Help! Apple Devices Time Not Syncing with Vista Time!

[harryw]

I’m onboard and on this first day we are at

sea and told to be one hour ahead. But

 my Apple devices including the watch has Miami time. How do I become one with the universe?

[Charles4515]

The Apple devices are using the actual time and the ship is using “ship time”. You need to change your phone time from automatic to manual in settings. 

[Benita]

We had lots of these on our Vista cruise through the Panama Canal. I kept putting in different cities to get the right time. Go to settings- then general- then date and time.  If you have it on automatic and you want to be one hour ahead of EST- change your city to Halifax, Canada. At 10am in Miami, it will be 11 am in Halifax. Don’t forget to switch the city back when you reenter EST. 
    

[harryw]

Done! Thank You! All is right with the world. And this is a beautiful ship!

[Flatbush Flyer]

45 minutes ago, harryw said:

Done! Thank You! All is right with the world. And this is a beautiful ship!

Setting your Apple device clocks to manual requires that you keep changing time zones as you traverse them. Really not necessary.

 

if you leave your iPhone on automatic time adjustment, it will eventually change zones when your reach a port and your device’s GPS pinpoints that zone (even if the device is on “airplane mode”).

Another tactic that avoids having to deal with manual time setting is to leave your clock on automatic zone setting and add your home city, embark city, and port stop cities to your device’s “world clock.” Then, when the ship says “adjust an hour” + or -, you can use your “world clock” which is showing you accurate times + or - from your home city.  (BTW, you can accurately estimate a land setting by longitude for sea days and your world clock will then display each hour change across your entire trip).
Next trip: leave click on “auto” while home and just change the listed cities to your new itinerary. 

Finally, all O ships on all itineraries use “local time” as the “ship time” (even on sea days).

[cruiserchuck]

After visiting Istanbul recently on Riviera, my iPad/Google Maps thought I was in Turkey for the rest of the cruise.  It kept bringing up Google Maps in Turkish.  Kind of a pain. 

[Flatbush Flyer]

39 minutes ago, cruiserchuck said:

After visiting Istanbul recently on Riviera, my iPad/Google Maps thought I was in Turkey for the rest of the cruise.  It kept bringing up Google Maps in Turkish.  Kind of a pain. 

If, after allowing some time for your device to lock onto a new location, all else fails in your attempts to correct it, a hard reset should work.

[basenji56]

Try doing a transatlantic cruise

 

You will need to find a matching time zone

 

On my current TA, for one day, we were on Nuuk, Greenland time. 

[CruiserFromMaine]

I turn off automatic time zone updates and manually set to ship’s time “to avoid disappointment” as the cruise lines sometimes say (usually when encouraging you to book early). 

[Charles4515]

4 minutes ago, CruiserFromMaine said:

I turn off automatic time zone updates and manually set to ship’s time “to avoid disappointment” as the cruise lines sometimes say (usually when encouraging you to book early). 

I always do the same on a cruise. Turn off automatic and set manually. It really is necessary on most cruises. 

[Flatbush Flyer]

49 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

I always do the same on a cruise. Turn off automatic and set manually. It really is necessary on most cruises. 

Not necessary on O, which uses only “local time.” Leave iPhone set to “auto” and put ports (plus “sea day” equivalent longitude cities) in your “world clock”) app. 

[Snaefell3]

7 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Setting your Apple device clocks to manual requires that you keep changing time zones as you traverse them. Really not necessary.

 

if you leave your iPhone on automatic time adjustment, it will eventually change zones when your reach a port and your device’s GPS pinpoints that zone (even if the device is on “airplane mode”).

Uhh.,.. No.

 

Ship time is set by the ship's Master.  It may or may not agree with "real" time -- I've seen ship time disagreeing with the local time at the foot of the gangway.  And it's ship time that will keep you from being a pier runner, right?

 

And that's over and above whether you have a "GPS" Apple watch or a "GPS+Cellular" one, which will time-sync differently.

[AMHuntFerry]

After all this discussion I think I'll dig out one of my gear-driven watches for my next cruise and just move the hands when I browse the next day's Currents. ⌚

[Flatbush Flyer]

6 minutes ago, Snaefell3 said:

Uhh.,.. No.

 

Ship time is set by the ship's Master.  It may or may not agree with "real" time -- I've seen ship time disagreeing with the local time at the foot of the gangway.  And it's ship time that will keep you from being a pier runner, right?

 

And that's over and above whether you have a "GPS" Apple watch or a "GPS+Cellular" one, which will time-sync differently.

I’ve got more than 500 nights across multiple cruisea in the entire fleet and, having discussed this with numerous skippers on numerous occasions, I am confident that O’s MarOps direction is “local time” only. 

 

 

 

 

direction

[harryw]

I’m reminded of the Three Stooges three watches gag. Moe asks what time is it. Larry rolls up his sleeve, reveals three watches and says to Moe: ‘The first runs 10 minutes fast every two hours. The second one runs 20 minutes slow every four hours. The one in the middle is broken and stopped at two o’clock.’ How does Larry know it’s 3:15 when Moe asks the time? He takes a working pocket watch out of his hat!  

[Snaefell3]

4 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

I’ve got more than 500 nights across multiple cruisea in the entire fleet and, having discussed this with numerous skippers on numerous occasions, I am confident that O’s MarOps direction is “local time” only.

I'm sure you're at least 99% correct.  I'll still double-check "what time does that '3pm' actually mean?" as I get off at a port of call because it's happened once, and "Making predictions is hard, especially about the future".  🙄

[Flatbush Flyer]

46 minutes ago, Snaefell3 said:

I'm sure you're at least 99% correct.  I'll still double-check "what time does that '3pm' actually mean?" as I get off at a port of call because it's happened once, and "Making predictions is hard, especially about the future".  🙄

Of course, anything is subject to change. But, my experience with the concept of ship time being anything other than local time is pretty much reserved for the low end of the industry segments (e.g., Carnival) where there’s a misguided attempt to not confuse folks with the “rocket science” of time zone changes.🤔 

[bob brown]

If you want to have the precise time on your wrist, anywhere you go, I would recommend this one.

I've had it on two ATW cruises, and it automatically sets the time zone to wherever you are in the world.

It never needs a battery, or a winding, and only needs to be outdoors to acquire its calibration from the GPS satellites, directly.  Doesn't need wifi or cellular service.

https://www.citizenwatch.com/us/en/collection/satellite-timekeeping/

 

*

 

As for "ships time"....I would agree with @Flatbush Flyer.   The problem with "ships time", is when you are trying to coordinate meeting with a private tour operator in a port of call.  They act on local time, which can cause one of you to be late or early....

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Of course, anything is subject to change. But, my experience with the concept of ship time being anything other than local time is pretty much reserved for the low end of the industry segments (e.g., Carnival) where there’s a misguided attempt to not confuse folks with the “rocket science” of time zone changes.🤔 

You are conflating two different things. They change the ship time to the port time if crossing time zones but if crossing the time zone in between ports while at sea they don’t change at the exact time crossing a time zone change. That would cause confusion if for example the time zone crossing was at 2::15 PM. They will do it usually overnight. They advise you to change clocks before going to bed. So your device if set automatically it will change when crossing the time zone but the ship has not changed yet. Time zone boundaries can be a long distance from the port location and not exactly at it. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Charles4515

[Snaefell3]

The case I was thinking of was from 2013 when the locals canceled DST on 2(?) days' notice and the ship didn't get the memo.  ...neither did Apple, Windows, or even Unix, but the local cellphone folks did.  If there had been Apple Watches back then, the "GPS" version would have incorrectly gone onto DST; the "GPS+Cellular" version would have correctly stayed on standard time.

 

Getting back aboard on time is kinda non-trivial.

[Flatbush Flyer]

4 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

You are conflating to different things. They change the ship time to the port time if crossing time zones but if crossing the time zone in between ports while at sea they don’t change at the exact time crossing a time zone change. That would cause confusion if for example the time zone crossing was at 2::15 PM. They will do it usually overnight. They advise you to change clocks before going to bed. So your device if set automatically it will change when crossing the time zone but the ship has not changed yet. Time zone boundaries can be a long distance from the port location. 

I’m not conflating anything. Using the World Clock on your iPhone with consecutive longitudinal landmark time settings remains the easiest way to coincide with the nightly instructions to “change your clock at/after midnight.” All you need to do then is to move to the next landmark on your clock.

And, of course, there are those rare occasions when a zigzag time zone will require you to look at the previous landmark time rather than the next one.

[Charles4515]

13 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

I’m not conflating anything. Using the World Clock on your iPhone with consecutive longitudinal landmark time settings remains the easiest way to coincide with the nightly instructions to “change your clock at/after midnight.” All you need to do then is to move to the next landmark on your clock.

And, of course, there are those rare occasions when a zigzag time zone will require you to look at the previous landmark time rather than the next one.

I want to look at my Apple Watch and see the time the ship is on during the day. If time on my phone is on automatic it might not match while at sea. That seems unfathomable to you. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Charles4515

[Charles4515]

39 minutes ago, Snaefell3 said:

If there had been Apple Watches back then, the "GPS" version would have incorrectly gone onto DST; the "GPS+Cellular" version would have correctly stayed on standard time.

All Apple Watches starting with series 2 which came out in late 2016 have GPS, both cellular and non cellular versions. But the time syncs with the phone. If they are not near each other then the watch uses GPS. 

Edited December 3, 2023 by Charles4515

[Snaefell3]

6 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

All Apple Watches starting with series 2 which came out in late 2016 have GPS, both cellular and non cellular versions. But the time syncs with the phone. If they are not near each other then the watch uses GPS. 

Both GPS and Cellular might or might not have incorrectly gone to DST?  Even worse than I thought.

 

Moral of the story: Be careful about exactly what that quoted all-aboard time really means.

[Charles4515]

14 minutes ago, Snaefell3 said:

Both GPS and Cellular might or might not have incorrectly gone to DST?  Even worse than I thought.

 

Moral of the story: Be careful about exactly what that quoted all-aboard time really means.

They might not have. There have been errors with DST switchover programming on Linux, Mac, Windows, IOS etc in the past and possibly the future because whereas time zones have boundaries the switchover dates are changed locally and there is no standard date. For example the US has one date, this year it ended November 5 in the US but in Europe it ended October 29. Other countries and islands have different dates. So yes be careful about the all aboard time.