Tender tickets

[mimlypops]

Trying to plan 2 port schedules. Please could someone give me a realistic indication of likely time delay between scheduled port arrival and getting on a tender. Ports are Villefranche and Kotor. We are standard verandah, no priority status etc.

 

Many thanks

[Gonzo70]

A good estimate would be that you should be able to make it to shore roughly an hour after the scheduled arrival time. There are factors that can alter this such as the ship arriving late, the ship taking longer than normal to clear with local authorities, winds/waves impeding the tenders or lots of people trying to get on early tenders - but an hour is a good estimate.

[mimlypops]

Thank you. That is better than I thought. Do you just queue to get on a tender or get a timed ticket in advance ? If latter, is that earlier on same morning or night before ?

[Gonzo70]

Thank you. That is better than I thought. Do you just queue to get on a tender or get a timed ticket in advance ? If latter, is that earlier on same morning or night before ?

 

No advance tickets if you do not qualify for priority tendering; you just line up and after they finish tendering those with early shore excursions booked through the ship and those with priority tender tickets they start with those that have lined up.

[mimlypops]

Oh that sounds like fun !

 

Thank you for info.

[miched]

If you are planning to schedule tours on your own it can be risky. If you take the cruise line tours you will not have to worry as those passengers have priority and will make the tour as it is coordinated with the ship. All of the other priority perks such as what category, loyalty status and such are nothing but verbage that has no value as everyone has some kind of priority basically meaning that you have priority to join the end of the line. :D

 

 

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[Gonzo70]

It is still much better to book private excursions; even though it takes a bit longer to exit the ship, cruise ship excursions are generally atrocious.

[mimlypops]

Our plans are not too time critical. Just wanted to set realistic expectation of when we would be on shore as i thought i had read on another thread that can take 3 hours to get on a tender if you have no priority. 1 hour is fine. Using some public transport in Villefranche but only local bus. Just walking in kotor or poss transport to Perast so no issues there. Thanks

[dwhe]

It is still much better to book private excursions; even though it takes a bit longer to exit the ship, cruise ship excursions are generally atrocious.

 

The few Ship excursions I've taken have been fine, guess I was just lucky.

[footer6]

Trying to plan 2 port schedules. Please could someone give me a realistic indication of likely time delay between scheduled port arrival and getting on a tender. Ports are Villefranche and Kotor. We are standard verandah, no priority status etc.

 

Many thanks

 

You might take a look at the times for the ship tours. If arrival time is 7 am and the tours are scheduled to leave at say, 8 am, it's an indication of when Celebrity expects the ship to be cleared.

[ghstudio]

Our plans are not too time critical. Just wanted to set realistic expectation of when we would be on shore as i thought i had read on another thread that can take 3 hours to get on a tender if you have no priority. 1 hour is fine. Using some public transport in Villefranche but only local bus. Just walking in kotor or poss transport to Perast so no issues there. Thanks

 

Villefranche is a short tender ride and you should have no problems. Can't address Kotor.

 

The horror stories you have read were most likely on some recent asia cruises because they did have some severe tendering issues. I've also seen discussions of long tender waits occasionally in Santorini although we didn't see it...but then again, we had priority tendering so my view isn't useful.

[skylight]

We had no problems with tender to Villefranche and Kotor. Just went down to tender a few people in line and got on. Same on the return. Kotor is only a small place so short tender.

[HappyTvlr]

In Cabo we had to wait 3 hours. No idea what the issue was, but was happy that I did not have something booked. I don't mean to alarm you, but just sharing my experience. Also, I have taken many ship excursions and have enjoyed all of them. Yes they might be a bit more expensive, but I never worry about getting off the ship or getting back in time.

[Caribbean Chris]

I would not count on one hour. Variables are many including how rough the water is...if the tender is bobbing up and down, it takes longer. Local port authorities and their rules can slow things way down. If there are lots of people on tours through the morning, they all go ahead of you.

 

Suite passengers did get priority tickets on our last cruise.

 

Numbered tender Tickets indeed were issued for non- tour passengers for Kona, Hawaii and it took a long time to get ashore -two to three hours. I really regretted not booking a tour because we lost half a day waiting around.

[hansolosmom]

Not to open a can of worms but who gets priority tenders? Is it suites? Elites?

 

Edited:

Never mind I saw the suite comment above. I knew the ships tours had priority, just wasn't sure who else.

[Gonzo70]

Not to open a can of worms but who gets priority tenders? Is it suites? Elites?

 

Edited:

Never mind I saw the suite comment above. I knew the ships tours had priority, just wasn't sure who else.

 

Suites, Elite and those booked on a Celebrity excursion with an early start all have priority.

[welshfamily]

Hi,

We have used the tenders several times in both ports on S class ships.

Usually Celebrity require one member of your party to collect tender tickets from Celebrity central before docking. The time is usually published in the daily information sheet and also by the cruise director after the evening shows in the Celebrity theatre.

Times depend on docking time eg

Tickets available from 7am ( usually a long queue which moves quickly.)

7 am docking followed by about 30 minutes before the ship is cleared by the port authorities.

An announcement is that made to tell people they can go ashore.

Numbers are announced i.e. those holding tender tickets 6 & 7 proceed to deck 3/4 etc.

all Celebrity excursions go first.

Open tendering is announced when most passengers are off. You can go backwards and forwards as often as you like.

 

We found the process well run but it was between 9 am and 10 am before we managed to get off at Villefranche, we have been three times but all were high summer season.

I don't know about priority tickets as this next cruise will be our first as Elite and we have never been lucky enough to cruise in a suite.

 

If I might make a couple of suggestions. Villefranche is a beautiful port. Try hard to get on an open top tender and drink in the view. It is a very easy port to use the train to go to either Nice or Monaco. There is a really good bus service which takes you along the mountain roads, as see on various films such as James Bond. A private guide would be worth while depending on your time in port.

Villefranche itself,is well worth spending sometime looking round.

Kotor is a walled city. The tender takes you to within a short walk of the city gates. We had a most enjoyable day exploring the city, eating , drinking and people watching. Utter bliss.

[mimlypops]

Thank you welsh family. We will stay flexible on the tender ports and accept that there could be a little delay.

[Bluebury]

When we tendered in Kotor we needed to get a ticket first. I went early (or so I thought) but our tickets were 20 something!

 

Unfortunately the weather was not very kind and after a couple of tenders the captain decided that there was a safety issue and that he needed to reposition the ship. Then he needed to do it again after tender number 16 had been called because the wind had changed direction.

 

The whole process seemed to go very slowly but after number 18 had been called it suddenly speeded up and we were then off quickly. I think that until then there was difficulty transferring from the ship to the tender and people were being careful - howver once the ship was settled it all moved much quicker.

 

All in all it took us 2hours 45 minutes.