Time Zones

[Reed's Mom]

We (the family) are going on our first cruise in June and I've been busy doing research and reading the various posts/reviews on cruisemates and reviews on Trip Advisor. One thing I came across on Trip Advisor several times was that people said that they were early to excursions becuase they were on "ship time"? Maybe I'm overthinking this but I figured if the ship's brochure says that they dock in (for example) Cozumel at 8:00AM that that would be local time and if I had booked any excusions with outside companies that those were based on the same time. Is this not correct?

[Mike M]

Originally Posted by Reed's Mom

We (the family) are going on our first cruise in June and I've been busy doing research and reading the various posts/reviews on Cruisemates and reviews on Trip Advisor. One thing I came across on Trip Advisor several times was that people said that they were early to excursions because they were on "ship time"? Maybe I'm overthinking this but I figured if the ship's brochure says that they dock in (for example) Cozumel at 8:00AM that that would be local time and if I had booked any excursions with outside companies that those were based on the same time. Is this not correct?

I have found that the times on the itinerary are local times. When booking an excursion with a local vendor it is ALWAYS a good idea to speak directly with them and not just book online. Any decent tour provider will know the time that the ships usually dock and will be able to give you the right time for your excursion.

I have also noticed, in my last few cruises, that ships are staying with local time and having people adjust their clocks forward or backward instead of having a "ship's" time.

Take care,
Mike

[LisaK]

it all depends upon your cruise line, some switch to the local time and some do not. Its not a huge deal really because if your ship is switching to local time, it will be printed in your daily ships paper and your cabin steward usually leaves a note in your cabin

[green_rd]

Our last cruise we changed times almost nightly
Long Beach PST
Enenada PST
transition day MST
Puerto Vallerta CST
Cabo San Lucas MST
Long Beach PST

[Fern]

I was told it was up to the Captain to decide whether to go to port time or ship time. As you're leaving the ship, there will be a clock showing the ship's time. Set your watch to that and ignore any other clocks in port!

As Lisa said, you'll get a notice the night before if the time is changing and, as Mike said, any decent vendor will know the ship time.