Top 10 Tips for Dealing with Travel Delays When Cruising
There are usually three different types of travel needed to get to your embarkation port, and each have their own potential pitfalls and concerns.
The first is to drive or using public transport to get to a nearby cruise port, the second is a short haul flight to a port overseas or too far a drive away and then there is a port that needs a long-haul getaway just to reach your ship.
It can often seem that the latter option is the one to worry about the most, but the first option can prove just as tricky but thankfully, no matter how you are going to travel of your next cruise adventure, there are plenty of things you can do to make things less stressful and most work for every option.
In this list I take you through what I believe to be the top 10 things to do to help make travelling to your next cruise departure point much less stressful and straightforward.
Our Top 10 Tips for Dealing with Travel Delays When Cruising
Arrive Early
The best peace of advice that I always give anybody who is cruising for the first time and something that I always follow is to arrive at the cruise port city nice and early.
If it is a UK port, I set off the night before and stay in a hotel close to the port, if me and my wife are flying to meet the ship, we also always give ourselves at least an overnight stay for European cruise ports or a couple of days for long haul flights.
Not only does it allow you to acclimatise, destress and get over jetlag after travelling so you are nice and relaxed for your cruise, but it takes away the majority of worries about making it to your ship on time.
Give Yourself a Transfer Buffer
If your travel from your home to the ship includes more than one leg of travel, make sure you give yourself a large buffer to get from one to the other.
Yes, it can be boring waiting hours for your next leg but it can vital if you have a delay along the way and whilst we all want to minimise the travel time as much as possible, it can create as many issues as it solves.
Delays tend to be of your control, so take back some control by leaving plenty of time between transferring planes, connecting trains or even getting from where you park to the ship.
Have Alternative Options
If you have sorted your transport to the airport, booked your flights and the organised your transfer to the ship, or your train travel or even just sorted the route from your home to the ship if you are driving, you tend to relax and think everything is now sorted.
99% of the time, that will be the case but 1 in a hundred, it may just not go to plan and that was the case for me a few years back.
Me and my wife booked a repositioning cruise between Southampton and Barcelona, so to make it simply, we decided to fly from Birmingham Airport.
There is a direct train from the airport to Southampton, so we would drive to Birmingham, park at the airport but jump on the train to Southampton and then the car would be waiting for us when arriving back at the airport from Barcelona.
A simple plan and a relatively straightforward solution but things went wrong when the trainline was shut and nothing was going from Birmingham to Southampton.
Thankfully, we had looked up other options before booking the original plan so quickly switched to a coach from the airport to the cruise port.
If we didn’t know, trying to research whilst under all of that extra stress would have been a pain and just added to the stress, the last thing you need before a holiday.
Make Flexible Bookings
Even for somebody such as myself who like to plan every bit of their travel from hoe to the ship and have plenty of failsafe’s along the way, things out of your control can spoil everything.
The best thing then is to have flexibility to your plans but that often costs a lot more for the privilege and can often push a holiday from been doable to unaffordable.
If you are in the position to do so, having flexible train, plane and hotel bookings can help you adapt to issues with extra worry and extra expensive and can often bump you to the front of queues for things such as taking a later flight.
Download Apps
An app for this and app for that and an app for the other, if you’re like me, you’re probably fed up of having to download apps, but it is currently the way of the world and the way that the majority of travel providers operate.
As well as your lines app, which can be useful for finding contact information if you need to speak to someone but having things such as an airline’s app, a road travel app or a rail app can be the best way to keep up to date with any updates to your travel.
This is especially true if you are travelling on a low cost airline as the last big delay we had was with EasyJet and the only updates from the line we got was via the app.
Book Transfers Through the Line
If you are flying to your embarkation port and your line offers transfer from the airport to ship and you are not able to arrive early, booking the transfer through your line can be a proverbial life saviour.
They will take the details of your flight and will likely know in advance of your arriving that you have been delayed and the best lines will even hold the ships departure for you and your fellow delayed passenger.
The same can be said for booking a transfer from the ship to the airport as if any changes happen to your flight whilst you are away, you can head to guest services and have somebody to speak to if any changes or advice is needed.
Book Flights Through the Line
If you cannot arrive early to your departure getaway and want the best chance of making it to your ship in an issue crops up, the best thing is to book your flights through the line as it will often come with some sort of ‘get you to the ship’ guarantee.
Sometimes that will simply be holding the ship if a plane is delayed but it can also be a case of organising for you to fly onto the first port of call if your flight is cancelled.
There is often a large extra cost for this sort of service but the peace of mind that comes with it can be well worth it.
Talk To Staff
If it is possible, try to talk to staff about your situation if you think you are going to have any problems going forward.
If you are travelling by train and will miss a connection, speak to the staff either at the station or on your current train about your options.
The same can be said if you are flying and if a delay crops up, again tell the staff if you are tight for missing a transfer.
Whilst not every problem can be solved, some help can be offered such as putting a rush on your bags been transferred or giving you advice on the platform your next train will leave from or which gate you will next depart from as the time saved figuring it out, could make the difference in making your connection.
When traveling up to Reykjavik in Iceland for a cruise but the day before we were due to set sail, we had a long delay and quite a few on the place were due to set sail that evening.
With a long transfer from the airport to the ship and people were starting to get stressed but to be fair to the captain, he did call ahead to the airport and made sure transfer buses were waiting for people and he spoke to the captain that would take over from him, that those who needed to rush got off the plane first.
Download Apps
One of the biggest stresses that you get when problems crop up is from the extra costs that have occurred, starting from a small worry of finding something to eat and drink in an airport to cancelling and rebooking transfers to missing accommodation check-in time.
It is a bit of minefield as to what help you can get here and different parts of the world will have much stronger or weaker rights for travellers but most places will have something for you.
From a voucher for food and drink to compensation for long delays when flying and a system such as Delay Repay when travelling on trains in the UK.
Knowing that there is some help for you really does take some of the stress away.
Know That Delays Are Normal
My wife isn’t the best travelling and can often find the whole thing stressful, so before setting off to the airport or seaport, the last thing I always say is that the only goal for the day is to get to the ship or hotel on time.
No matter if we have any hold ups along the way, so long as we get on the boat before it sets sail, it’s been a success.
I am somebody with little patience and hate what I class as wasted time, or basically sitting around doing nothing, so its also a good mantra for me as it is a reminder that I am achieving something as sitting around and waiting for flights, sitting in traffic jams and waiting for a delayed flight, I am getting closer to boarding the ship.
