Time-fractional parabolic equations with a Caputo time derivative are considered. For such equations, we explore and further develop the new methodology of the a-posteriori error estimation and adaptive time stepping proposed in Kopteva (2022). We improve the earlier time stepping algorithm based on this theory, and specifically address its stable and efficient implementation in the context of high-order methods. The considered methods include an L1-2 method and continuous collocation methods of arbitrary order, for which adaptive temporal meshes are shown to yield optimal convergence rates in the presence of solution singularities.