Will they hold the ship for you?

[Sarastep]

I have heard that the cruise ship will wait for late passengers that are on a Royal Caribbean excursion, but I’m wondering if this applies if your excursion is only the transportation to a city. For example, booking a bus or train to Rome from the cruise port. If something happens with your train/bus (eg, accident, breakdown) will they hold the boat for you?

[SpeedNoodles]

If you booked through Royal, then they will likely wait, if possible.   If not, be sure to leave yourself a lot of extra time.

[wordell1]

21 hours ago, Sarastep said:

I have heard that the cruise ship will wait for late passengers that are on a Royal Caribbean excursion, but I’m wondering if this applies if your excursion is only the transportation to a city. For example, booking a bus or train to Rome from the cruise port. If something happens with your train/bus (eg, accident, breakdown) will they hold the boat for you?

If it is booked through the cruise line, they will wait if there is a breakdown/ traffic/ etc.  

[Maggie M]

They will definitely wait for you. Our bus (entire excursion which included transportation to/from the port) broke down on the way back from a winery so we stayed at the winery until another bus could come and get us...this took hours but the ship waited for our group to get back safely!

[Pooch]

But was that an excursion because one’d through Royal or a private tour?

[smokeybandit]

By rule, they will wait for a ship sponsored tour to return.  Yet they are under no obligation to wait for anyone else.

[twangster]

Technically the verbiage if I recall is that they will get you back to the ship even if that means it's at the next port.  It's generally interpreted as the ship will wait and they generally do, but there are rare cases where the ship can't wait and in those rare cases they would put you up in a hotel at their expense and reunite you with the ship at their expense, so they would rather hold the ship over paying a lot of money to get you back to the ship.

[Censored]

On 1/11/2023 at 1:49 PM, Sarastep said:

I have heard that the cruise ship will wait for late passengers that are on a Royal Caribbean excursion, but I’m wondering if this applies if your excursion is only the transportation to a city. For example, booking a bus or train to Rome from the cruise port. If something happens with your train/bus (eg, accident, breakdown) will they hold the boat for you?

 

1 hour ago, twangster said:

Technically the verbiage if I recall is that they will get you back to the ship even if that means it's at the next port.  It's generally interpreted as the ship will wait and they generally do, but there are rare cases where the ship can't wait and in those rare cases they would put you up in a hotel at their expense and reunite you with the ship at their expense, so they would rather hold the ship over paying a lot of money to get you back to the ship.

The most important thing to know is that if you’re booked on a ship’s excursion, the cruise ship will always wait for you. Tours are scheduled to arrive back with plenty of time, but traffic, medical emergencies, or other unexpected events can cause the tour busses to arrive back late. Cruise lines convince passengers to take their tours instead of independent ones by promising to never leave passengers behind. So they will always wait for the last tour bus to arrive before setting sail. It is always up to the captain in very rare circumstances to make a final call to leave the port., leaving passengers behind.