What happens if you are late for your cruise

[roadtowhoknowswhere]

DD has just returned from a cruise around the Caribbean.
On the second to last day 6 people were not back in time. Told to be back at 3.30pm.
DD said that they were running down the pier at 5pm and the ship had already pulled away.
Just wondering what will happen to those people. Do they get taken to the next place or what.

Fair enough to be honest!

From cruises I’ve been on it’s a combination of:

-getting drunk and losing track of time
-confusion between ship time and local time
-entitlement that they want to finish whatever it is they’re doing (buying souvenirs etc) and that the ship should just wait for them
-attempt a very long excursion far from port themselves and don’t allow contingency (eg visiting London from Southampton port and the train gets cancelled and the late one is too late).

I took an early morning flight once. I went through security, waited for the gate to show on the board then walked at my usual pace to it. When I got to the gate they were annoyed with me, where had I been, they had done calls etc. I did the walk of shame on to the plane, everyone watching me, judging me for being late. I had taken this flight a dozen times previously, with the same timings, I had never been late. I had not heard a single tannoy. The gate wasn’t shown as closing when I headed there, I wasn’t roaming around anywhere. To this day I have no idea how I missed the calls and was late, I have never been in that situation again and yet I did nothing different.

They post a Gofundme request on social media with sad faces

It's probably even more risky than being late for a flight (in a situation where your luggage is on the plane and you are dawdling at the airport) because your luggage usually needs to be removed from the plane before it leaves and that causes a delay which might just allow you to board in time. But a cruise ship can just merrily sail off with your luggage still on board!

It was only a mini cruise to Ghent and Amsterdam, but around a dozen of us really thought we were going to miss the boat after an afternoon in Ghent - since nobody had told us that it was well nigh impossible to find a taxi anywhere in Ghent on a Friday afternoon!

We eventually made it back by the skin of our teeth, but the ship left a bit late anyway, since apparently some of the crew had had the same problem, and returned after we did!
But we’d been thinking that we’d have to take the train from Ghent to Amsterdam.

The same happened to me and my friend when we were on our way travelling aged about 21! Still not sure where that hour went

The cruise lines have to pay for their stay in port and mostly can’t stay too much longer as another ship will be sailing in to take that berth. Due to tides and sailing times of other ships around them there are often restrictions on when they can sail. Plus, of course, if there’s not a sea day the following day they need to be on their way to get to their next port on time. It’s not just a matter of refusing to wait, they can’t wait.

I used to work on cruise ships and pier runners were a form of entertainment!

The amount of people who missed the ship and just expected it to wait or for us to make arrangements for them was mind blowing.

I went on a cruise with a friend who is notorious for being late for everything. If we had to be back to ship at 4pm I told her 3.30 instead. It was a couple of days before she actually listened to the tannoys and twigged with timings..she asked a crew member what happens when someone is late and they said, 'get yourself to the next stop' I sternly told her to not even think about it!. I kept strict watch on timings, and she was under no illusion that I'd leave her behind if she was late. It worked, and she actually said it was less stressful.

I wonder if it's ever happened whereby somebody has got back so late and boarded the ship that's waiting there, not realising that it's a completely different ship that's arrived in the same port that their own ship departed an hour ago?!

How would they board a different ship?

I was late back for the boarding time by about an hour and a half.
Due to the exceptional circumstances as for the delay the ship was still there
I was absolutely panicking in the taxi trying to get back, when we saw the ship still there was such a relief
We were rushing towards the staff at the port and they said to stop panicking and calm they were not leaving anyone behind, there’s still over a hundred people to get back on
Supposed to leave at 4.30 but left at around 8 when everyone back on
We were only a 40 min drive away and it took nearly 3.5 hours to get back due to the civil unrest protests on the island
The ship was never going to leave on time as there was so many passengers stuck in the same traffic

They would most probably be turned away; but they might well try to?!

Sounds like something that would happen in a sitcom!

A cruise ship can/must sail at the time specified because the expensive berth space in the next port is booked around 18 months in advance. Failing to honour this booking causes chaos. Ask any harbour master.

Yes, and they have to take high and low tide into consideration, not just when they are leaving one port, but their scheduled arrival time at the next one.

To be fair, the same will happen if you’re late for a train, coach, bus or aeroplane. (And my DH if he’s driving 😜) - they’ll all set off without you.

Not necessarily.

Except unlike a plane, all your stuff inc. your passport can sail away without you 🙃🙃🙃 nightmare!!!

If you’re on a ‘ship operated/run’ excursion and the ship can wait, it will do so. If you’re off on a jaunt of your own, it won’t.

As for getting on the wrong ship, I suppose that it’s theoretically possible, but, in my experiences, the security to get back on board is fierce and painstaking.

you don’t always need your passport. When we were in South America we handed in our passport in Buenos Aries and only received it back when we arrived in Chile.

Theres tons of videos of this on social media - the ship passengers filming late comers running to the dock, some make it, some don’t, to the cheers of the ones comfy on their balconies watching on! The staff on dockside seem to have their passports there to hand back to the slow ones…

I imagine the massive ships have strict docking times, it’d be carnage if they all had to wait even 20min for late passengers.

I’ve seen one of those pier runner videos where the guy runs down the pier towards the ship which is already sailing away. Throwing his hands up, all the drama. Then he turns around and realises that was a different ship, his is still there 🤣

I hate being late for anything but the thought of being stranded watching the ship sail away fills me with horror!