Which Ports are Pierside vs. Tender

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cruisegary

Guest
Which ports do what? Are they are all dockside, closeby to town, etc.

I was just looking at a webcam from Sitka and it looks like the Spirit is anchored, unless there is a long pier that I can not see. Tour planning may change if we know that we have to deal with the tender circus. It is enough of a pain when they regulate people getting off when tied to a pier, but a tender..... yikes.
 
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ScottieB64

Guest
Gary that is a good question that I hadn't thought of. Hopefully someone out there can help us out.

Leaving in 9 days!!!!
 
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cruisegary

Guest
For what its worth, here are some good webcams from different ports:

Sitka : http://www.sitka.net/livewebcam.shtml

Juneau webcam http://www.kinyradio.com/webcams2.html

Skagway webcam http://www.whitepassrailroad.com/multimedia/webcam

Vancouver : http://www.northvancouver.com/webcams/cruisecam/index.html


for those PC challenged, highlight the link, then copy (CNTRL C) and then go to a new browser window and paste (CNTRL V) into the address area. The copy and paste commands are shortcuts. Look under your EDIT menu above.
 
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halfdome86

Guest
This is what I've noticed from our 3 Alaskan cruises and the tendering situations.

Sitka: No room at the docks. All ships have to tender. On our visit there were two ships. The tender boats dropped passengers at different locations.

Juneau: On our 3 trips one ship used tenders. 3 (or 4) are at the dock. It may be a coincidence however on all of our visits RCCL ships tendered.

Skagway: On our 2 visits no ship had to tender

Ketchikan: As in Juneau, only 1 ship out of 4 had to tender. Once is was NCL, once it was Carnival, and once....our ship : ^ ( it was HAL.

Try this for webcams: http://www.kroooz-cams.com/
 
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didan

Guest
Hi,
Being a cruising neophyte, I gather that using tenders means that a ship anchors away from the pier and brings people ashore using smaller boats. How long does this process take vs just walking off at the pier? In what sort of time frame can we expect to be off the ship either way? Never really thought of the fact that time to get off may affect our plans for the day! Thanks for any insights.
 
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cruisegary

Guest
Well.... that makes us think about shore tours in Sitka. Waiting and dealing with tender (shuttle boat) can be a real pain. Only so many people at one time, you have to wait until it fills up, etc. Adds lots of time and pain to the process. Might be a good day to sit on the ship and chill out.
 
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BSeabob

Guest
to answer didan.....it can be really busy with everyone trying to get on the first tender. What generally happens is that those with Ship excursions that leave at the earliest time get preference and are allowed to go to the gangway first. Normally groups are formed in a public room and then lead down the stairs and elevators to the gangway. Sometimes this goes smoothly and other times it does not. Depends if your ship got cleare/docked on time etc etc. After the rush is over they open the gangway up and it's first come first served and how quickly this happens depends on how many tenders are available and being used.
take your time and don't sweat the small stuff.
 
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didan

Guest
BSeabob,
Thank you for the explanation. To date, we have no early excursions planned, so I guess if we ever do have to take a tender, we'll take your advice and enjoy a leisurely breakfast and get off when the crowds go down.
 
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halfdome86

Guest
Due to rough seas we arrived in Sitka 1.5 hours late. By the time we were able to get on a tender we had virtually no time to explore the town before we had to race back and get in line for the return trip. This is one of the "hazards" to tendering. Especially since the ships don't visit Sitka for as long a time as long as the other ports.

When we tendered in Ketchikan it was a breeze. We waited about an hour and then went straight to the tender loading area. Since we had a relatively long stay in Ketchikan we were able to do everything we'd planned without rushing.

I assume that Juneau is the same. Most ships spend a long time in Juneau.
 
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