Port Aventure finished after guests aboard time?

[erider]

We booked an official Port Adventure through the Disney Cruise Line website (Scenic Palma and Valldemossa PM3). This adventure leaves at 1PM and has a duration of 4 hours, which should take until 5pm then. However Guests Aboard time is 4.45. How would this work? It seems weird to me that Disney would sell a Port Adventure that conflicts with the Guests Aboard time.

 

[MomOTwins]

It’s just approximate duration. You’ll be back before the all aboard.

 

[anricat]

There was a recent thread about this that has some helpful discussion regarding these situations: https://www.disboards.com/threads/port-adventure-longer-than-entire-port-stay.3909710/

 

[JWelch62]

If you are on an excursion booked through DCL the ship will NOT leave without you. We have been on more that one excursion that arrived "late". In one case almost an hour late. The other guests may not be pleased, but the ship will not leave.

On the other hand, I have seen people making mad dashes up the pier becuase the ship was getting ready to leave. If you book an excursion yourself, you are on your own if you're late.

 

[anricat]

If you are on an excursion booked through DCL the ship will NOT leave without you. We have been on more that one excursion that arrived "late". In one case almost an hour late. The other guests may not be pleased, but the ship will not leave.

On the other hand, I have seen people making mad dashes up the pier becuase the ship was getting ready to leave. If you book an excursion yourself, you are on your own if you're late.

So....this isn't entirely true, but granted 99.9% of the time, yes the ship will wait. However, there are could be other factors that could cause the ship to depart prior to a DCL excursion returning: port scheduling, tides, etc. that MAY mean that the ship has to leave. However, if you're on a DCL sponsored excursion, DCL will pay to get you to the next port. I've only heard of it happening once. I think it was a British Isle and it was a tidal issue?

I think most of those people running for the docks aren't on a third party excursion. Every third party tour I've ever been on, I think the tour operator was more stressed than I was about getting back on time and they always had me back super early. I don't think I've ever even been remotely close on a third party tour. But I do a lot of research and I book reputable tour operators. I mean, it's their livelihood. Could you imagine if they got someone back late? It would literally be the end of their entire business. I think those running for the dock people lost track of time drinking over at Señor Frogs.

 

[JWelch62]

So....this isn't entirely true, but granted 99.9% of the time, yes the ship will wait. However, there are could be other factors that could cause the ship to depart prior to a DCL excursion returning: port scheduling, tides, etc. that MAY mean that the ship has to leave. However, if you're on a DCL sponsored excursion, DCL will pay to get you to the next port. I've only heard of it happening once. I think it was a British Isle and it was a tidal issue?

I think most of those people running for the docks aren't on a third party excursion. Every third party tour I've ever been on, I think the tour operator was more stressed than I was about getting back on time and they always had me back super early. I don't think I've ever even been remotely close on a third party tour. But I do a lot of research and I book reputable tour operators. I mean, it's their livelihood. Could you imagine if they got someone back late? It would literally be the end of their entire business. I think those running for the dock people lost track of time drinking over at Señor Frogs.

Yes, and the third party tours that I have booked (when sailing on other cruise lines) have "guaranteed" they will get me back on time. I thnk my point is still valid. The exception you list is probably rare enough not to be a concern for anyone booking an excursion through DCL. You could probably extend that decimal out a few 9s and still be under that actual occurence rate.

And I agree that the folks running were probably over-indugling at the local watering hole. While I wasn't trying to say they were from excursions, I can see how it could be read that way. And since it's typically just a few people you can probably assume they weren't coming from an excursion, since I would expect more than a few people in that case.

 

[erider]

If you are on an excursion booked through DCL the ship will NOT leave without you. We have been on more that one excursion that arrived "late". In one case almost an hour late. The other guests may not be pleased, but the ship will not leave.

On the other hand, I have seen people making mad dashes up the pier becuase the ship was getting ready to leave. If you book an excursion yourself, you are on your own if you're late.

Yes, it's an official excursion booked through DCL. So it sounds that this happens more often, that official excursions arrive late. Since in our case it's only 15 minutes I can imagine the ship will still be there. Thanks.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

So....this isn't entirely true, but granted 99.9% of the time, yes the ship will wait. However, there are could be other factors that could cause the ship to depart prior to a DCL excursion returning: port scheduling, tides, etc. that MAY mean that the ship has to leave. However, if you're on a DCL sponsored excursion, DCL will pay to get you to the next port. I've only heard of it happening once. I think it was a British Isle and it was a tidal issue?

I think most of those people running for the docks aren't on a third party excursion. Every third party tour I've ever been on, I think the tour operator was more stressed than I was about getting back on time and they always had me back super early. I don't think I've ever even been remotely close on a third party tour. But I do a lot of research and I book reputable tour operators. I mean, it's their livelihood. Could you imagine if they got someone back late? It would literally be the end of their entire business. I think those running for the dock people lost track of time drinking over at Señor Frogs.

I know on our Mediterranean cruise in 2018, there were quite a few who missed the ship due to their 3rd party excursions didn't arrive back in time. I know for sure that this happened in two different ports and both times it there was an accident that caused a traffic issue. Which in turn caused whole bus loads of people to be late, since the buses couldn't get back to the port. We lucked out and in both of these ports, we only did half day excursions so the traffic issue didn't cause us any problem, but we heard about it both times as we left port.

We did have a bus issue for one of our DCL excursions that caused us to be about 30 minutes late getting back and the ship waited for us.

Psy

 

[anricat]

I know on our Mediterranean cruise in 2018, there were quite a few who missed the ship due to their 3rd party excursions didn't arrive back in time. I know for sure that this happened in two different ports and both times it there was an accident that caused a traffic issue. Which in turn caused whole bus loads of people to be late, since the buses couldn't get back to the port. We lucked out and in both of these ports, we only did half day excursions so the traffic issue didn't cause us any problem, but we heard about it both times as we left port.

We did have a bus issue for one of our DCL excursions that caused us to be about 30 minutes late getting back and the ship waited for us.

Psy

I could see DCL waiting (if possible) if literally busloads of people weren't back on the ship on time. They wouldn't wait for 1 or 2 but busloads not back? Even for a third party tour, that seems like a situation in which Disney would wait if they were able.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

I could see DCL waiting (if possible) if literally busloads of people weren't back on the ship on time. They wouldn't wait for 1 or 2 but busloads not back? Even for a third party tour, that seems like a situation in which Disney would wait if they were able.

All I can say is they didn't from what we were hearing. I'm going off memory from almost 4 years ago, but I'm pretty sure that Villerfranche was the stops that this happened and is a Tender Port. If I remember right, they did wait for the DCL tours to arrive, and we left port an hour to hour and half late (we were watching the tenders arrive at the ship) and they were still missing a lot of passengers.

I can't really remember if it was at the Florence, Rome or Naples stop that also had people not make it back on the ship, but it was one of those.

Psy