Recent Jade cruisers - need advice

[hlb76]

Good morning. Just wondering if tendering has been an issue like it was when she came to Texas. I read lots of horror stories of long waits and missed tours due to the tender process not being a smooth ride. We are finally trying to figure out our excursions and any advice would be great. I prefer to book private if possible. I want to to ray/shark alley and see there is a private vendor for about 1/2 the cost which would be great for the budget. Though if I can't make the tour it's worthless.

 

Thanks in advance.

[hlb76]

anyone??

[dporter]

Good morning. Just wondering if tendering has been an issue like it was when she came to Texas. I read lots of horror stories of long waits and missed tours due to the tender process not being a smooth ride. We are finally trying to figure out our excursions and any advice would be great. I prefer to book private if possible. I want to to ray/shark alley and see there is a private vendor for about 1/2 the cost which would be great for the budget. Though if I can't make the tour it's worthless.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

We cruised mid January and didn't experience any issues with the tendering. In fact we heard other people mention that it was smoother than expected.

 

Belize is about a 15-20 minute tender each way and Honduras is 5 minutes due to distance ship has to anchor offshore.

[HandC4Me]

Just got off the Jade last Saturday (3/19) and tendering wasn't a HUGE issue, although we were lucky enough to be blessed with smooth, calm seas.

 

The biggest thing that came up was the waiting in line for tender tickets. This situation is discussed thoroughly in Coldwarspook's recent review (Thread title starts with "Early riser..." I believe) - basically some people tried to just put down their shoes to hold their place in the tender ticket line, and it didn't work out so well. See his review thread for the whole story, including our version.

 

The key is, get to the tender ticket line EARLY. Like at least an hour to 90 minutes early, if getting a low number is really important to you. But know that there will always be folks on ship excursions or Latitudes members who will tender before you.

 

Our Belize tender experience was a breeze - got a low tender number, moved off the ship fast. In Roatan, not so much. Got in the tender ticket line a full hour ahead of time, but they ran two ticket lines, and for whatever reason (people asking a lot of questions?) our line ran a little slow. We were amazed to find that we were Group Five. We didn't get off the ship till about 10:00. Frustrating. We were lucky our excursion didn't leave without us.

 

I'm planning on doing a full review with as much tender detail/tips as I can remember, soon!

 

Good luck and hope you have a great cruise.

[olesiabr]

We just got off the Jade today.

We booked a private snorkel/ dive excursion with Sea Sports Belize. I got into line for tender tickets at 6:05 am for 8am distribution, and was fifth person in line, got group one. We were on Belize by 9:20am...

[olesiabr]

In Roatan, got on line 6:10am for 7:30 distribution, was 25th in line, got group 4. Took longer in line for actual tender because of Dawn docking

[hlb76]

We just got off today as well. Tendering was a nightmare. Got in line 45 min early - tender 14. Off the ship about 11a in Belize... missed our excursion. Roatan 45 min early again tender 9 still took a long time to get off. Don't recall actual time as we really did not have a time we needed to be off. Nothing was a smooth process when it came to getting off the ship tender or not.

[olesiabr]

Yeah, for Belize if you want the first tender, you need to line up at 6am...luckily we turned the clocks back the night before so it FELT like 7am. We had to physically be in line...not like you could put a towel down or anything