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AIBU?

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Original poster

to arrive after my allotted embarkation time for cruise?

104 replies

CallieCruiser · 31/03/2025 14:19

Shamelessly posting for traffic!
I'm going on my first ever cruise in a few weeks. I had thought from the info I had that boarding would be any time after 11am and best to be onboard at least 2 hours prior to departure. Just had updated info and I have been given an embarkation time of 11am-midday. All aboard is 5.30pm for departure at 6pm. The thing is we fly in to the departure city on that day and we wont make it to the port until 1-2pm. Have tried to contact cruise operator but they cant change my slot.

Does anyone have experience of how strict they are with the embarkation slots? I will be there 4.5 hours before 'all aboard' but 1-2 hours after my slot - will they let me on ok?

YABU - You need to be there between 11-12
YANBU - the slot is a guide, as long as you are well before all aboard it will be fine.

OP posts:
DazzlingCuckoos · 03/04/2025 13:54

TrickyD · 02/04/2025 17:47

Interesting to read that people have enjoyed Azamara, Marella and MSC cruises as all these get pretty low ratings on the Which? cruise lines investigation.
The first cruise we did was with TUI; it could have put us off cruises for life. Luckily we had already booked another cruise with Fred Olsen as TUI was like Benidorm-on- Sea, lots of racism amongst the passengers and all a bit ‘bargain basement’.
Fred Olsen was much nicer, we have since cruised several times with them but find Saga’s true all inclusive offering suits us best.
You get what you pay for with cruise lines, ‘cheap’ is unlikely to mean ‘good’.

We've done two P&O cruises. First one on their newest ship, Arvia. They were doing lots of advertising at the time with cheap rates, to get people on board.

The main problem with that was it attracted the Benidorm-at-sea crowd who saved so much on their fare that they bought the expensive drinks package and spent at least the first 3 days trying to make their money's worth out of it.

Honestly, some of the venues were like a 1990's uni town in freshers week but without the joviality of a new year of student life. Just angry drunk couples who'd let their teenagers run rampant without any parenting.

We just avoided those venues and it was fine elsewhere.

Our next P&O cruise was on Iona and it was a much more pleasant experience, even though the ships were nigh on identical!

Back to RCI for us this year.

DazzlingCuckoos · 03/04/2025 14:00

Budgiegirlbob · 03/04/2025 09:22

Oh no way! I remember the ship waiting for hours at times for guests to re-embark usually if a tour had over run or a traffic incident

Usually a ship will wait a while if passengers are late while on a ship-organised tour. Or if it doesn’t/can’t wait, the cruise line will help and pay for a transfer to the next port.

But if you are late back while ashore with a local tour, or just doing your own thing, it won’t wait for long - sometimes it might wait an extra 30 mins or so, but no longer than that, due to high port fees/fines if in port too long. And it will be up to the passenger to catch up at their own cost

I was on a cruise where there was a highly unusual situation that resulted in 4 people being left ashore even though they were within all aboard time. It was luckily close to all aboard time as it would have been more otherwise.

There was a serious incident alongside the port, which was very dangerous for the ship and we had to do an emergency departure (i.e. no time to untie the ropes - literally just took an axe to them to get away).

The emergency at the port took precedent rather than getting the passengers to the ship, so the cruise line took care of them and got them hotels and transport to the next port. Both were in mainland Europe thankfully and not massively far away. They all rejoined at the next port.

As a result, we normally aim for at least one hour before all aboard, just in case!

ThatsNotMyTeen · 03/04/2025 14:00

TrickyD · 02/04/2025 17:47

Interesting to read that people have enjoyed Azamara, Marella and MSC cruises as all these get pretty low ratings on the Which? cruise lines investigation.
The first cruise we did was with TUI; it could have put us off cruises for life. Luckily we had already booked another cruise with Fred Olsen as TUI was like Benidorm-on- Sea, lots of racism amongst the passengers and all a bit ‘bargain basement’.
Fred Olsen was much nicer, we have since cruised several times with them but find Saga’s true all inclusive offering suits us best.
You get what you pay for with cruise lines, ‘cheap’ is unlikely to mean ‘good’.

Yep, you get what you pay for as you say. We have only been with P and O and for what it is, ie a package holiday on a ship, I like it. I think some people expect champagne quality for lemonade money!

my parents have cruised a lot with various lines, Cunard, Celebrity, Fred Olsen, p and o and prefer P and O. When it’s just me and husband no kids, I want to go Fred Olsen

KimberleyClark · 03/04/2025 14:13

We went with P&0 Oriana in 2001 and really enjoyed it. At the risk of sounding like a raging snob, the Benidorm-at-sea element hadn’t discovered cruising then! We then did subsequent cruises with P&O on Adonia, Aurora, Oceana and Ventura and then decided we’d had enough of P&O. We prefer adult only ships which Azamara usually are though they don’t specifically exclude children, just not really geared to them.

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