Hi there!
If you’re taking a Princess cruise and you see “water shuttle” on the itinerary, what does that mean?!
A water shuttle on a Princess cruise means that you need to take a small boat (“water shuttle”) from the cruise ship to land.
A water shuttle cruise port is a tender port.
On Princess cruise itineraries, you will see tender cruise ports listed as “water shuttle required.”
In tender ports on a cruise (and thus, water shuttle cruise ports), you can’t just walk off the cruise ship and onto land.
The cruise ship will anchor off shore, and then you can take the water shuttle to start your day in the cruise port!
Instead of walking from the cruise ship directly onto land, you will be walking from the cruise ship directly onto another boat!
How fun!
Because you need to take a small boat to get to land, naturally this means that there will be a wait to get the water shuttle.
Although the wait time for the water shuttle was a little annoying, once you got on the water shuttle, it was fun!
My Princess cruise water shuttle experience was at the Toba cruise port in Japan that was part of a transpacific cruise to Japan.
There was a system in place.
You will get all of this information on how the water shuttle works the day before you arrive to the cruise port.
A letter will be delivered to your cabin explaining this to you the day before, and/or it will be on the Princess cruise activities schedule (aka Princess Patter). You get the Princess Patter every evening for the next day’s activities.
It was a rather simple process.
The morning of the water shuttle port, you need to go get a ticket for the water shuttle.
If you want to get off in the morning, that is. After the rush dies down, there is no longer a need for water shuttle tickets. The water shuttle will operate back and forth throughout the day.
I didn’t immediately go and get a water shuttle ticket, since there was also a line to get the water shuttle ticket.
I figured if I waited a bit, then most of the people with tickets would be off the ship, and I would basically be able to get on the water shuttle without actually waiting. Well, I was wrong. Although I didn’t wait as long as I thought I would when I first got the ticket.
I didn’t have to wait in line to get the ticket though. So I succeeded with my plan there at least. 😂
Your water shuttle ticket will have a group number on it.
My ticket was 30-something. I had just recently heard an announcement that they were on group… SEVEN or something!!!
So when I saw it was 30-something I was like…
WHAT?!?!
Is this going to take 2 hours to get off the ship?!?!
Well, as it turns out, after I got my ticket, the groups started getting called much more quickly.
Maybe it took like 30-40 minutes. Which was still kind of a long wait, but better than the 2 hours for sure.
I guess at first they only had minimal boats going out, and then they started to get more boats going out, so more people could get onto the water shuttles at once.
You can be anywhere on the ship while you wait, although it’s best to be in the public areas since the announcements for group numbers will only be made in public areas.
I went back to my cabin for a bit, and since the announcements don’t come into the cabins, I had to be extra attentive to listening for if an announcement was starting. Then if I heard something I’d open my door to listen for my group number.
Once you get onto the water shuttle… well… VIEWS!!!
And I practically forgot about the wait I had to get here. 😂
👆 Watch the Princess cruise water shuttle video!
Once on land, the Toba tourism people were there handing out maps and other handy items. (Similarly at the Kobe cruise port, the tourism people were there handing out maps and were there to answer any questions you have may have – look for them in Japan cruise ports!)
The top thing to do while at the Toba cruise port is to go to Ise City.
You can go by train on your own. Use google maps to guide your way for public transportation in Japan.
I had been to Ise before right after my trip to Kumano Kodo and Nachi Falls so I didn’t go there while in Toba cruise port but instead got a train to a former G7 summit location, an island called Kashikojima.
I would not recommend Kashikojima if it’s your first and only time in Japan since there wasn’t exactly anything to do there (there was a small G7 summit museum at the train station), but it was a nice quiet outing for me!
For the water shuttle back to the ship, you’ll board it from the same place you get off.
HAPPY TAKING THE PRINCESS CRUISE WATER SHUTTLE AT A TENDER PORT!
👆 Watch the playlist day-by-day of the 25-day transpacific cruise as the Diamond Princess sails from California to Hawaii to Guam to Japan! Click the little list icon in the upper right corner to skip ahead to different days! (And to see different parts of the Diamond Princess cruise ship!)