How long does it take to get off the ship?

[cruisinggg]

I'm going on my first cruise with ports of call in Nassau, Grand Turk and Half Moon Cay. If a ship docks at 10am, how long does it usually take to get off the ship? I read something about filling out immigration papers? Does a line to get off the ship start before the ship docks?

 

We're planning our days and wants to know how much time we actually have.

 

Any advice.

[CruiseAddict!]

I cruised to Nassau last spring and as I recall, getting off the ship was easy. You fill out bahama imagration paperwork at the Port while you wait to check in. We cruised out of Port Canerval.

 

On the cruise we took, the ship departed the Bahamas at 2pm so you had to be back on by 1/1:30 at the latest. It was a short day.

 

We did Carnivals excursion to Atlantis which was nice but if I do it again,I will bag the tour and head over to paradise island myslef to save both time and $$$.

 

The Carnival excursion requires a bit of a wait on the dock and then a water taxi over to the Island. It really eat up time.

 

It is easy to head out on your own and grab a land taxi and go pay for the Atlantis thing on your own. Big time saver for sure.

 

The Atlantis property is beautiful. You will enjoy it.

[tessky]

I'm going on my first cruise with ports of call in Nassau, Grand Turk and Half Moon Cay. If a ship docks at 10am, how long does it usually take to get off the ship? I read something about filling out immigration papers? Does a line to get off the ship start before the ship docks?

 

We're planning our days and wants to know how much time we actually have.

 

Any advice.

 

In Nassau & Grand Turk you can get off as soon as the ship is parked basically, we waited until 10:30-11 to get off to avoid any line ups but we were always off by 11am and when we were getting off other were getting back on. You are to be on 1/2hr before you sail.

 

You fill out your Bahamas immigration paper in Port Canaveral & hand in to the person who checks you onto the ship.

 

On HMC you can get your tender sticker as early as 6:45am and they then start tendering when they are ready, 7:30 - 8am. We sailed at 3, so the last tender was at 2pm.