reality can get in the way. Simple case being docking in a small town or port with a limited amount of infrastructure , and learn there are two other ships in town that are 3 to 5 times the size of your R ship. One's option sre to book non refundable tours, and get on a tour; walk around town and look at gift shops; or pay O's over inflated prices, if they haven't sold the tour out. I have seen even O sell out tours early on and close the tour because infrastructure capacity is gone. Reality can be a tough master over strict principles. One often has to recognize and quantify risks and make decisions there upon. Of course, we had people just sit on the ship and do little because of principled poor prior planning.

pinotlover,

I agree with you and that is why I said "whenever possible".

We tend to take O Life and choose the tours option as we don't drink nor do we need extra OBC.

Thus for ports like you describe we would probably use one of our included tours (again, if possible).

But, like you said, sometimes the options are limited and you have to do what you think is best.

Absolutely agree with everything Paul says. We always book private tours and have never had a problem with trusted tour operators as recommended through CC, TripAdvisor or other personal references.

Plus 1. We have never had a problem and my wife had surely organized more than 200 private tours

Reputable tour operators do not want to be trashed on trip advisor or cc. The only parts of a private tour for which we do not expect a refund if the ship fails to dock are items that the tour operator had to pay for in advance. Those items are always specified in the arrangements.

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I have never had a problem with reputable private tour operators - but have had a number of "interesting experiences" with Oceania's choice of ports. For example, beware of small ports you haven't heard of/can't find out much about.

First there was Riviera porting in Motril Spain. It has good roads to Granada - but sadly absolutely no tourist infrastructure. There was a very expensive O shore excursion to Alhambra, which was filled many months before the cruise date. A CC group managed to book Spain Day Tours for a private tour to the Alhambra - and I think we ended up with 4-5 large buses full.

Then there was Sete. I had booked a rental car to drive to Carcassonne, but the car rental was far from town and there were NO cabs. A drab uninteresting town, and no way to escape....

And Portofino - seems that, like us, many cruises have not been able to go to Portofino as scheduled, to judge by postings/reviews in CC. We also missed St Malo on our last cruise, but that was not Oceania's fault, and we were offered compensation for missing it. A nice touch.

BTW, I have recently discovered a trip insurance policy specifically for cruises issued by Nationwide. My coverage for my next cruise includes a Pre-Paid Excursion Reimbursement of $500 for Itinerary Change. Fortunately, I haven't made a claim yet, but you might want to check it out. I found it on the insuremytrip.com site. The Nationwide plan is quite cost-competitive and well-reviewed.

I guess it is hard to find new ports to go to that have some sort of docking facilities for cruise ships

People want new places to go but those new places may not be ready for a cruise ship full of tourists

Then you are stuck going to the same old places with other ships full of people

what to do ???

I guess it is hard to find new ports to go to that have some sort of docking facilities for cruise ships

People want new places to go but those new places may not be ready for a cruise ship full of tourists

Then you are stuck going to the same old places with other ships full of people

what to do ???

Just went through this with Viking and some small ports. Cruise line booked all 16 available coaches in one place. Few ports will say a ship can't come, but that doesn't mean the tourist infrastructure can support the ships that do come. Cruise line had to change some excursions, plus Captain decided we couldn't make one port and people criticized the cruise line and the excursions department. Happens all the time. Stuff happens. Just be flexible, only book private tours with operators who will refund money if you pre-paid and didn't make port, allow plenty of time for getting in late due to weather, etc.

That being said, there's a lot of good info in this thread, and I agree with 95% of it. For a private tour a half hour past the itinerary time usually works, and if not, the operator will monitor and wait. If there's something you want to see BEFORE the itinerary time of a port, keep in mind that often the ship will get to the port BEFORE the itinerary time. If you know you're going to tender, add a half hour, and go with the rest of your group to the lounge together, all ready to walk off the ship.