Is local time used on Epic?

[Cruiser33713]

I read someone's post that the Epic uses local time and that they booked reservations for dinner for 8:45 and actually ate at 10:45 because the ship had changed to local time. Does anyone have any information about this?

[14ersco]

Yes the time changed on 4 days for the Western Caribbean. These changes were listed on a card that was left on your bed at turn down, but the ships time was not actually changed until the middle of the night. You could always check for the correct ship / port time by looking at the navigation channel on your TV. The navigation screen was also on deck 5 to the right of the 2 story screen.

[Mjfc]

We cruised the eastern caribbean last week and did not experiece that with our restuarant and show reservations.

[DrD]

They always change time to reflect local time. You can imagine how many people might miss the ship in a port if the ship's departure time did not correlate with local time.

 

They did all the time changes on sea days when able. You get plenty of notice and have all day to figure it out (unless you have a breakfast or early spa treatment booked.)

 

The good thing was that I hardly noticed. Yes, a couple times I ate dinner at what was a few days ago 4pm, but so what?

 

I didn't realize until I got back that for much of the cruise I was actually back on Denver time!

 

These were the time changes on our cruise:

 

First night (Saturday) turn clocks back 1 hour.

 

Sunday sea day

 

Monday night (after Costa Maya, before Roatan) turn clocks back another hour (back to Denver time!)

 

Tuesday night (after Roatan) turn clocks forward 1 hour.

 

Wednesday sea day.

 

Thursday Cozumel, Thursday night turn clocks forward another hour (back to Miami time)

 

Friday sea day.

 

so you can see the impact is minimal, you might show up early for an excursion on Roatan if you didn't get the memo but both times the clock went forward (the danger zone for missing things!) the next day was a sea day.

 

so if your stomach is punctual take these changes into account when you make reservations.

 

 

to be clear though your reservations are still at the time it says, so if it says 8pm it is at 8pm by the ship's clocks.

[orangegrove]

On our b2b the Eastern did not change times, but that was the same as island times. The Western changed as previously reported. Now, things may change once DST is over. Some islands do not change time. BE CAREFUL! All the NCL ships I have been on always changed to local island time.

[dawnmariex]

I found it interesting that if you asked what time it was when you were in port people asked you what ship you were on before answering. I asked why and they said Carnival time is different than Epic time. Epic time was always the same as the local time, and Carnival's wasn't. Even with that some people still managed to miss the ship in Cozumel! Bring a WATCH-do NOT rely on your cell phone to adjust to local time. Not all of them do correctly.

[Cruiser33713]

It's true. Carnival does not change the ship's time. They just tell people to stay on the ship's time.

[garycarla]

I read someone's post that the Epic uses local time and that they booked reservations for dinner for 8:45 and actually ate at 10:45 because the ship had changed to local time. Does anyone have any information about this?

 

Sorry, but this does not make any sense.

 

No matter what time the ship is on, 8:45 on the ship is still 8:45 on the ship. If the reservation was for 8:45, then the time in the restaurant would still be 8:45. It is not like the restaurant uses a different time than the reservation log. Local time has no bearing at all.

 

There is more to the story than this. Does not matter how many times they change the time, or what time they are on. 8:45 is still 8:45

[Single Cruiser]

I think what they meant was the person (probably ex-carnival) assumed that the ship stayed on the same time as the departure port. Thus if you didn't change your watch it would be 10:45 departure time but as you say 8:45 on the ship!

 

If people can't handle an hour or two change then don't do a TransAtlantic.

 

Went From Barbados at GMT-5 to Greece at GMT +2, so 7 days of changing the clocks!

[Cruiser33713]

I bet the person I mentioned in the first post meant that they were dining at 10:45 according to their body clock.

[MeandHer1968]

I sailed the Western on RCCL Mariner back in 06 and the Majesty in 99 and they both stayed on "ship time" the whole cruise(Reminded at EVERY port over the loud speaker). So it seems like NCL is the only one of the big 3 that change times.....

[sdmike]

Disney changed times too

 

The simple way to handle this is to check ship time on your TV before you go anywhere. I found that the phone didn't reflect the correct time in a couple of instances, so use your TV. That was always correct. I just made sure my watch corresponded with the ship time (which in this case was also local time) before I left the room for the day.