Tendering Process - Grand Cayman - Freedom of the Sea

[slmwo]

Yeap.

 

Great!!! Thanks, again!!!

[Shekim]

I tendered from Freedom at this port. It was a fairly efficient process, but you can probably rest assured the private tour company is experienced with the ship and the port and will probably wait for you if your not the first persons off the ship.

Don't count on that...one year the weather was bad so we tendered in on the opposite side (?). Like previous posters the line to get tender tickets was LONG. It was my first time and no one said to get in line hours beforehand. By the time we made it off our bus with the tour guide (now don't remember which one) left. We ended up taking a bus into town, ate at Hard Rock (NEVER again) and went back to the ship. Very disappointing.

[Lionesss]

The odds certainly make it unlikely the OP is in a GS or larger!:)

 

FYI the last time we cruised in a GS the priority tendering started an hour after the tendering started. They still permit and as they should those with early RCI excursions leave first.

That is why GS or not we always book an early RCI excursion just to get off the ship in either the first or second tender.

Sea Ya

[island lady]

Wow....this one came off of the almost year long archives! :eek:

 

Just know that GC is a tendered very, very busy port of call.

 

If you want to avoid lines, and indeed they can be very long, be there

a couple of hours before last tender call.

[Llmtax2000]

If you are IN line at the tender dock...they will not leave you behind! As long as you don't need to be 1st off, tendering isn't such a big deal. Same with returning to the ship....don't wait until the last minute....go back to the ship a bit early and the whole procedure is pretty painless.

 

At least that's the case on Royal -- When we pulled out of Grand Cayman, the word from the last folks on board was that Carnival had just pulled away leaving 200 passengers on shore standing in their tender line.

[mn1111]

FYI the last time we cruised in a GS the priority tendering started an hour after the tendering started. They still permit and as they should those with early RCI excursions leave first.

That is why GS or not we always book an early RCI excursion just to get off the ship in either the first or second tender.

 

Sea Ya

 

That has not been my experience. We tell the concierge that we need to be off early and he brings us right down and gets us on the 1st or 2nd tender over. Never once had to book an RCI excursion to get off early when traveling in a suite.

[AZAficionado]

I've sailed three times on Freedom to Grand Cayman in the past two and a half years. Twice in May and once in October. There was never a serious problem with tendering, and no tickets/stickers/whatever. There was a line first thing in the morning, but it was not very long. Maybe 30 minutes from entering line to arriving at shore. If your private excursion is first thing, you may have an issue - the ship could arrive late in port. But likely not. However, Grand Cayman is somewhat notorious for being skipped due to rough seas.

 

Only once was there an issue returning, tendering for all ships (there were three or four in port) was halted for 30 minutes due to rough seas. No passengers were left behind. Instead, the ships departed later than usual.

 

I've been on cruises where passengers were left behind (in Puerto Vallarta). It was not done lightly, or quickly. The ship waited almost 3 hours, with calls on the intercom every 5 or 10 minutes for the passengers (that got old fast) before finally leaving a crew member behind and departing. It was clearly the last thing the cruise line wanted to do.

[whitshel]

We were just there this past January on the Independence, and yes the lines to get back on were crazy but they moved and it wasn't too bad. Our bad experience came getting off the ship. We actually got off pretty fast, wasnt trying to be first off, was probably on 4th or 5th tender but it takes forever to fill up those big tenders. It felt like we sat on that boat for a good 30 mins before it left. Ughhhhh but it us what it is:)

 

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[slmwo]

Thanks for all of your information about your experiences!!!!

[bbbearden]

We were there in March of this year and getting off was fine, but returning to the ship was a nightmare. We were in a Grand Suite on Navigator of the Seas and were able to quickly be off the ship without a problem. However when we returned there was no evidence of any type of priority tendering for Suite Guests and the line was huge. The ship actually pulled up anchor, turned and was slowly departing and the tenders were still coming alongside and dropping people off. I could not believe the ship was moving and the tenders were still tied on. Did not really seem to be the safest thing to do.

[JYD Hawkeye]

Guess we had the oddball cruise. We got off easily, with wife in wheelchair, and had little to no wait to get back on. Only one other ship in port that day. We had no excursion planned, so we went to the street and bought a Stingray tour for $25 each. Tour was about 4 hours and went without a hitch. Came back and shopped for about an hour and then got back on ship. Had lunch by the window in the WJ and watched as the ship pulled away from land.