Alaska Dock or Tender?

[WDW Princess 71]

Booked for Alaska in July, so I'm enjoying reading through the long excursion thread to get ideas. However I came across one post that said since ports were crowded with ships, the Carnival ship had to tender guests to shore using their lifeboats. This concerns me because I'm planning to take my mom on this cruise but she is very claustrophobic and absolutely would never get into those closed lifeboats unless it was an actual emergency evacuation. Was this situation unique to Carnival or has DCL ever had to tender using the closed top lifeboats to any Alaskan ports?

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

Dock in the three ports of call.

 

[sambycat]

also, in my experience, tender boats are not lifeboats? i am sure for some there might be some mobility limitations or assistance needed for transferring onto a tender boat but they are not “tiny”?

we docked at every port in alaska this year and i believe that to be that case at all current ports although theoretically i am sure DCL reserves the right to tender if there was some weird need too.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

While most ships dock in the Alaskan ports, it's quite possible, when there are lots of ships in, for one (or more) to tender.

I'll just point out, while many cruiselines use some of their lifeboats for tendering, DCL isn't one of them. DCL contracts out their tendering to the ports.

You can tell which lifeboats are the ones they use for tendering (on those cruiselines that do so) by the fact that some of the lifeboats have windows in them. Those are the ones used for tendering.

 

[Marla Hellwig]

We were on the 9 night DCL cruise this past May and in Sitka we noticed one ship was using very small tenders - they looked to me to be lifeboats - but who knows for sure.

DCL was able to dock at the dock for all of our ports.

 

[WDW Princess 71]

Thanks all. I'm glad to hear that DCL docks at all 3 ports and that if for some reason we had to tender that they contract out. What a relief. I would have had to cancel otherwise because my mom could not get into that boat without any windows. A regular tender boat like they use in grand cayman or villefranche would be fine.

 

[xlxo]

I think Disney charges you more.... so you are less likely to tender.

Did the HAL tender in Juneau. You don't need to row, and you don't need to swim. The dingy seats about 40 people. Yes there are windows.... it's just a nuisance to wait for the boat to show up. Leave the fishing rod in the cabin.