Top 10 Tips for Making Sure You Are Back Onboard on Time
On the flip side of that, you may not get to do anything you had planned, all of the shops you get to are full of overpriced junk and then you end up joining the pier runner club.
The very worst-case scenario for just about every cruiser is missing the all-aboard time and been left stranded.
Thankfully, that is something that is very rare and something that has never happened to me and my wife, but it doesn’t stop my wife from worrying over it and we did come very close once after getting stuck in traffic and after been held up whilst off on excursion due to a medical emergency.
As I prefer to head out and explore on my, it does take away the safety net that you get from been on a shore excursion but there are plenty of things that we do to make sure that we have the very best chance of getting back on time.
That is just what I look at in this list where I bring you my top 10 tips for making sure you are back onboard your cruise ship on time.
Our Top 10 Tips for Making Sure You Are Back Onboard on Time
Know Your Timings
This may seem simple at first glance, you just need to check the lines app, your paper daily or the signs around the ship for the all-aboard time and you are good to go, right?
Well, it isn’t always that simple and sometimes it can be frustratingly complicated although it does depend on where you are cruising.
For starters, the all-aboard time could be given as the ship time, whilst the time in port will be the time of where you are visiting, which whilst almost always the same, can be different.
Then you have ports where you need to shuttle or tender, so not only do you need to know the all-aboard time, but the last tender or shuttle time.
If you have a full day of exploring and are close to a border with a time zone change, make sure you know which is the right time, this is something that can often catch people out in places such as Iberia, when there cross the border between Portugal and Spain where a few miles can put you back, or move you forward, an hour.
Use a Watch
Its probably fair to say that most people just look at their phones for the time nowadays but anybody who has cruised will know that your phone time can often be wrong.
If you are sailing close to other boarders, along time zone lines or you are just out of signal range, you phone may not update to the correct time and you at best arrive back at the ship early but miss out on things in port or at worst, you arrive back to your ship just in time to see it set sail!
To get around this, I would recommend simply wearing a watch, even better a basic watch, but you will need to set it for the right time of course.
Head The Farthest, First
If like me, you prefer to go off exploring on your own, but you are always concerned about getting stuck somewhere or having to rush back to the ship in a panic, one simple solution I use is to head to the farthest away point from the port that I intend to do, first.
I then work back from their so that I end up at the closest thing to the ship that I want to visit or see, that then gives you plenty of time to do what you want to do and if you are needing to use public transport, such as a bus or train, you can miss the one you were planning to get on and still have time to get back to the ship.
After a long day of exploring, you also tend to get tired, so even if you are just walking around the port town, try to end the day exploring the area around the ship and then when your feet are aching and you need to rush to get back to the ship, you have that extra motivation of been able to see the port gate.
Have a Back Up Plan
No matter how you like to explore when on shore, make sure you have a back up plan that will get you back to your ship- just in case.
If you head out on excursion, you will likely think that you are fine and that you will get back to the ship no matter what and whilst that will be the case 99% of the time, there is that 1% chance you don’t.
There can be a few reasons for that but the most common is simply that if you are exploring a large city that you have never been to before and have to find your way back to the coach pick up place, you may simply get completely lost and by the time you figure things out, the coach has taken the tough decision to leave without you.
You may also lose track of time, head into an attraction where you have no phone signal and cannot check the time or maybe you head out on public transport and get stuck in traffic.
Similar things can happen if you are docked in a city with a metro system and you head out on your own to explore but similar problems can happen if you are walking around a port of call.
Maybe you struggle with the heat, roll an ankle, get lost, miss judge how long it takes to get back or numerous other reason that stop your original plan in its tracks.
Instead of scrambling for a back up or trying to figure things out whilst you are rushed and panicked, make sure you have aback up plan before you even step ashore.
Having something such as the local number of a taxi company, or the app of a local ride share company can be a life saver but just make sure you don’t rely on the same services you have at home, as even in another major city relatively close to where you live, the same service may not be an option.
Have a Plan
I tend to try and visit as many new ports of call on a cruise as I can do and many of the places that I do visit, I will never go back to and that can be the case for so many of us.
The great thing about cruising is that you get to go somewhere, do the things you want to do, see the things you want to see and then move on to the next port where your exploring starts all over again.
It does also mean that you are often against the clock to pack in everything you want to as if you fail to do something, you may never get the chance to do it again.
One sure fire way to make sure you time gets even more limited is by having no plan when you arrive in a port as by the time you figure things out, half the day as gone and you are rushing around to get things done or you are hoping everything runs smoothly to have any chance of achieving what you want to achieve.
The internet has many downsides but one of the incredible upsides is the ease in which it makes travel planning so there really is no excuse not at least have a basic idea of where you want to go and how you can get there.
Give Yourelf a Buffer
No matter what you are doing onshore, form public transport to taking a shore excursion or from walking around seeing the sights to doing some shopping, don’t leave heading back to the ship to the very last minute.
If the onboard time is 5pm, aim to get back to the ship by 4 or 4:30pm at the latest so if an issue crops you, you have some wiggle room with your time.
This is especially true if you are in a port with a shuttle or tender and it is also something to think about when planning shore excursions.
Even if we are heading out on a shorex booked through the line, we always make sure that we have at least an extra hour between when we are expected back at the ship and when we will need to be back onboard.
So, if the sail away is 5pm, we will make sure our shorex is due back no later than 3:30pm, as the onboard time will usually be 30 minutes before you set sail.
If we are on a private shore excursion, we will maybe allow a couple of hours between getting back to the ship and the sail away, just for some peace of mind as much as anything as you don’t want to be worrying about the time the whole time you are exploring.
Have a Paper Map
In a world where we all carry an interactive map that can pinpoint our location anywhere in the world and give us a step-by-step guide of how to get from where we are to where we want to go, the thought of a paper map seems redundant.
If you are exploring somewhere you don’t know, especially a large city or somewhere with a complicated layout such as a European town built on a historic town plan, you can easily get confused as to where you are and where you need to go.
After a full day of using your phone to find your way around, your battery will quickly run out or you may end up somewhere with no signal, so make sure you can still find your way back to the ship no matter what by grabbing a paper map from a tourist information office, or downloading and printing one from online before you even set sail.
Don’t Nap at the Beach
If you have found yourself drawn to pier runner videos on YouTube, you will likely have seen the amount of people in the Caribbean who miss their ship and are wearing swimwear and carrying everything needed for a day at the beach.
There is a reason for that, as many people will succumb to the relaxing nature of spending a day on the beach and have a snooze, but that snooze can quickly get expensive if you miss the time you need to set off back to the ship.
If you find yourself getting tired and its coming towards the end of your day ashore, simply head back to the ship and take your snooze there.
Take Note of Rush Hours
This is one that is hugely important if you are heading out on an independent tour as whilst they may state the tour lasts for x number of hours, if you have to travel back during rush hour, you really need to add time on to that.
It isn’t just when heading out and about on excursion though as if you are using public transport whilst on shore, your journey during rush hour will likely take a lot longer than it did outside of peak travel times.
Something that can catch out some people is rush hour traffic can even affect you when you are walking around. Why, you may ask?
Well, there can be lots of small changes made to where you walked earlier, including the timing of traffic lights at crossings and short cuts you took before now blocked with traffic, then there are roads you need to cross that whilst you walked straight over them before, you know have to wait for a gap in traffic.
All of those things may only be 30 seconds here or a minute there, but if you have walked a few miles away from your ship, it will soon add up and can quickly add an extra 20-30 minutes to your walk back to the ship.
Back At Port, Is Not Back At Ship
If you need to take a shuttle, you will be given a last shuttle time, if you need to get a tender, you will be given a last tender time and that makes it easy to know the last time you need to be back at the port gate for but there are some ports where you need to allow the same amount of time, but you get no timings.
These are the ports where you have a long walk from the ship to the port gate when you arrive, so you will of course have the same long walk when you get back.
Sometimes it’s a long walk along the cruise pier but sometimes you face a long walk through a cruise terminal and with plenty of going up and down, left and right and winding backwards and forwards, you can quickly lose sense of how long it took you to get from the ship and out the port gate.
A lot of the worse ones are in the Caribbean but they can be found all over, so make sure you take a mental note of how long it took you as you need to add that onto the time you give yourself to get back on board as if you only at the port gate at the all-aboard time, you still may not get back onboard.
