3 ships in Cabo/tendering

[Bruin Steve]

We're on the Royal Princess January 4 sailing...Mexican Riviera--LA to Cabo to Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta and back to LA...

There are three ships, basically, mirroring each other on this cruise:

The Royal Princess--with a "full capacity" of 4,360 passengers...The Carnival Panorama--5,146...and the HAL Oosterdam--2,250...

The Royal cruises out of San Pedro, the Panorama out of Long Beach and the Oosterdam out of San Diego...BUT all three visit the same three ports on the exact same days.

Mazatlan and PV don't pose major problems as everyone just walks off the ship...BUT Cabo is a tender port...We arrive at 11:00 am, the other two ships at 10:00 am.

SO, there will be as many as 11,756 cruise passengers plus a large number of crew members all trying to board tenders to get off the ship and into town...and then lining up to catch a tender back to the ship later in the day.

 

Last time we encountered three ships in Cabo the same day was when on the Star Princess four years ago.  It was a complete nightmare that day.  We had a Princess shore excursion booked that day--the one that goes to San Jose del Cabo.  We figured that, having booked that, surely Princess would make sure we got off and back on the ship on a timely basis.  NOT SO FAST!  They had us meet on the ship and we were there at the appointed time...but then they forced us to wait in the Crown Grill for about two hours (from my recollection).  Supposedly, the problem was getting us on a tender.  When they finally got us on a tender, the limited dock space became a problem.  The three cruise ships all had to share the same tender dock in the harbor...and each tender took a long time at the dock to unload and reload...So, when we got to the inner harbor, we found ourselves in a queue waiting for the tenders from the two other ships to unload and load...so, we spent an unreal amount of time just sitting in the harbor with the busy dock in sight  but nowhere to go.  By the time we actually got to the dock, unloaded, made our way to the bus and made the drive into San Jose, it was already dark (luckily, that cruise had an overnight in Cabo) and by the time we made it back to the ship, it was scrounging a late dinner in the buffet...

 

The ships that will be in Cabo this time have an even greater combined passenger capacity than that occasion.

 

Does anyone have any RECENT experience with Princess (hopefully the Royal) in Cabo with three ships in port?  Hopefully, they've found some way to handle this better...but, aside from the port allocating more dock space for the tenders, it's hard to see what they might do...

 

This time, BTW, we don't plan on doing an excursion--just want to go into town, walk around and do some shopping...

[MTJSR]

Well no, not 3 but two. I was on the Royal 10 day cruise Oct 4th-14, 2019. You may remember these from your trip, but there were at least 4 and sometimes 6 "Cabo" tenders in addition to the Royals tenders. The marina dock is small for even one ship so I imagine with 3 ships there will be lines and more lines. The Royal is a big ship so we traveled back and forth during non peak times and it was very doable. 

 

Just take lots of patience with you and have a fantastic time. Or stay on the ship this time and watch the madness from deck 16!

Edited November 11, 2019 by MTJSR

[memoak]

Lines will probably be very long to come back to ship. On a hot day I have seen elderly cruisers pass out

[jondfk]

Okay, here's some real world experience from the Royal Sept 29th sailing.  Cabo day was as I recall Sept 1 afternoon and Sept 2 all day, a 26 hour port call.  Two other ships in port at the same time.  Oosterdam & another which may have been Silversea or Crystal I don't recall.

 

Both of the other ships arrived before us, how much, I don't know.  

 

Tendering got underway about 1:30.  Using 4 of the ships boats and about 6 shoreside tenders.  The ticket system operated from group #1 to group #89, numbered tickets were needed until about 3:45 after which the ship went "open tender".

 

Sea conditions were slight according to the patter but tenders were slow to load given significant local sea rises.  On one hand, the tendering process seemed to go fairly slowly, on the other hand, everyone who wanted to go ashore made it there by about 4PM which struck me as not so bad, those waiting did so in the comfort of the (marginally++) air-conditioned ship on a very warm 94* Cabo afternoon.  The big positive surprise came later, I heard no reports of huge lines to come back.  The late arrival into port and the overnight stay served to stretch out the times people wanted to come back.  Likewise, the 3rd ship, whatever she was, had weighed anchor and moved on more or less by the time Royal pax got ashore.  

 

The second day operated without a ticket system and reportedly without much delay on either end (we didn't go ashore that day).  My word of advice would be to head over in the morning of the second day unless you're dead set on having an evening meal ashore.  

 

All in all, it worked better than I feared with 3 ships in port and Royal fully loaded.  

 

++ I say "marginally" air-conditioned as Royal was having severe problems with mid-ship air-conditioning throughout our cruises (Sept 29 & Oct 4). Temps in the Piazza frequently drifted into the mid to high 80's while the pontoons were out and doors opened for tendering.  Even first thing in the morning temps didn't get below 79*.  We were told that all aircon had been cut to crew quarters and that room temps there were well beyond 100*.  Crew members were seen coming back from Walmart in PV with two and three fans each for their rooms.  

[Mike45LC]

I was on the Royal Princess in Cabo last week, Nov 4.  Two other ships in Cabo -- HAL's Eurodam and Carnival's Miracle.  I don't feel any need to rush off in Cabo.  In fact, I did not try to get off the ship until after I had lunch.  At 12:30, there were no tender tickets needed; I simply walked onto the tender, and once it was loaded, it took us right to the dock.  

 

There were several life boats plus several Cabo Tender boats in service.  There was no delay at the dock; every launch seemed to have its own place.  

 

Coming back each of the three ships had its own lines for returning passengers, and it worked smoothly.  

 

[mindy2]

We were on this same cruise, Nov 4 in Cabo.  I got in line for the ticket system fairly early and ended up with #23 for our party.  Our number did not get called until almost 12:30 and there were a lot of people in line getting onto the tenders.  No problem docking the tenders.  When we left Cabo several hours later to get back to the ship, hardly a lineup for the tender.

 

I was originally going to book a private excursion for this port, but very glad I didn't as there's no way we would have made it on time.

[cruzrbachoua]

we were on the same as mindy2...tender ticket #s went up to 60 and they were calling them to almost 2 and that is when they finally announced no tickets required.  We stayed on board and all we heard most the day was the calling of the tender #s....

[Qcruise]

We were aboard the Royal in April and like you there were three in port each one visited.  The Royal was the last one in port that day,  we all decided to stay on board due to issues sited.  While we have visited Cabo many times and enjoy it,  I was afraid of a nightmare getting back to tenders.  They were calling numbers for hours that day.....we didn't get there until 11am and had to be back by like 5pm.....not sure how things went for those who got off.  Other ports one really did not notice a heavy tourist load any more than usual.

[toescat]

I have been on 23 cruises to Mexico with a stop in Cabo on each one. I have never been there with less than three ships in port.  Never an issue either getting back on this has always been easy with no lines as there is a section for each ship as it is the ships security that makes sure you are getting on the right boat.  I would not worry about.  They do call numbers for those getting off the ship as they cannot handle 2000 people at once.  If you are on a ship sponsored tour you will get off first.  We take our time and usually get off when they are no longer passing tickets out and we basically walk of the ship into a boat and not have a line.  

 

[PoohUnderstands]

54 minutes ago, toescat said:

I have been on 23 cruises to Mexico with a stop in Cabo on each one. I have never been there with less than three ships in port.  Never an issue either getting back on this has always been easy with no lines as there is a section for each ship as it is the ships security that makes sure you are getting on the right boat.  I would not worry about.  They do call numbers for those getting off the ship as they cannot handle 2000 people at once.  If you are on a ship sponsored tour you will get off first.  We take our time and usually get off when they are no longer passing tickets out and we basically walk of the ship into a boat and not have a line.  

 

Guess I have been lucky.  Only be to Cabo three times, but each time we were the only ship in port that day!

 

Pooh

[toescat]

On 11/13/2019 at 7:50 AM, PoohUnderstands said:

Guess I have been lucky.  Only be to Cabo three times, but each time we were the only ship in port that day!

 

Pooh

It has never been an issue as when there is only one ship in port the ships have to use the port authority's little boats to tender people in.  I would have never ever known that except we have flown into Cabo a few times plus the lucky first ship in port get stuck with the small old tender boats.  The other ships used their own tenant boats that can handle 150-250 people.  We love Cabo and being from No California it is just a short flight for us.