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.

I watch 'Cruising with Ben and David' on one of their cruises they booked n outing, not with the cruise line, but the company they went with said if they did not get you to your ship on time they would pay your expenses to the next port, that could be a taxi ride or a hotel and a flight.

The admin team will check their safes for their passport and hand it over to the port agent (generally a person/people who are responsible for organising everything/sorting issues for the ship whilst they’re docked). The port agent will then wait for the passengers to arrive at the dock and hand the passports over, they may help them to source accommodation and onward travel but it would be at the passengers cost. They’d then need to try to rejoin at a later port depending where they can get a flight to.

Same as me.

Yes, Hyacinth Bucket knows.

”I demand you, stop that ship! If the driver can’t stop, what’s he doing in charge of a vessel of those proportions?”

”You don’t suppose they’ve lost the captain, and left him on the dockside at Southampton? They left me!”

We've just come back from a cruise (with P&O) and found that the cruise trips were only slightly more expensive than privately organised trips. Whereas on previous cruises there was a bigger difference. But if we're going very far, i ALWAYS book the trip through the ship!!!

I've not been on a cruise but I would expect that they would tell you local time when you dock and the time (including ships time) you need to be back.

Might not be idiocy - a car crash, a medical emergency, a mugging for example.

They do but it still gets confusing, especially on Baltic cruises where clocks need to be changed nearly every day.

Watch Keeping Up Appearances QE2 episode!

People have talked about ship time and local time, but the only cruises I have been on, the ship will adjust time to the local time.
This was made clear to us when this happened.
However, I admit my experience of cruises is limited. This actually happened to me on an Alaskan cruise from Vancouver.
We had several time changes which was a bit overwhelming, but the ship made it very clear.
However, we only went on booked excursions, and one into Yukon (canada, and an hour back). So the excursion guides made this very clear.
This may not have happened if someone did this by themselves and not on a booked tour.
This cruise had about 6 time changes (as well as the flights from London), so a bit overwhelming for us.

The only time I've experienced ship's time being different to local time, was a Greek islands cruise (I think it was this) but it was made VERY clear, and you would have been hard pushed not to see/hear all the announcements

I’ve experienced it many times on Caribbean cruises and also in Alaska.

Haha. Gawd knows. They'll have to make their own way to the next port I imagine.

It once almost happened to me in Oslo, because I got lost.

Took a wrong turning and ended up the wrong side of the harbour.

I have never ever run so fast.

I did have my passport with me.

We keep our passports in the safe in our cabin, can they get into these without the combination?

Yes, definitely. Security will be able to access the safe (as I found out on my last cruise, when I forgot my code to open the safe )

When disembarking the ship, passengers will be given an 'all aboard' time, which is usually at least 30 minutes before sail away time. Even then, if there are late comers, the ship may wait a bit longer, perhaps another 30 minutes, then the captain will decide whether to leave without the late comers. Their passports will be left with the port agents.

After a close call once due to a lorry fire causing traffic gridlock, I only ever do excursions on my own if they are under 5 miles from the port - I know at the very worst I could jog back to the port if it looked like we were going to be late - I mean, I wouldn't want to, but I could if I absolutely had to. If going further afield, I now prefer to do a ship organised tour, as they will either wait for you if there are problems, or pay for you to get to the next stop.

Yes, we've experienced it too - we now take a wristwatch set to ships time, just in case shore time is different.

That's not a reason not to cruise, these people are adults they know what time to be back so its their responsibility to get back on board or find their own way to the next port

One of the day trips on a recent cruise was to the island of Capri - it was a fair way from port, and the scheduled “get back” time was 30 mins before the “all aboard” time. No issue at all if you’re on a ship trip, but waaay to much of a gamble, IMO, to do it under your own steam. And the ship trip was only slightly more expensive than the independent options.

This is why we make sure to be back on board a couple of hours early 😂. Stressing about the time is just not worth it!

I agree with a PP that if going more than a few miles away from the port I'd pay for an excursion with the cruise company for the peace of mind that the ship will wait for you.