What time is it?

We are going on a South Pacific Cruise and the ship arrives in Vila at 12 pm. Is that midnight or midday. Tried googling it and both answers comes up. So has anyone been on this cruise and arrived at 12 pm.

It's noon.

I agree, that would be midday.

I saw a sail away time booked for Sydney I think, it was listed as 11:59pm. (ie middle of the night)

I'm guessing they listed it as that to avoid this exact confusion your seeing. If they said 12:00pm or 12:00am then it is easy to be exactly 12 hours out. And that doesn't help the tugs, port authority, tides, terminal, passengers etc!

So maybe it would be better if the cruise line listed arrival at Vila as 11:50am - and then you would know for sure it was in the middle of the day when the sun was up etc.

But to answer your question 12pm is Midday. 12am is the middle of the night, right next to 12:01am. etc

Hope that helps a bit Max! Amazing how it's the simple things that can be so annoying ... I hope you have a great trip!

I also think another reason ships sometimes leave at 11.59 pm is to avoid another day's berth fees. :D We left right on time from Auckland just before midnight once. When you go ashore they always announce and post the time you have to be back on board and it is at least half an hour before the departure time.

It would avoid all the confusion if they used the 24 hour clock i.e. 12 noon = 1200 hrs and 12 midnight = 2400 hrs.

Then again, I suppose there are many amongst us who have no idea about the 24 hour clock but a lot of us (including me) spent all of our working lives using this time.

John

It would avoid all the confusion if they used the 24 hour clock i.e. 12 noon = 1200 hrs and 12 midnight = 2400 hrs.

Only thing is, it's actually 0000!

OTOH, if people use that it's still confusing if they haven't said they're using it since when you see just "1200", your not sure if that's AM or PM...