Time to Be Back on Ship

[RocksGal]

If we are in St. Thomas from 8-6, what time do we usually have to be back on the ship? We are sailing on FOS. I am considering a tour that runs from 9-4 with Papa Bear tours and I want to make sure that I can get to the tour and back on the ship in time.

 

Thanks!

[Sue L]

You will have to be back about 1 hour before or 5pm in this case. You should be fine. The tour operators know the schedules.

[cruisenfever]

You will have to be back about 1 hour before or 5pm in this case. You should be fine. The tour operators know the schedules.

Sue, I thought all pax had to be back on board 30 minutes prior to sailing.

[cruisenfever]

Whoops..........double post.

[Sue L]

Sue, I thought all pax had to be back on board 30 minutes prior to sailing.

 

hmmm, not sure now, I really think it is an hour. I just went and looked at some of my old Compasses and the all aboard was 1 hour before but it could have changed.

[cruisenfever]

hmmm, not sure now, I really think it is an hour. I just went and looked at some of my old Compasses and the all aboard was 1 hour before but it could have changed.

It might have because I just check our itinerary from our cruise docs against the Compasses from our Splendour cruise and we had to be back on board 30 minutes prior to sailing.

[dougp26364]

It's always been 30 minutes prior to sailing on all our previous cruises. Although there are always the few straglers that show up a few minutes AFTER the ship is suppose to have set sail.

 

We had taken a non-RCI shore excursion in St. Thomas. The tour guide kept screwing around showing us stuff trying to "add value" to the excursion for a bigger tip. What he ended up doing was getting us to the pier at the last possible moment and we became one of those people running for the ship. We really had about 10 minutes to spare before the ship was suppose to set sail but it still made me more than a little bit nervous and ticked me off as they were suppose to have us back 1 hour before sail time.

[derf5585]

I'm always afread of taking an independent tour. "And how much will you give me to get back to the ship on time"

[cb at sea]

30 minutes prior to departure, all passengers must be back on the ship.

 

To Dougp--I hope you didn't tip that tour guide at all!

[rubrrick]

Sue..........it's crew that has to be back aboard 1 hour before sailing. Passengers are 30 minutes prior to sailing.

 

We have been doing independent travel for over 10 years.........close to 60 cruises.........and so far we have never encountered a problem. We thought that we would not make the ship just once.........because we made a wrong turn, but we got back with time to spare!! :p I wrote about it on a TA that we did, so won't bore you with details.

 

Rick

[critterchick]

It's always been 30 minutes prior to sailing on all our previous cruises. Although there are always the few straglers that show up a few minutes AFTER the ship is suppose to have set sail.

 

We had taken a non-RCI shore excursion in St. Thomas. The tour guide kept screwing around showing us stuff trying to "add value" to the excursion for a bigger tip. What he ended up doing was getting us to the pier at the last possible moment and we became one of those people running for the ship. We really had about 10 minutes to spare before the ship was suppose to set sail but it still made me more than a little bit nervous and ticked me off as they were suppose to have us back 1 hour before sail time.

 

We had a tour guide in St. Petersburg who desperately wanted to take us shopping before we went back to the ship. Since it was Friday at rush hour we declined but she really pushed it (she got a nice commission from the shopowners). I hope you registered your displeasure with the tour company. I would hope that, had people spoken up, he would have cut it short and gotten you back to the ship without any further stress.

[MrsFixitCT]

We just did a land based vacation in November in STT, and the one thing I would caution to take into consideration is TRAFFIC...we were in a taxi/safari bus coming back from Red Hook to the hotel that already had cruise pax on board...and the driver asked if it were ok if he took them back to the port first before dropping us, because we had no "deadline" and they did...for the same fare it would have been to just take us direct to the hotel...which was right up the road from Red Hook....we were fine with it, since it let us see more of the island...and we found out why when we got closer to the port, it was sheer gridlock...it actually worked out good, because we ended up changing our plan of going back to the hotel, showering/changing/etc and then going all the way back to the hotel-and ended up with an early dinner at a GREAT Mexican restaurant in Frenchtown at Margarita Phil's...even having drinks w/Phil himself... we were disappointed that we had passed on his St.John location a few days earlier when we were there...

[BecciBoo]

Whatever time, don't be late, or you may wind up on everybodies movies and get jeared!! Fave past time of deck hogs is welcoming back the stragglers!!

[dougp26364]

30 minutes prior to departure, all passengers must be back on the ship.

 

To Dougp--I hope you didn't tip that tour guide at all!

 

We had a tour guide in St. Petersburg who desperately wanted to take us shopping before we went back to the ship. Since it was Friday at rush hour we declined but she really pushed it (she got a nice commission from the shopowners). I hope you registered your displeasure with the tour company. I would hope that, had people spoken up, he would have cut it short and gotten you back to the ship without any further stress.

 

We were just so glad to be back before the ship left that I didn't think about anything else. We did tip the guide and no we didn't complain. Once back onboard we were relived and glad to forget the bad ending to what was otherwise a decent tour.

 

There was one other incident that happened on a RCI transfer several years ago. We were getting off Vision of the Sea's back when it did the inside passage sailing out of Vancouver. This was post 9/11 and Vancouver was trying to get it's airport security changed to reflect higher standards. They didn't quite have it right and it was delaying people to the extent that things were getting cut pretty close for people arriving for flights.

 

For whatever reason, our bus driver decided to give us the city tour we did not pay for. I don't know if there was gridlock along the normal route to the airport or if he was just plain stupid but he took his time getting us from point A to point B.

 

We were fine as we had booked a later flight than most but, there were several people who weren't happy with his detour and let him know about it. To make matters worse, it was a holiday weekend for Canada and they had minimal security staffing at the metal detecors at the airport, which created choke points trying to get to the gates.

 

Several people on our bus missed their flights that day and had to be rerouted to get home. Fortunately, we weren't one of them.

[celtcruiser]

Don't know if this has been posted already but here it goes-some folks who were late for the Navigator: