Porttime.com is closing down

[Cruising89143]

http://www.porttime.com/home.cfm

 

Sad to see this but the site is closing down. Still will not go back to the other site and pay. I guess it's back to looking up ships the old fashioned way. Thanks to the owner of the site for at least trying it out.

[jdbmga]

What a shame. I won't pay for that other site either.

[maaaaattt]

Ugh. What a shame. There is still one more option, although it's not nearly as convenient as that pay site was, and doesn't hold a candle to PortTime, but...

 

http://www.cruisereport.com/PortsOfCallList.aspx

[megr1125]

well that stinks.

[batoryfirst]

That's disappointing news. I really liked that site.

[Lynn the Cruiser]

http://www.porttime.com/home.cfm

 

Sad to see this but the site is closing down. Still will not go back to the other site and pay. I guess it's back to looking up ships the old fashioned way. Thanks to the owner of the site for at least trying it out.

How do you look up the ships the old fashioned way?????????

[negc]

well that stinks.

 

I agree and I liked it much more than the other site. Before the other site began charging for access I could accept its occasional failure to include all of the ships we subsequently found in port with us when we arrived. Now that they are charging for that information I would be less forgiving for their inconsistencies and inaccuracies.:rolleyes: Guess we'll have to be content to wake up and be surprised whenever we enter a new port of call.:)

[The Big Booper]

The free internet depends on advertising which Porttime couldn't generate in sufficient quantity to pay the expenses.

 

Many ports maintain their own websites which have ship schedules (such as St. Martin).

 

http://portofstmaarten.com/schedules.htm

[Cruising89143]

How do you look up the ships the old fashioned way?????????

 

By researching each cruise line. Takes time.

[sf2]

http://www.portschedules.com/

 

http://www.cruiseclues.com/

[ErinsMommy]

http://www.porttime.com/home.cfm

 

Sad to see this but the site is closing down. Still will not go back to the other site and pay. I guess it's back to looking up ships the old fashioned way. Thanks to the owner of the site for at least trying it out.

 

There is a website that is developing a free cruise ship tracking website called www.tropicalports.com

 

They will be offering.

 

Search by port, search by ship, real time mapping, port info, attraction info, etc, and it sounds pretty exciting. I emailed the owner and they said the application is nearly complete and will be testing in the coming weeks.

[debshomespun]

Here's another website: http://www.cruisett.com

 

Gives info on ships, and ports

[cruiserbryce]

while I love to see what ships we'll be in port with...I dont need to know enough to pay for the service on the other site...sad to see this

[berwyn]

There is a website that is developing a free cruise ship tracking website called www.tropicalports.com

 

They will be offering.

 

Search by port, search by ship, real time mapping, port info, attraction info, etc, and it sounds pretty exciting. I emailed the owner and they said the application is nearly complete and will be testing in the coming weeks.

I went to the message boards on that site and it's all porn.

[SDPadreFan]

Here's another website: www.cruisett.com

 

Gives info on ships, and ports

 

I think this one is currently the best of the bunch.

[LauraS]

The problem with keeping all of these sites alive is -- that all of the information they required needs to be manually researched, just as you all would do, and inputted into a database. The cruise lines just don't go giving away feeds with ships/sail dates/itineraries, times of arrival in port, departures, etc. to anyone who asks for them.

 

I give them credit for trying!

 

Laura

[TropicalPorts]

I'm not sure if this violates "no advertising" but since it is an inquiry I've seen lots of times here and I don't think its something that competes with Cruise Critic.

 

Laura is correct, it is really just gathering cruise itinerary data and verifying the correctness and keeping up with changes as they happen which can be very tedious. It also happens to be an enormously tedious process. We have spent the past 3 months obtaining this data directly from the cruise lines and are nearly done with the entire 2009 cruise ship schedule.

 

We are cruisers and love the ideas of sites like porttime, cruisecal and others, but felt they were all missing certain things and decided to build an application that serves all needs and gives what we wanted to do.

 

 

We are working on an awesome cruise tracking application that integrates cruise schedules with an interactive map of the caribbean. We expect our project to be online by January 1st.

 

Here's a list of quick features to our cruise tracking application:

 

1. Ship days will be incorporated. Not just dates, you can see the actual see day.

2. Map Plotting. Ship paths will be plotted on maps, similar to what you see onboad, but our lines currently go through islands. Phase 2 (if the project is successful will be proper navigation lines).

3. POI plotting. There will be thousands of POI (points of interest) locations plotted and users can right click and add their favorite POI's.

4. Once a POI is plotted, it ties into the commercial FlickrAPI, YouTubeAPI, GoogleNews API and Google Blogs API to give you tons of media, reviews, photos, etc on the location.

6. Dynamic Ship Information. Clicking on the ship itself gives you the same as #4, but for the ship.

7. MANY MANY different types of reports and calendar views.

 

Thank you Erin's Mommy for letting me know about that and this thread.

 

Here is one thing I can show all of you. A sneak peak at what the site will look like:

 

http://demo.developmentserver.info/g...-04&ship_id=45

 

Enjoy! And yes, our website is free. We should be in a public open beta some time this month where we would love to hear about feature requests and things you would like to see in the ultimate cruise ship tracking website.

[cruiserbryce]

I went to the message boards on that site and it's all porn.

 

is that good or bad:rolleyes:

[TropicalPorts]

is that good or bad:rolleyes:

 

 

We had installed a vbulletin system several months ago for testing and just forgot about it after realizing we don't want to add forums. I guess the porn spammers found it and had a field day. We have since disabled them. Message boards can be a nightmare to moderate. I give CC staff praise for their ability to keep those garbage people out.

[TPKeller]

We should be in a public open beta some time this month where we would love to hear about feature requests and things you would like to see in the ultimate cruise ship tracking website.

I sent this suggestion to Brian before he took his site underground... so I have no idea if he ever got around to implementing it.

 

I would love to see someone implement a simple sunrise/sunset algorithm and display the projected times for sunrise and sunset (and if you get really ambitious moonrise and moonset) for the ports on calendar dates presented (in whatever format that may happen).

 

The amount and schedule for daylight is a very important part of one's day in port, and the moonlight... well, I'll leave that to your imagination... :rolleyes:

 

Theron

[TropicalPorts]

I am able to give one more preview at this time:

http://demo.developmentserver.info/google_mashup/index.php

 

Things are progressing. Next week we will have 90% of the 2009 cruise itineraries up on our demo server.

 

We're very excited about finally seeing the end of this tunnel!

[MrPete]

So why don't any of you who won't pay do one? Donate your time to keep it up to date, and charge nothing for your efforts?

[TropicalPorts]

I finally finished programming the base of this application and you can check it out live (in testing). Please be aware that this is an entertainment only website and not intended to be used to book cruises or research any information that is important. (IE: It is what it is and its not really 100% complete).

 

You can check it out here: Cruise Ship Tracker

[roenoe]

Nice job.

[greatdanemom]

I finally finished programming the base of this application and you can check it out live (in testing). Please be aware that this is an entertainment only website and not intended to be used to book cruises or research any information that is important. (IE: It is what it is and its not really 100% complete).

 

You can check it out here: Cruise Ship Tracker

 

Wow, really cool site! Thanks so much for sharing the info. We all wish you much success!!