Long Exposure Shots on Docked Cruise Ship?

I'm hoping that somebody here has been in this situation and can offer some advice. I'm planning an Alaskan cruise tour in September. I've never been on a cruise ship, but I realize that any exposure more than a fraction of a second will suffer from motion blur while the ship is at sea. But what about when it's docked? The engines will be off, so vibration from that shouldn't be an issue, right? About how much do they move while docked at the pier? The reason I ask is that we're using Princess Cruises, and their ships seem to depart rather later than other ships, usually around 8pm or so. This will give me the opportunity to get some nice sunsets from the deck of the ship, if it's stable enough to allow multi-second exposures.

Any thoughts?

Also, any random advise about Alaska cruises in general would be greatly appreciated.

Cruise ships don't really move at all while docked, in my experience (in the Caribbean).

You're lucky that the sunsets are early during your sailing. I'm taking that trip in July and the sunsets are all after 9 pm.

If you're inside passage, you are landlocked 95% of the cruise, so depending on which dock, horizon may be high. Don't expect National Geographic bears feeding on salmon on the shore. You may see some whales, but you'll need to shoot hand held. Saw a few otters. Even though you can see shore from the ship during the passage, it's usually too far away to get any details. Don't get me wrong, beautiful country and glaciers are phenomenal, but you're going to have to get off the ship and head inland for decent nature shots.

I spent a couple of years doing some work with the Canadian Coast Guard (Telecom/RF) and it included one sea trial up the west coast. I've also spend a fair amount of time dockside doing installs and repairs on antenna arrays and other equipment on both coasts and the Great Lakes
Don't count on a steady base to do long exposure shots, hopefully the larger ship will give you some more stability than the 130' ice breakers I was on. If the opportunity arises you'll get some nice sunsets.
As said earlier, the view to the shore will be minimal while at sea so hopefully you get some good land tours as part of the itinerary.
Enjoy, it really is beautiful country!

Thanks for your comments, everyone. We're planning on a cruise tour, where you spend 4 days on shore at both Mt. McKinley and Denali, then cruise for 6 days, stopping at two glaciers and 3 ports. So I will have some opportunities to get sunrise and sunset shots from shore. Since the ships don't leave the dock until 8pm on most nights, I'm hoping to be on shore for sunsets in at least a couple of the ports as well.

My concerns stem from lack of experience in cruising, I think. What time do you have to be back on the boat in the evening? That's a big issue. If they say you have to be back on board an hour before departure, that means I might not have enough time to get sunsets from shore, and I'll have to plan on taking them from the docked boat.

Well, just thinking about it now, I don't think this is a good plan. They probably start the engines well ahead of departure, don't they? That would mean vibrations, and most likely no long exposures. I guess I'll have to research the departure times and find out if 8pm is the latest you can get back to the boat, or the time it departs the dock.

I love vacations.

Even with the engines off, the ship will still be running generators which will likely produce a low-frequency vibration. Don't know how bad it will be to affect photos though. Movement of the ship whilst it's docked will be insignificant though so I wouldn't worry about that at all.

Yeah, good point about the generators. People walking about the ship will cause vibrations, too. I guess I'll need to plan on taking most pics longer than 1/30th of a second or so from shore.

I've photographed 200,000 ton ore carriers when I worked for the photographic unit of a large industrial plant. I've photographed them both at steam and docked.

Even the really big ones will move slightly when in dock, but by how much depends on the sea and weather. I've got 20 second shots where the ship is dead still. I've also got shots where there was subject movement.

gibbit1,, mate, you're shooting digital, not 4x5 or medium format like I once did. A muffed shot won't cost you anything but time. Give it a go like you would normally do. You could be very pleasantly surprised

Thanks, Jurgen! I was really hoping that someone with some experience would chime in. But were you taking pictures from the ships, or of the ships? I"m sure pictures taken from land of the ship will turn out fine, but I'm worried about being on the ship and trying a longer exposure of something like a sunset. You're right, though. Nothing wasted but time.

gibbit1 wrote in post #12579091
Thanks, Jurgen! I was really hoping that someone with some experience would chime in. But were you taking pictures from the ships, or of the ships? I"m sure pictures taken from land of the ship will turn out fine, but I'm worried about being on the ship and trying a longer exposure of something like a sunset. You're right, though. Nothing wasted but time.

I have taken pics from ships, but not using long exposures.

If you can see the horizon or other static points on the dock moving, I'd say a long exposure is out.

But,, shooting points on the ship even if the ship is moving should be OK.

gibbit1 wrote in post #12550528
Thanks for your comments, everyone. We're planning on a cruise tour, where you spend 4 days on shore at both Mt. McKinley and Denali, then cruise for 6 days, stopping at two glaciers and 3 ports. So I will have some opportunities to get sunrise and sunset shots from shore. Since the ships don't leave the dock until 8pm on most nights, I'm hoping to be on shore for sunsets in at least a couple of the ports as well.

My concerns stem from lack of experience in cruising, I think. What time do you have to be back on the boat in the evening? That's a big issue. If they say you have to be back on board an hour before departure, that means I might not have enough time to get sunsets from shore, and I'll have to plan on taking them from the docked boat.

Well, just thinking about it now, I don't think this is a good plan. They probably start the engines well ahead of departure, don't they? That would mean vibrations, and most likely no long exposures. I guess I'll have to research the departure times and find out if 8pm is the latest you can get back to the boat, or the time it departs the dock.

I love vacations.

Almost all of my cruise experience comes from Royal Caribbean, and with RC the all aboard is 30 minutes prior to sailing. Also when we're on the front of the ship (for example on the helicopter pad) we never feel the rumble of the engines from the back of the ship.

Thanks, DivingPrincessE! We're using Princess, but I'd imagine they're times are the same. That should still give me time to get a few good sunsets from shore before we sail.

Ugh! Just checked the sunset times for Alaska that time of year. The sun doesn't set until about 8:45pm!!!! So much for shore shots! I guess I had better hope for a few nice sunsets while we're at Denali or Mt. McKinley.