Have you heard of Day Pass Tours/Lunch for $80?

[Brad1185]

We went on the 8/13 Freedom sailing. One of the worst embarkations I have ever experienced. One of the problems was about 500 people that apparently paid $80 each to tour the ship and get lunch in the main dining room.

 

We were the 2nd ones to check in and were waiting to go onboard, when an announcement was made that the day pass people get to board first. Then a line of people that seemed to go on forever came and squeezed their way to the front and up they went to the ship.

 

Sure enough, later when I went to check out where our table was, the dining room was packed.

 

I know they let travel agents on board but have never heard of the day pass.

[Sue L]

Hey Brad,

 

My mom lives in south florida and she belongs to many groups and some of them offer things like this as a tour for the groups to do. She has been on Crystal symphony, Qm2 and a couple of others when they were brand new. They bus them to the port, give them lunch and then usually do a tour of the ship.

 

 

Sue

[crusinmama06]

Nope, never heard of it. And I hope I don't get to experience it in April. :)

[RDeagazio]

The cruise lines do this for their top producing travel agents. Some agencies charge their invited guests to cover costs of bus transportation etc.

 

I do this a few times a year for Cruise Critic and others on the West Coast at no cost to the participants. We've been on RCI, Celebrity and HAL and will be doing the Vision of the Seas, Summit, NCL Star, Crystal Symphony, Carnival Pride, Silversea, a few HAL ships and hopefully some Princess in 2006/2007.

 

Basically, these guests are allowed to board first. They get tours of all the cabin categories and suites, then head to the dining room for a full lunch with wine and then are free to explore the ship on their own for a few hours.

[Brad1185]

These people had nothing to do with any travel agent. They said they paid $80 each to do the tour and lunch. Many brought the whole family, with lots of small kids.

[RDeagazio]

Brad, my guess is they in fact were clients and invited guests of a travel agency or travel company. When I was in FL my company used to do these day pass tours and we did charge each participant to cover the costs of the busses. The cruise lines themselves don't offer these tours to the general public.. they are always done with a travel agency partner.

 

When TA's are invited by the cruise lines we do not pay anything.

 

When I take my clients on these day pass tours and lunches in LA and San Diego, the cruise line picks up the tab rather than passing the cost $40.00 pp to my guests/clients.

[mcca2]

It happened when we were on the Jewel of the Seas to the Baltics in June. They toured the ship and had lunch. But not at embarkation. It was at ports of call, like Oslo. At least most of us were off the ship all day so we were not inconvenienced.

[gerif]

Can't say I've ever heard of this - however, if it was prior to the posted embarkation time (i.e., if your documents said boarding begins at 2 p.m. and you were there at 10 a.m. hoping to board earlier - as many of us do), then you really don't have much of a complaint.

[dixieva]

This happened to us on our last Princess cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale. About a zillion travel agents showed up and were touring the ship. It delayed our boarding about 2 hours. Seems to me there should be a better time to do this-

[Jjohnb]

These people had nothing to do with any travel agent. They said they paid $80 each to do the tour and lunch. Many brought the whole family, with lots of small kids.

 

Brad,

 

We experienced the same thing when we were on the Freedom in June. We boarded the ship early and were surprised how crowded it was. Later in the day they called for all day passengers to leave the ship and it did seem like a noticable difference after they left (less crowded).

[gris]

I am a travel agent and done many ship inspections. The Cruiselines are only in port for a short time and for us to see the ship properly we can only do it when the ship is in port and reloading. Without these tours it would be very hard to match the right client to the right ship. I know that it is inconventient for the travellors getting onboard, but very depressing for us watching you leave on a wonderful vacation and we are still land trapped.

[Sigfod]

We went on the 8/13 Freedom sailing. One of the worst embarkations I have ever experienced. One of the problems was about 500 people that apparently paid $80 each to tour the ship and get lunch in the main dining room.

 

We were the 2nd ones to check in and were waiting to go onboard, when an announcement was made that the day pass people get to board first. Then a line of people that seemed to go on forever came and squeezed their way to the front and up they went to the ship.

 

Sure enough, later when I went to check out where our table was, the dining room was packed.

 

I know they let travel agents on board but have never heard of the day pass.

 

OH DID THAT PISS ME OFF!!!! :mad: :mad:. We were sitting there in a completely cramped space w/ thousands of people around us just waiting. all looking at us because we had managed to find a place to sit. That, and there were no outlets. We were sitting there for 1hr and 45 min w/ no outlets. We could have watched a movie if we had outlets. :eek:

 

Then when the ship was supposed to leave they had to hunt down all the day passes thus delaying our departure. IMHO a bad idea.

Ok I feel better now.

[emilygrace]

I have done ship tours with my TA when a ship is in port for the day in SF. Sometimes there are finger foods and sometimes a sit down lunch. We have never paid to do this. And we usually must be off the ship by 2 pm.

 

When we sailed on the QM2 out of San Pedro in February, there were 1500 TAs that were touring the ship while we were sitting in the terminal with all the other booked passengers for HOURS!!! We finally got registered and on the ship just in time to dump our carry ons, get our life jackets and RUN to the muster drill. It was sooo frustrating waiting, and Cunard did not make any announcements about the delay. I would think with a line like Cunard, they would have at least offered us bottled water or something!

[PhoenixCruiser]

OH DID THAT PISS ME OFF!!!! :mad: :mad:. We were sitting there in a completely cramped space w/ thousands of people around us just waiting. all looking at us because we had managed to find a place to sit. That, and there were no outlets. We were sitting there for 1hr and 45 min w/ no outlets. We could have watched a movie if we had outlets. :eek:

 

Then when the ship was supposed to leave they had to hunt down all the day passes thus delaying our departure. IMHO a bad idea.

Ok I feel better now.

 

WOW, I too would have been really ticked :mad:

 

###

[Brad1185]

Id pay the $80 lunch if there was a ship I wanted to see. Now I need to find out how to do it. Apparently the people paid the $80 through a tour company.

[cruiseco]

Seems to me there should be a better time to do this-

 

Unfortunately, there really isn't. As a previous poster noted, one prime reason for the tour is to show the different cabin categories, especially the suites. This means that those taking the tour really need to have access to all of the cabins -- something that's not possible once the regular passengers have begun boarding. I know that I would not enjoy having several hundred people trooping through my suite as I'm trying to unpack.

 

Whether or not these guests are charged depends on how the tour is set up. A travel agency can apply to have a few "preferred clients" do an inspection including lunch and depending on the agency and the number of guests there may be no charge at all. Other agencies will bus in several hundred guests and charge for the transportation, etc. For that size of a group the cruise line may also have a charge to cover their costs. Again it depends on the size of the group and the purpose of the tour/inspection.

 

Oftentimes what happens is that some agency will have a large group that sails with maybe Princess every year. The agency's RCI rep might want that group and will propose that they all get together for a day trip / inspection when a new ship comes into town. All the brochures and videos can't match putting people on the boat -- here's the cabins, here's the public rooms, here's lunch so you can test the food. It works.

 

But there's no way you can just independently buy a "day pass" to view a ship without it being pre-arranged by the cruise line and accompanied by a cruise line rep or a travel agent.

[dixieva]

Cruiseco-I did not tell the whole story. On the day we boarded in Ft. Lauderdale half the ship was debarking-it was the end of a 14 day cruise for them, half of the ship had this as a port stop so they were getting off to enjoy a port day, we were waiting (around 1,000 or so passengers) to get on to begin a 14 day cruise and the travel agents were getting on to take the tour. I know the agents need to tour the ships but whoever picked this day to do it had really bad timing.

 

This is the first time that has happened to us in all of our cruises so I think we have been really lucky.

[Sigfod]

Cruiseco-I did not tell the whole story. On the day we boarded in Ft. Lauderdale half the ship was debarking-it was the end of a 14 day cruise for them, half of the ship had this as a port stop so they were getting off to enjoy a port day, we were waiting (around 1,000 or so passengers) to get on to begin a 14 day cruise and the travel agents were getting on to take the tour. I know the agents need to tour the ships but whoever picked this day to do it had really bad timing.

 

This is the first time that has happened to us in all of our cruises so I think we have been really lucky.

Where did you take a 28 day cruise to? :eek:

[dixieva]

It was a 14 day for us beginning and ending in Ft. Lauderdale and was called Circle the Carribbean. It was great! After all the hassle of getting on board. Some passengers boarded in Barbados and ended up at Ft. Lauderdale. Every 7 days half got off and another half got on. It was very confusing but really fun. Princess does this type of cruise a lot and I would love to do it again. Wish RCCL did something similar. We love the longer cruises but hate to fly so don't do any European cruises.

[sgriff17]

I'm glad you still have power Dixie. Us western-Richmonders aren't all fairing so well :)

 

That would tick me off too about embarkation. Sometimes, you have to sit in small, confined, HOT places just to have 500 people who aren't paying 1Kpp walk right in front of you! (And I'm SURE they were all giggling and pointing at all of you while they did it too) :)

 

Seriously though, it would irk me quite a bit. That being said, I KNOW that's the best time to do it. My wife is a TA, so I could imagine being on the other side of the ball here.

[RDeagazio]

Id pay the $80 lunch if there was a ship I wanted to see. Now I need to find out how to do it. Apparently the people paid the $80 through a tour company.

 

 

Brad, I regularily do ship tours and lunches on the ships in San Diego and Los Angeles/Long Beach. There is no cost involved as we don't provide transportation to the piers. The cruise line pick up the $40.00 per person tab for lunch.

 

We're doing several from Oct-March when the ships repo back down from Alaska. If you'd like to get on the invite list- go to my company website and from there you'll be able to find my work email.. Send me a note and I'll add you to the list-- we have about 60 CCers that come each time and always have a great time.

[dixieva]

sgriff17-Hope you survived Ernesto. My cable went out for several hours so I wasn't able to get on line but I had power throughout the storm.