Don't be late - the ship won't wait!
Occasionally and much to the boss’s delight, he encountered an off the wall client. The result? Magical. For this client, we booked a fantastic Mediterranean cruise and, yes you guessed it, the client and the boss got together to talk about the shore excursions. Oh! No ship organised excursions for this group, thank you very much.
I got to jet off to the Med as tour manager, lucky me. A superb ship, lovely group, everything running smoothly and exactly to plan. Then we got to Split in Croatia! This was a tender, meaning the ship weighs anchor off shore and small boats are used to transfer guests to and from the port. Now anyone who has cruised will tell you, never miss the “back on-board time”. Or in this case, last tender. Miss the ship and you make your own way to the next port – at your own cost. Can you imagine standing on the dock watching your ship sail away? Can you imagine 30 of you standing on the dock watching your ship sail away?
So our little group travelled by coach to a small monastery turned wine farm outside of Split. Fabulous home-made wine, superb meal, great music and amazing views. Relaxed and happy, the group boarded the coach to travel back to Split, on time and going to plan.
Bouncing along merrily, the group was in high spirits; singing, joking and enjoying the ride. And then the coach came to a screeching halt. The main street in the town we were passing through was completely blocked. Why? Road works had popped up after we drove through earlier. That wasn’t there this morning.
No worries, plenty of time. The local tour operator had calculated one hour for driving, an extra half hour in case of flat tyre or the likes and arrival at the port one hour before last tender. Plenty of time. Did I mention that the traffic was stopped in both directions of the one-lane street? Time ticked on and no amount of cajoling, Croatian negotiating, Croatian swearing or hysterical tour manager laughter, could move the road workers. Dedication in its purest form I tell you.
And we waited. The group got quieter, the tour manager’s whispers on the phone to the ship’s group co-ordinator got more frantic, and the phone calls were more frequent. You don’t want to know what the phone bill was. And then we moved! Would you believe we were still 30 minutes from Split and definitely going to miss the last tender – no doubt about it now!
Picture again the sight of 30 people watching the ship sail away! And just as my heart was threatening to jump out of my chest, the call came through that one of the ship’s excursions busses had broken down and would arrive the port around the same time as our coach! I nearly kissed the coach driver’s feet! Talk about divine intervention. Safely back at port, while the group was totally oblivious to the narrow escape and happily boarding the tender, I was jumping up and down and hugging anyone in sight!
The moral of the story – the boss isn’t always right. If your Travel Counsellor says take the ship’s excursion – take the ship’s excursion! Don’t be late – the ship won’t wait!