Unloading and Loading 2600 Guests...How Is It Done at Grand Cayman?

[keithb7]

I think I read somewhere on the net that at Grand Cayman Island port of call, the ship stays out in deep water, and the guests are transported via boats to the island. If this is true, how fast does this process go? I am thinking about 2000 + people all waiting to get in a boat to be transported to the island...Yikes! Might take a while. No? Your comments for a first timer? Thanks, Keith

[nolaAlive]

It can take a while, but a number of the tenders in Grand Cayman hold over 200 people. It takes longer to fill them than the actual boat ride which is only a few minutes.

[caribsun]

If you want to be one of the first off the ship then book a morning cruise sponsored exurcusion.

[piratesparrow]

The process is very organised and fast the ride to the island is very quick as well aprox.5mins:)

[joyadvtr]

What if you need to get off by a specific time to get to your privately booked excursion. How do you arrange the time?

[disneylover89]

What if you need to get off by a specific time to get to your privately booked excursion. How do you arrange the time?

 

Curious myself:rolleyes:

[caymanjohn]

We had a busy Christmas Eve and people were queuing for a long while to get back on board - not the way I would choose to spend part of my holiday.

 

At peak time it can take up to an hour just get on the tender. I've seen very long lines in George Town when there are 5-6 ships in port.

 

You also need to check your departure time carefully. Some of the boats are leaving around 2pm (I think the earliest has been 1pm!) which means you need to allow plenty of time to get back.

[dancemom50]

We found that it took longer to get back on the boat from the tender than it did to get on the tender when leaving the boat due to security measures now in place where bags are scanned, etc. We left for an excursion we booked on our own with Capt. Marvin then came back to the boat to change and have lunch..before we went shopping. Took longer than we would have thought. One tender was at ship, unloading so we had to wait on them to pull out before our tender could pull alongside. Then the tender operators would only let a few people off at a time to go thru security when re-boarding the Pearl.

[Roadpossum]

What if you need to get off by a specific time to get to your privately booked excursion. How do you arrange the time?

 

As stated above, pax booked on excursions through the Cruise line get priority to disembark early on the tenders. Priority is also usually given to pax who have booked full suites or are Captain's Circle Elite members. If you have booked a private tour, you won't be given any special priority over the pax who don't have a tour booked. Tender passes are numbered and handed out on a first-come/first-served basis. The numbered groups will be called and you will be told to report to the gangway. My advice is to get to the tender staging area EARLY to get your tickets. An announcement is usually made in the Princess Patters or over the paging system as to where the staging area is located on your ship. Unfortunately, you'll still get off the ship after the people with the early tours booked. For that reason we usually book tours later in the morning when there won't be such a wait to get off the ship.

 

Getting back onboard is pretty much an equal opportunity wait as departure time nears. :)

[atlasali]

It was the day after Christmas on the NCL Pearl, with 2800 passengers. The NCL excursions were the first ones off at 9:00am. Other passengers could pick up tickets beginning at 9:00. But you had to be ready to board the tender promptly...and we weren't. So we got tickets numbered 700 something. I thought that we would be waiting a really long time. But they called 200 numbers at a time. I think we were on the 3rd boat. Not bad at all.

Returning to the ship appeared to be a bigger problem for the people on the other ships. At 3:30pm the lines to return to the other ships: Celebrity, Carnival, etc. were LONG and hot in the sun. I believe that they were sailing at approx. 4:00pm. Our sailing time was after 6:30. We returned to our ship early and got right on.

[jetta]

I will be on the carnival Legend in May and have booked with native way for excursion. I need to have an early tender for this, can I go to the excursion desk the day before port and ask for an early tender? Are there any tricks to getting an early tender or do you just have to take what you get? Am afraid I will get left by tour. Thanks in advance for any "tips"

[margincall]

The Valor holds over 2900 passengers and gets into Grand Cayman at 7am--what time would the last tender be-so to be safe could always schedule a later private tour

[Pirate's Cutie]

I will be on the carnival Legend in May and have booked with native way for excursion. I need to have an early tender for this, can I go to the excursion desk the day before port and ask for an early tender? Are there any tricks to getting an early tender or do you just have to take what you get? Am afraid I will get left by tour. Thanks in advance for any "tips"

 

We're on the Legend next week and have booked the same tour in GC. I've been reading these boards for quite some time and it would seem that we have nothing to worry about on this. Carnival passengers report that tendering is fast and efficient and no numbered tickets are required. The previous poster who spoke of them was on Princess and they may do things differently or may be in this port on a more crowded day of the week. From what I've read repeatedly Belize is the only port on the Legend itinerary that requires numbered tender tickets and a serious wait to get off.

 

I'll be posting a review when we return.

[mystone99]

I will be on the carnival Legend in May and have booked with native way for excursion. I need to have an early tender for this, can I go to the excursion desk the day before port and ask for an early tender? Are there any tricks to getting an early tender or do you just have to take what you get? Am afraid I will get left by tour. Thanks in advance for any "tips"

 

DW and I were on the Legend earlier this month. Getting on the tender at GC was no problem and it's about a 5 minute ride to the pier. We were on the second tender going over, and they had boats lined up and waiting to take people ashore. Getting back wasn't hard either. The tenders are running all the time and I think we had a 5 minute wait while they filled the tender up to take us back to the ship.

As someone stated, the tender ride is longer in Belize and you need a numbered ticket, with passengers on Carnival excursions getting to go first.