ship time vs island time

[kasil]

I posted this on the St Thomas forum but got no answers. I'll be on Freedom in March 2016 before the clocks spring forward for daylight savings time. Florida wil be on Eastern Standard time and St Thomas will be on Atlantic Standard time. If the ship is due in port at 12 noon, will that be 1:00 on the island? Trying to plan an excursion and I just keep confusing myself. Thanks.

[Grandma Dazzles]

Realize this probably isn't much help, but your question will depend on what the captain does. It has been my personal experience that the ship stay's on ship's time when departing a specific port. Whatever time zone your departure port is ......unless changing several time zones like on a T A. They don't usually go back and forth in the Caribbean as the islands might be on different times. Ship's time usually rules.

[cb at sea]

Stop getting confused...ship's time is ALL that matters! So, if the ship gets into port at 9am, and you book a tour at 10am, you're good to go...you will stay on ship's time, no matter WHAT time it is anywhere else. Your guide knows how this works....

 

If you're doing a ship's excursion, they go by ship's time. YOU go by SHIP'S TIME....it's all that matters!!!!!

[kasil]

I understand that ship time is all that matters to cruisers, but island time is important to islanders. Since the excursion that I am looking at is private, I'm trying to get the timing straight before I go to the effort of booking the excursion. Here is the situation: ship arrives at 12 noon SHIP time. I am to meet the guide at 12:30 - I believe island time. So if 12 noon ship time is 1:00 island time, this won't work. I know I can just book an excursion with RCI, but their offerings are less appealing.

[FLACRUISER99]

I understand that ship time is all that matters to cruisers, but island time is important to islanders. Since the excursion that I am looking at is private, I'm trying to get the timing straight before I go to the effort of booking the excursion. Here is the situation: ship arrives at 12 noon SHIP time. I am to meet the guide at 12:30 - I believe island time. So if 12 noon ship time is 1:00 island time, this won't work. I know I can just book an excursion with RCI, but their offerings are less appealing.

Your private excursion provider will know what time your ship will be in port.

[Kamloops50]

I've been on Carribean cruises where time was changed to local time. It's basically up to the Captain what he/she wants to do.

[Z3r0]

My wife and I were in a similar situation when we were on a cruise last year. Any excursion you book through the cruise line will be on ship time, any excursion you book privately will be on island time. We didnt realize there was a time difference (rookies) and were late for our excursion (which we booked on our own). Fortunately for us the guys running the tour came back for us and we had an absolute blast.

 

I hope this answers your question.

 

edit:

 

It has been my experience that the ships time doesn't change, meaning if you leave Florida on EST, the ship stays on EST for the duration of the cruise. That being said, I've only been on 3 cruises, so it's not a large sample size

Edited October 28, 2015 by Z3r0
added to answer

[Dawniepoo]

This isn't really an answer to your question, but I just got off a NCL cruise and we changed the clocks back twice and then forward twice for the week. It was so confusing and I have never experienced that before. Every other cruise I've been on went by ship's time the whole trip. At least as far as I remember. :D

[Grandma Dazzles]

I understand that ship time is all that matters to cruisers, but island time is important to islanders. Since the excursion that I am looking at is private, I'm trying to get the timing straight before I go to the effort of booking the excursion. Here is the situation: ship arrives at 12 noon SHIP time. I am to meet the guide at 12:30 - I believe island time. So if 12 noon ship time is 1:00 island time, this won't work. I know I can just book an excursion with RCI, but their offerings are less appealing.

 

 

Be aware that arrival time and the time you can get off the ship are also two different things. As others have pointed out, an experienced guide will be fully aware of the ship's arrival time and should be able to accommodate meeting you.

[Clarea]

I posted this on the St Thomas forum but got no answers. I'll be on Freedom in March 2016 before the clocks spring forward for daylight savings time. Florida wil be on Eastern Standard time and St Thomas will be on Atlantic Standard time. If the ship is due in port at 12 noon, will that be 1:00 on the island? Trying to plan an excursion and I just keep confusing myself. Thanks.

Royal says the times published in the itinerary are port times.

[_RaveN_]

Just to go against what many other people have experienced, in the 2 cruises we went on last year (Independence and Vision), both adjusted for local time. So ship time was local time....I find this very confusing when booking private excursions as I never know if the ship will stay on the time they left their home port on or if they'll adjust as they cross time zones. I wish there was a standard!!!

So basically, I'm no help in answering your question, but just be aware that it can be either way. I usually try for excursions that would fit with either scenario, but sometimes that's not possible. This time, thankfully, ship time is the same time zone (DST will have ended) as the ports we're visiting.

[Clarea]

... I wish there was a standard!!!....

There is a standard. Royal says their published itineraries (not what is printed in the Cruise Compass) are based on local time. So if you are coordinating with local excursion people, look at the published itinerary.

[_RaveN_]

Good to know! Now this "Published Itinerary", is that the one we see when looking up our cruise and on the Royal Caribbean website and on our docs, or somewhere else?

I have always had ship time match port time so I guess I never saw this difference. I often see posts where people say that their ship didn't change for the time zone, so I guess I assumed that meant that the time they arrived in port didn't match the original itinerary.

[cruisin4thedeepblue]

There is a standard. Royal says their published itineraries (not what is printed in the Cruise Compass) are based on local time. So if you are coordinating with local excursion people, look at the published itinerary.

 

Correct. We have been on over 25 cruises on different cruise lines but 5 on RCCL and we always have changed the ships clocks to match the island times.

Every single time. So when the ship did change time zones we would fall back or spring forward. They would always give you reminder card at turn down.

[kasil]

Royal says the times published in the itinerary are port times.

 

Where can I find this in writing?

[marys350]

There is a standard. Royal says their published itineraries (not what is printed in the Cruise Compass) are based on local time. So if you are coordinating with local excursion people, look at the published itinerary.

 

Bob,

I'm wondering the source of this information, whether it was in writing from Royal Caribbean or verbally from one of their service representatives. I have a port stop in Grand Cayman in April with a published itinerary time of 8:00-4:00. I had heard that ship time on Freedom of the Seas will stay on Florida's Eastern daylight time, while Grand Cayman will be on Eastern Standard time, since they don't observe daylight savings time. That would mean that we would be in port 7:00-3:00 local time. I just made a reservation for a private excursion and the vendor said that Freedom's ship time would be one hour later than local time so that I would be off the ship in time. I hope that this information that I received is correct. Can anybody who has done this itinerary in April share their experience?

[Terre]

Your private excursion provider will know what time your ship will be in port.

 

Listen to FLACRUISER...he or she knows what they are talking about. We always use private tour companies and they all know what time the ship comes in. The time they give you is after the ship docks...ship's time. You just have to remember what time is ship's time if you are shopping or in a bar; you don't want to miss the ship! I always keep my watch set to ship's time unless they tell us to change to local time. Don't go by your cell phone because it will change to local time.

 

If the ship changes to local time they will make announcement for you to change your watch.

Edited October 31, 2015 by Terre

[TxKroozer]

Another vote for the answer being it depends upon the Ship's Captain for most cruises which may only cross one time zone. We have been on a large number of RCCL cruises and it always depends on the Captain. In some cases they switch and other cases they don't.

 

I also agree that your best action for independent shore excursions is to let the operator know your ship and the quoted ship arrival time and agree to meeting the tour 30 minutes or and hour after that arrival. As noted, the tour operator will know when the ship is arriving per his or her own island time.

 

You can be sure though if your cruise goes across many time zones they will change. We did the Mexico to Hawaii and Hawaii to Sydney where we changed time daily to make up the five hour difference. Even lost a day crossing the International Date Line too.