5. Get Left Behind in Port
When you head out on a shore excursion at a port of call, the cruise line has a guarantee that the ship won’t leave you behind. However, if you decide to go off on your own, it’s up to you to keep track of time and return to the ship before the scheduled departure time.
There’s even a name for those passengers who wait until the last minute to get back onboard—”pier runners.” It perfectly described people who are frantically running down the pier to head back on the ship before the gangplank is pulled up.
Sometimes passengers get stranded, especially in ports where bars serve tequila or other liquor shots. There’s even a post on Carnival Cruise Line’s now-dead Funville Forum where one passenger wrote about a Carnival Elation ship that left, leaving 17 people behind in Progreso, Mexico.
