Early tender for Villefranche private tour?

[nisky]

We have a private tour booked in Villefranche in mid-May and wondered if anyone has been successful with an early tender on Brilliance of the Seas. Any advice is most welcome!

Thanks in advance.

[LittleMissS]

We're doing the same in late June and would love to know the answer (same ship).

[Uri1961]

I took a tour that started at 7 30 am in Nice and it was fine. You will have to get up extra early but it will be worth it!! I took the RCI tour and it was fantastic!!

[nisky]

Thank you. Our tour is not with RCI, and we are concerned that all the RCI tour folks will be tendered off first and that we may not make it off until late morning. I am looking for advice about this.

[Hlitner]

RCI follows a "pecking order" typical of all the mass-market lines. Priorty tendering will always go to the folks that book cruise line excursions. They also give priorty to frequent cruisers (i.e. Diamond and Diamond Plus). As to the independent passengers, they will be told to report to a specific lounge at a specific time to get a tender ticket. After the tour are ashore (or when they have room) they will start to take the independent passengers based on their tender tickets (first come first serve). In Villefranche a lot depends on sea conditions and high or rolling seas (swells) can delay tendering. So the bottom line is that your cruise line could care less that you have a private tour and you need to get yourselves to the appropriate lounge early (you will not be the only one) and get a low tender number.

 

Hank

P.S. As long time independent travelers (we seldom ever take any tour) we have long felt like 2nd class cruisers on RCI when it comes to tendering.

[PeaPod1946]

thank you, Hank. I'm using Nisky's good question which I had not thought of so apologies for butting in :) but asking about later timing -

 

in your opinion (or anybody, chime in) if we wanted to begin an private tour at 10:00, would the RCI ship-tour folks be pretty much cleared out by then for tendering? [The morning cruise excursions all leave between 9-9:30.] Or should we start our tour at 10:30 to be safe?

[Hlitner]

thank you, Hank. I'm using Nisky's good question which I had not thought of so apologies for butting in :) but asking about later timing -

 

in your opinion (or anybody, chime in) if we wanted to begin an private tour at 10:00, would the RCI ship-tour folks be pretty much cleared out by then for tendering? [The morning cruise excursions all leave between 9-9:30.] Or should we start our tour at 10:30 to be safe?

 

We would not want to even hazzard a guess. There are just too many factors in play with tendering operations...not the least of which is the weather. Any kind of swells or wind can really delay tender operations as the tenders have to slow down and need more time to dock. However, keep in mind that the private tour operators are all very familiar with dealing with cruise passengers and will wait until you get ashore. One simple idea that we use whenever we are meeting anyone in a port is a cell phone :) If you have a phone that works in Europe you can trade phone numbers with your tour company. Since we do a lot of driving in Europe we bought a special cell phone from MOBAL which works in over 200 countries. Many US phones will also work in Europe although its usually a good idea to check with your cell carrier about roaming options and the cost.

 

Starting your tour at 10:30 is a bit safer, but its sure nice to get going as early as possible to maximize your day.

 

Hank

[Nebr.cruiser]

I agree that you just never know with tendering. We almost missed a tour we had booked privately because, although we lined up to tender 1.5 hours before the tour, tendering was delayed because of a medical evacuation--This was in Villefranche on the Navigator of the Seas.

 

We actually did miss the tour, but when we got to the dock there was a tourist 'help' desk right there who called the tour company (luckily I had their number). They dropped the other six people off in Monte Carlo and came back for us in Villefranche. So we missed little if anything other than a half hour or so in Monte Carlo.

 

I'm not sure what we could have done differently, given the unusual circumstances except meet the others onboard and leave the ship together so that we all either made or missed the tour en masse, or tender in even earlier. But we were in line at 9 for a 10:30 tour and not that far from the door when the delay happened.