Question about Port Time VS Ship Time

We will be in Belize on the Carnival Magic from 8am-5pm. I'm trying to figure out what kind of time frame we will have in Belize for an excursion...if the excursion starts at 9am Belize time, does that mean its 11am ship time? And if we get back at 3pm, that's 5pm ship time? The last tender leaves at 4:15pm, so getting back to port at 5pm will obviously not work...I feel like I am the only one who has had problems or worries about this! Does anyone have any insight or past experience with this?

The tour operators know the ships schedules and unless the excursion was not meant to include people from the ships they will get you back on time. That said, independent operators will general list their excursions with local times unless specifying ships time.

If the ship's time and the port time are different, keep your watch on ship's time when you are ashore.

We will be in Belize on the Carnival Magic from 8am-5pm. I'm trying to figure out what kind of time frame we will have in Belize for an excursion...if the excursion starts at 9am Belize time, does that mean its 11am ship time? And if we get back at 3pm, that's 5pm ship time? The last tender leaves at 4:15pm, so getting back to port at 5pm will obviously not work...I feel like I am the only one who has had problems or worries about this! Does anyone have any insight or past experience with this?

What is the date of your sailing? Belize does not recognize daylight savings time, so depending on when you sail, ship time will be either 1 hour ahead of local (Standard Time) or two hours ahead (Daylight Savings Time).

What is the date of your sailing? Belize does not recognize daylight savings time, so depending on when you sail, ship time will be either 1 hour ahead of local (Standard Time) or two hours ahead (Daylight Savings Time).

We will be in Belize May 23rd, 2018

We will be in Belize May 23rd, 2018

You are correct. If the tour gets back at 3PM Belize time it will be 5PM ship time.

People are always telling people not worry, that tour operators know when the ship will leave. But a lot of these operators are not just catering to cruise passengers and you need to know ahead of time what the time difference is. They might have people on the tour that are staying at local hotels. They just give the time there. In this case this tour is not doable for you. You need to find something else.

Exactly, some excursions are intended primarily for hotel guests, others primarily for cruise ship passengers.

So you will need to do more investigation as to whether this is a cruise excursion or not.

Good luck.

I always use the following website to calculate the time difference when booking independent excursions. Might be helpful for you as well: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

WOW, thanks for this thread OP! I hadn't even thought to see if the ports follow daylight savings time or not. I've got a while before we our cruise, so off to research so more I go!