Rays, Reef & Rum Point 8:15 Meeting Time?

[LEtue]

Sailing on the Brilliance and I don't see any recent posts about the tender process.

 

The ship port time is listed as 7AM - 4 PM. Nativeway says we would have to catch the first or second tender to make the 8:15 AM tour time. Not a problem getting up early but will we be behind the people on excursions? I have read that they have 2 launch areas - one forward for ship tours and one mid to aft for all others?

 

Anyone with recent experience? Would love to take this tour but not sure if we can make it :(

[NightOne]

Sailing on the Brilliance and I don't see any recent posts about the tender process.

 

The ship port time is listed as 7AM - 4 PM. Nativeway says we would have to catch the first or second tender to make the 8:15 AM tour time. Not a problem getting up early but will we be behind the people on excursions? I have read that they have 2 launch areas - one forward for ship tours and one mid to aft for all others?

 

Anyone with recent experience? Would love to take this tour but not sure if we can make it :(

 

You will be fine. :)

 

We did this tour on March 18th from the Serenade of the Seas which is a sister ship to Brilliance. Our port hours were from 7am-4pm as well and we did not rush to go to the tenders and I think we ended up on tender #4 or #5. Our tender ticket was #6 but staff told us to go down there before they even called #6.

 

I didn't pay close attention to the tender location but I seem to remember that we left on the tender from an area closest to the aft elevators and returned on one that took us to an area that was closest to the forward elevators. However, my confidence on this being the case is very low. :) However, I am reasonably certain there were not 2 different areas to get on the tenders operating at the same time. (going or returning)

 

Once we got in the port area and found the guy holding the Native Way sign we ended up waiting under a tent for about 15 minutes before we had everyone there and left for the bus.

 

So we did not rush and had plenty of time.

 

They got us back to the port in time so that we caught the tender that was 45 minutes before the last one was to run.

 

Serenade went out of New Orleans and thus had no clock changes on the ship or at any port. Ship time, port time and New Orleans time were always the same during the entire cruise and for every port.