The Cruise Ship Shore Excursion Squeeze
A small Bahamian tour operator, Coral Cay Tours, has a contract with a cruise line to run a 4-hour snorkel excursion for up to 60 passengers per call. The ship arrives at 8:00 a.m. and departs at 3:00 p.m., but passengers must be back on board 45 minutes before departure. Coral Cay has two 30-seat boats, one licensed guide per boat, and a single dock berth it shares with a ferry that loads from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. The tour takes 3 hours including a 20-minute safety briefing and a 30-minute return trip. Last week the ship arrived 90 minutes late because of weather, and Coral Cay had to cancel. The cruise line is now asking for a guarantee that every booked passenger completes the excursion or receives a full refund.
1. Using the times given, calculate the latest safe departure time for the excursion and assess whether Coral Cay can honestly guarantee completion for all 60 passengers on a normal call.
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Latest safe return: passengers must be aboard 45 minutes before 3:00 p.m., so they must be at the gangway by 2:15 p.m. Allowing a 10-minute buffer for walking and security, Coral Cay should plan to be back at the dock by 2:05 p.m.
Latest start: the tour takes 3 hours, so the boats must leave the dock no later than 11:05 a.m.
Dock conflict: the shared berth is blocked 11:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Two 30-seat boats can carry all 60 passengers in one wave, but only if they depart before 11:30 a.m. A single wave starting at, say, 9:00 a.m. returns by noon, which fits.
Judgement: on a normal call, one wave of two boats is feasible. However, the operator cannot guarantee completion when the ship arrives late, because a 90-minute delay pushes the start past the dock window and past the 11:05 a.m. cut-off. A guarantee of completion for every passenger is therefore not honest; the operator should offer a weather/late-arrival clause and a rebooking or partial refund policy instead.
2. The cruise line insists on the guarantee. Recommend two contract terms Coral Cay should negotiate and explain how each protects the business.
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- A force-majeure and late-arrival clause. The guarantee should not apply when the ship arrives more than 30 minutes late or when sea conditions make snorkelling unsafe. Without this, Coral Cay absorbs the full refund cost for delays it does not control, which could exceed the revenue from the whole call.
- A minimum guaranteed passenger number or a per-head cancellation fee. If the line cancels or the ship misses the port, Coral Cay should still recover its crew and fuel costs. A fee of, say, 50% of the per-head price for cancellations within 24 hours protects cash flow.
Reasoning: the operator's real risk is not the normal 60-passenger call, which the timetable shows is workable, but the variability of ship arrival and weather. Shifting those risks to the party that controls them, or pricing them in, is the sound commercial response. Coral Cay could also offer a shorter 2-hour version as a fallback so guests still get value when time is tight.