Tendering?

[wallawallakids]

Can someone please explain to me how tendering works? Do boats run back and forth all day? Can you get off the ship and walk around in port for and hour and get back on or is tendering only for certain times and you have to wait or have a time set for boarding back on? Thank you.

 

[mmouse37]

Can someone please explain to me how tendering works? Do boats run back and forth all day? Can you get off the ship and walk around in port for and hour and get back on or is tendering only for certain times and you have to wait or have a time set for boarding back on? Thank you.

Tendering is very easy. Yes, they run the whole time a ship is in port. There will be posted signs on what time the last tender back to the ship will be. You can take the tender in and walk around for as long as you want. Just head back to the tender area and wait for the next one to arrive back to the ship. No real set times, they run continuously.

They do allow guests with excursions booked through DCL off first for tendering and then open tendering to everyone. There will be announcements all morning on the process and meeting spots.

MJ

 

[wallawallakids]

Tendering is very easy. Yes, they run the whole time a ship is in port. There will be posted signs on what time the last tender back to the ship will be. You can take the tender in and walk around for as long as you want. Just head back to the tender area and wait for the next one to arrive back to the ship. No real set times, they run continuously.

They do allow guests with excursions booked through DCL off first for tendering and then open tendering to everyone. There will be announcements all morning on the process and meeting spots.

MJ

Wonderful. Thank you very much. We do not have a DCL excursion planned so I was unsure how that worked. Thanks again for your help.

 

[Tsunami5]

If your excursion is NOT with Disney, are you still able to get Tendered early?

 

[Trera]

Which ports require tendering? we have been on cruises to the Bahamas and also the Eastern Caribbean with Disney and have not had to do that.

 

[wallawallakids]

Which ports require tendering? we have been on cruises to the Bahamas and also the Eastern Caribbean with Disney and have not had to do that.

Grand Cayman does for sure. I think there are others but on the Western, it is GC.

 

[jetskigrl]

Which ports require tendering? we have been on cruises to the Bahamas and also the Eastern Caribbean with Disney and have not had to do that.

If you are doing a PC or West Coast cruise, Cabo is a tendered port.

It is actually quite beautiful to be anchored out away from the port. The tenders went back and forth non-stop while we were there.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

If your excursion is NOT with Disney, are you still able to get Tendered early?

Yes but slightly harder to do, longer waits first thing as shore trips can get priority.

 

[SillyInventor]

If your excursion is NOT with Disney, are you still able to get Tendered early?

Yes, but you will have to get a ticket for that. Tendering starts with the DCL organized port adventures. After that you will be allowed by ticket number. Tickets will be available in a specific place on the ship. Once the boarding of tender boats has caught up with the current distributed ticket numbers "open tendering" is announced. It till all be in the instruction letter in your stateroom the night before arriving at a port that requires tendering.

An example of such a letter can be found here:
http://disneycruiselineblog.com/wp-...Cayman-Tendering-Information-October-2013.pdf
Note that the actual letter on your cruise may differ from this information. Therefor carefully read the letter distributed to you on your cruise and you will be fine!

Enjoy your cruise.

 

[jdb in AZ]

When we're planning to just walk around a tendered port we have a leisurely (late) breakfast and wait for open tendering. Then we don't have to fight the crowds of people all trying to be the first ones on the tender boats. We also like to come back before the crowds so there isn't a long line waiting to catch the boat back to the ship.

On the other hand, the last time we were in Cabo we took a DCL excursion that was scheduled to return after the last scheduled tender. That way, the other passengers were already back on board, so there was space on the tender for our excursion group.