Back To The Ship On Time — How A Private Car Guarantees It

The Six Mechanisms

One, we build the itinerary backwards from your all aboard time, not forwards from arrival, and the last stop is always the closest one to the port. Two, we set a hard turnaround time before departure and we honour it even if the group wants one more stop, because the driver is answerable to the clock, not to the mood. Three, we hold a standard cushion of 60 to 90 minutes at the terminal. Four, at tender ports we plan from the last tender rather than the all aboard time, which is typically 30 to 60 minutes earlier. Five, the driver monitors traffic and roadworks live and reroutes early rather than late. Six, your ship name, berth, all aboard time and the emergency contact are written on the day sheet and confirmed by message the night before.

What Happens If Something Goes Wrong

Honest disclosure matters more than a slogan. A private operator cannot legally hold a ship, and neither can most ship excursions in practice, though the cruise line will generally assist passengers on its own tours. So our answer is to make the failure almost impossible rather than to promise the impossible: conservative planning, real world driving times rather than map times, and stopping the day early when weather or roadworks change the maths. If a genuine incident occurs, our driver stays with you, contacts the port agent immediately and drives to the next port of call if that is the practical solution. In eight years of Scottish touring the answer has always been the cushion, not the rescue.