The way it worked in August at St. Thomas everyone had to be there. There really were no tickets, you went in and were told to take a row, filled up in order of arrival. Then when it was time to board you went out the door as a group and boarded the tender boat. Our delay problem was waiting for an excursion group to arrive, waited 15 minutes sitting on the boat. It took us 45 minutes total to reach the shore, from 8:00 till 8:45.