Methodology

One database, not a page-by-page guess

Behind every port page sits a single structured database of terminals, distances, transport options, disembarkation patterns and immigration timings. When we improve a number for a specific terminal, every page built from that data point improves with it — the content is not written fresh and separately for every language and every port.

Facts, estimates, and how confident we are

Some numbers are close to fact: a terminal’s distance to the centre, a published tender schedule. Others are estimates built from patterns we have observed, like how long a queue tends to run at peak season, or how variable a city’s traffic really is. We do not blend the two silently.

Every data point carries three things: where it came from, when it was last checked, and a confidence level — high, medium or low. If we are not sure, we say so, instead of dressing up a guess as a fact.

How the calculator gets to a number

The usable-time calculation starts from your ship’s nominal port window and subtracts, in order: disembarkation or tendering, immigration where it applies, the transfer to your first stop, and a safe return buffer sized to that port’s own risk factors.

The risk score draws on the same inputs, weighted toward whatever is most likely to go wrong at that specific port — a single access road, an unreliable ferry, a history of traffic at peak cruise season.

Tell us when something has changed

Port data moves: a new terminal opens, a bus route changes, a queue that used to take twenty minutes now takes fifty. Every port page has a way to report a change, and corrections to safety-relevant data — timings, distances, transport reliability — get priority review over everything else on our list.