Preference given to passengers on ship's tour

[jeanb]

I have heard that Celebrity arrives later at most ports in South America than stated on their itineraries and only passengers taking the ship's tours can get off first. Everyone else has to wait. How can you book with private tour operators not knowing what time you are getting off the ship? I'd appreciate any comments from those who have had this experience with Celebrity. We are going on the Infinity December 3, 2006

[crazy4cruisn]

I had heard the same thing about not letting independent tours off early when we were in St Petersburg. I asked one of the ship's personel about this at the CC party. He said it wasn't true. In fact they even gave us a special place to meet and did let us off early.

[jeanb]

On our Baltic cruise on the Constellation we were given a special room to meet after there was so much chaos with Celebrity doing preference on prior cruises. But friends who just returned from the Millenium cruise to S.A. on Jan. 22 said that Celebrity was not allowing passengers with private tours off until all ship's tour passengers got off.

[mike35]

What a wonderful reason to tell Celebrity "bye-bye" and go with a cruise line like Oceania - where you embark or disembark at your leisure.

 

Mike

[BernieB]

We just returned from a S. America cruise on the Millenium. You are correct. The tours from the ship get priority and our group of 8 had to fight at every port to get off early. Once, security was called and the fight even escalated. You can expect not to be able to get off until about 90 minutes after the ship arrives if tendering.

 

Also, we missed 2 ports and were at sea for 5 days straight. They were the ports we most wanted to see as that was where most of the wildlife (seals and penguins) were. The ship gave us a free hour of drinks (I don't drink) as compensation!

[greatam]

Every mainstream cruise we have been on (Celebrity, Princess), priority was ALWAYS given to passengers taking the ship's tours. Cunard and Seaborne allowed passengers to get off at leisure, although two weeks ago in NYC, the QE2 tried to get the ship tour people off first. It wasn't stated policy, but ship's tour people were told to disembark at 8:15, when everyone else was told 8:30.

 

I could be wrong, but I believe that is the way it is for MOST cruise lines.

[hotzim]

We are taking our first Celebrity cruise to SA leaving March 5th and I am trying to decide between the comfort of just taking the ship's excursions vs the flexibility and savings of booking my own. The Millenium is by far the largest ship we have been on, and we have been wondering about how smoothly things would run since we hate lines and wasting time sitting in a lounge waiting for our tender number to be called. I was hoping that this was a classy enough ship that things like debarking would not be a problem. Knowing what you know now, would you take the ship's excursions or venture off on your own?

[BCHappyGal]

WE did SA on the Infinity - a great trip - we did private tours in all the ports except 1 Ushuaia where we did the ships tour. We were later leaving the ship for the ships tour than for any of our private tours. They put you in a lounge and there you sit till the large bus is ready for you and that is later than if you are just walking off the ship.

 

For the tender ports yes they give priority to certain passengers including those on ships tours. However if you are in a suite or have cruised over 10 times with Celebrity you automatically get priority tendering which is a wonderful perk. I loved the priority tendering - and it was especially useful in SA where many of hte ports are tender ports.

 

However even when you are not priority tendering you still get off fairly quickly - Tendering is always a problem and takes time so for those ports that are tender ports just let your tour company know that you will only be ashore about an hour after the posted arrival time. It does cut into your sightseeing day but cannot be helped as many of these ports do not have facilities large enough to berth a ship the size you will be on.

 

As to the ports we docked at I just took my group down and we stood waiting for the gangplank to be lowered and then were among the first off.

 

Hope this helps

 

Ann

[jeanb]

Hotzim, My friend recently was on the 1/8/06 sailing on the Millenium. She took only the ship's tours and said the same as others on this thread about preference given to Celebrity passengers getting off first, especially where tenders are involved. Tender ports were Puerto Montt, Puerto Arenas and Port Stanley, except they never got to dock at Port Stanley or Puerto Madryn because of rough seas. Maybe, we will take ship tours at tender ports and private tours at ports where the ship docks. I have plenty of time to get more information on these boards as we don't leave until December. We are going on the Infinity which is the exact same size as the Millenium so tender ports should be the same.

[dileep]

I have heard that Celebrity arrives later at most ports in South America than stated on their itineraries and only passengers taking the ship's tours can get off first. Everyone else has to wait. How can you book with private tour operators not knowing what time you are getting off the ship? I'd appreciate any comments from those who have had this experience with Celebrity. We are going on the Infinity December 3, 2006

 

read about our experience at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=5754866&posted=1#post5754866

[craven3]

BCHappyGirl did back to backs from Ft. Lauderdale to Buenos Aires; we were on the first leg with her. Our only bad experience was in Panama after the Canal day. The priority people took up so much time that all the rest of us, including those on ship excursions, were cut very short. Our excursion booked through the ship departed two hours late, and it was a 3 !/2 hour tour that was compressed into 1 1/2 hours. To the credit of the Panamanians, they stayed late and showed us the land side of the locks, even though the museum and viewing stand should have closed much earlier.

 

People standing in line to disembark to the tenders were very angry with the wait, and the Infinity's employees were not apologetic at all--they were shouting louder at the passengers than the passengers were shouting at them. Not handled well at all. What was really disappointing, though, was that we had paid quite a bit for our ship shore excursion, and when we got to the front of the tender line, we discovered that all the priority people who had not booked shore excursions had jumped onto the first couple hour's worth of tenders, looked around, and were returning--before any of the excursion people were let off the ship. As I said, not handled well at all.

 

Ann's group of 12 included a suite, if I remember correctly, and a couple of handicapped people, who also might have had priority priviledges, so they were able to disembark fairly quickly. However, the average Joe stood and stewed. On the bright side, most ports docked so at those ports you could disembark at your leisure.

 

Charlotte