What happens if your cruise ship leaves you behind?

Americans call them pier runners – the cruise passengers racing to catch their cruise ship before it leaves without them, causing much merriment to those who have made it back on time.

In reality, missing your cruise ship is no laughing matter, as eight passengers stranded on the African island of São Tomé and Príncipe discovered earlier this year.

They were an hour late back from a private tour, found their ship had sailed and spent a frantic 48 hours – and several thousand dollars – trying to catch up with their vessel, the Norwegian Dawn.

Given the hassle and expense caused by missing the boat you would think passengers would make absolutely sure they were on board on time – always at least half an hour before the ship’s scheduled departure time – but there are instances almost every month where people miss their ship.

It might be they have forgotten to make a note of the all-aboard time, got stuck in traffic or been caught out by a cancelled train.

On a Danube river cruise, a couple were left behind in the Austrian town of Melk because they had forgotten to change their watches to local time. They were lucky. The ship’s port agent gave them a lift to Vienna so they had extra time in the city waiting for the boat to arrive.

Too many passengers get it wrong simply because they don’t believe the ship will leave without them.

It will.

Why the ship won’t wait

Much like aircraft, cruise ships have schedules to keep. Those schedules are planned often two years in advance, with departure times based on how long it will take to get to their next destination. If they are late leaving one port, chances are they will be late arriving in the other.

On top of that there are all the extra costs involved if ships overstay their time in port, not to mention the disruption caused to the army of people involved in getting ships from A to B.

That includes the pilots who guide vessels in and out of ports, the dockers responsible for tying and untying the ropes, the tour guides and coaches that have been booked to start excursions at a specific time. If there is a delay, it all costs money.

That sounds reasonable until cruise directors, in the same breath as joking about missing the ship – “don’t worry”, they tell passengers on their first day, “you’ll get great pictures of us waving as we sail away” – inform you that the captain will wait if the company’s tours are not back on time.

No wonder cynics – usually the British, according to one cruise line executive – believe they are being scared into buying the ship’s own tours. These are pretty expensive compared with going it alone. A 10-hour guided walking tour in Rome with Princess Cruises, for instance, costs from $345/£276 per person while a fast train will set you back less than £10 one way (trenitalia.com), but of course you have to guide yourself.

While the British are the least trusting, they are also the most cautious and usually back on time, the exec said.

David Selby, the former boss of Thomson Cruises (now Marella Cruises), said captains would make a decision on whether to wait depending on the number of people missing, the distance to the next port and the weather.

If the ship has to go faster to get to the next port, it has to use more fuel, which will be more expensive. If the following day is at sea, they might decide to wait a while.

“We try to do right by everyone but we have to protect the itinerary and deliver the holiday our guests booked,” Selby said.

Your ship has sailed

One has to feel sorry for the American on a train coming back to Carnival Vista in Livorno after a day in Florence with his family. They all got out in Livorno but he realised he had forgotten his baseball cap so got back on the train, only for the doors to shut.

The family returned to the ship, but the American in question had to get a room for the night and rejoin them in Civitavecchia, the port for Rome, which was the next stop. It was probably the world’s most expensive baseball cap.

Missing your ship in Europe is a hassle but it is fairly easy to get to the next port, especially if it’s in the EU, although it does mean you have to go without a change of clothes and toiletries until you can get back on board.

However, miss your ship in South America, Asia, Australia, Africa or the Caribbean, and things start to look really bad as the eight stranded in São Tomé and Príncipe discovered.

By the time they rejoined their ship in Dakar, Senegal, they’d travelled through seven countries, jumped through several bureaucratic hoops and rung up a $5,000 (£3,991) bill.

Fortunately in this case, Norwegian Cruise Line, the ship’s owner, said it would reimburse their travel costs from Banjul in the Gambia, where the ship was due to stop but unable to dock due to low tides, to Dakar.

Take some ID

It’s always a good idea to carry a credit card and some form of ID when going ashore but safest to leave your passport on board, as one passenger on a Saga cruise discovered. He carefully zipped his into a pocket in his coat, which he then left on the back of a chair in a bar. It was later retrieved from the police station.

If a ship is leaving without some passengers, the officers will endeavour to leave their passports with the port agent. It’s no problem if the ship is holding the passports; if it’s not, keep yours in the cabin safe so it’s easy to find.

As port agents are local they can usually help passengers sort out onward travel – at the passengers’ own expense. Just occasionally, though, people take matters into their own hands.

In 2016, 65-year-old Susan Brown missed her ship in Funchal and jumped into the Atlantic to swim after it. She was rescued by a local fisherman.

In a far classier case, a woman who missed her Fred Olsen ship in Gibraltar was taken by pilot boat to rejoin the vessel and clambered aboard clutching her bag of just-purchased La Senza underwear.

This story was first published in March 2023 and has been revised and updated.