Port Arrival Times

[My1stc]

This being our 1st cruise I have a question about port arrival times are they as posted on the itinerary say 8:00am or does the ship get to port earlier and that's the time you can disembark for the day.Someone told us they can arrive much earlier than the time you'd expect even in the night.We would like to be able to be up and see the sail into ports.

[RuthC]

I'm not usually up when the ship docks (far too early for this sleepyhead), but the way I remember it from the times we've arrived later is that the posted time is when the ship docks. Then it takes a little while for the ship to be cleared. It's usually within on half-hour of docking that passengers may go ashore.

[eh2zed]

In my experience the ship generally arrives before the published time typically a half to a full hour ahead. However, by the time the ship is cleared it is much closer to the published time.

[Essiesmom]

My experience is that if you want to be on deck when the ship docks, you need to be there at least an hour before the published time. EM

[manbehindthecurtain]

For most ports we aim to be alongside 30 to 15 minutes before the scheduled time. Only exception is the turaround ports, there we want to be alongside up to an hour earlier than official time, as there is a lot of work to be done on those days.

 

It is also port dependant, eg in Vancouver we will never dock before 7am as this will cost a significant extra amount of money, as we then have to pay for a whole night crew of longshore men.

 

Other ports it is more difficult to make the arrival time, because the speed to make to arrive on time is very high. Bad weather can then easily cause delays.