How much time do you really get in port?
Less than the arrival and departure times imply, and the gap catches people out.
Two things eat it. All-aboard is before the ship sails, sometimes by a good margin. And if the ship is anchored rather than tied up alongside, you are getting ashore by tender — which means queueing for a small boat at both ends, in a crowd of several thousand.
Tender ports are where the arithmetic goes wrong. A stop that reads as eight hours can be five once you have waited for a tender out and left honest buffer to get back. And tenders can be cancelled outright if the sea gets up, which is how people end up looking at a port they never set foot in.
The daily programme has the real numbers. Read it the night before, not over breakfast.
Which ports are worse than they look on paper? That list would be the most useful thing on this board.
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