Booking a private tour in a tender port?

[Karen13]

My husband and I are on a Canada and New England Cruise in September. We are thinking of booking Oli’s Trolley four hour tour of Acadia National Park. We dock at 7.00am. This is a tender port and one of the ships tours departs at 7.30. The tour we are looking at departs at 9.30. I have emailed the company and this is the response I got

 

‘Thank you for the email! Bar Harbor is a tender port and we suggest you are on a tender boat 1 hour prior to tour time and check in 30 minutes prior to tour time we are located directly on the tender pier for check in’

 

can anyone who has done this confirm whether they had any problems getting a tender in time to join this tour? 

 

Many thanks for any advice.

 

 

[JimnKaren]

We were on Veendam in the spring of 2017. We had zero problem getting to the trolley. In fact, we lolled about a bit.

What you might want to do is determine if your ship will be the only one in port. If so, then you should be OK; if there is another ship, then you need to work a different tack.

 

Jim

[Cruising-along]

We have done it and had no problem.  Their office is just a minute or two (walk) from the pier. I would be very sure to be on one of the first tenders and you should be fine. 

[twodjs]

Unless you are in an upper suite, or are 4 star or above Mariners, tender tickets are handed out on a space available basis. So as soon as tender ticket (or stick-on number) access is announced, you both need to get down to the announced distribution spot. You can't request a specific time of departure. You should be ready to go, but may have to wait for some time, depending on demand. If you are among the first groups, I see no problem.

 

[Fouremco]

2 hours ago, Karen13 said:

We are thinking of booking Oli’s Trolley four hour tour of Acadia National Park.

 

1 hour ago, twodjs said:

So as soon as tender ticket (or stick-on number) access is announced, you both need to get down to the announced distribution spot.

We he had a 10:00  AM tour in 2015 and had no trouble being there in plenty of time. We would have made a 9:30AM start easily. It was a great outing and well worth the effort getting there on time.

 

With respect to @twodjs's post, rather than wait for the announcement, we headed down early. While they didn't hand out tickets until the appointed time, it was handled on a first come, first served basis. I can't say whether this is a general practise with all ships.

[Karen13]

Thanks everyone for your advice. That’s all very helpful.