Western Caribbean Ports - which side of ship

[castmbr]

Can someone tell me which side of the ship faces the port in Key West, Grand Cayman & Cozumel?

 

[drclaws]

Can someone tell me which side of the ship faces the port in Key West, Grand Cayman & Cozumel?

Key West is Starboard

Grand Cayman is tender so no "facing the port." Starboard looks toward the town (and other ships). Port toward 7-mile beach

Cozumel portside toward town but a little ways out at the end of the pier. Always fun to watch the late boarders scurrying to make the all aboard time after a day enjoying some of the adult beverage places....

 

[geekboy]

That was exactly my experience in those ports of calls on the Western itinerary.

 

[mmouse37]

I have never found it to make any difference in my enjoyment of the cruise on which side of the ship I was on at any port. If you are not facing the port then you are facing the beautiful water. In key west the sunset would be on the port side of the ship.

MJ

 

[CEGrant]

I have nothing useful to add to this thread, but every time I see one of these "Which way do we park?" threads, I think of this:

 

[ocspartan]

Can someone tell me which side of the ship faces the port in Key West, Grand Cayman & Cozumel?

In Grand Cayman since it's a tender you'll be off shore but Port side will be facing 7 Mile. Cozumel for us was Port side facing the shore, but when we docked there was another ship between us and the port so you'd be looking across at other people.

The one you're leaving out is CC, where starboard gets the postcard view of CC since they normally back into the dock.

I am curious as to why though? I know we have always picked starboard but that's b/c that's the side we were on for our first DCL cruise and as we moved from ship to ship it made it easier for us to orient ourselves.

 

[geekboy]

Some say that the Castaway Cay docking direction is based on a previous incident where one of the ships could not get out from the dock in reverse. Also, they seem to do lifeboat maintenance/drills based on the various ports.

For the first time in a while, I was on the Dream and we docked reverse, but with the port side to the dock in Nassau (September 1, 2014). The Dream, at least for me, has always been on the other side of that pier. It could have been that Disney wanted to work on lifeboats, as they had lowered one to the pier and were "polishing" the dull yellow lifeboat. (Also, we had a Carnival ship blocking our view of downtown Nassau.)

It is typically starboard side to pier in Nassau with Port facing downtown Nassau and port side to pier in Castaway Cay with Starboard facing the beaches of Castaway Cay. I only book starboard staterooms.