International Date Line - Crossing West Bound... Time Change

[Von & John]

We will be cruising Vancouver to Tokyo in September. We are not sure how the ship handles the time change for the crossing of the International Date Line West Bound. If you are flying - you lose a day... What happens when you are sailing? If you have experienced this - can you let us know?

 

Thanks in Advance -- Von & John

[CruiserBruce]

Perhaps asking on the board for the cruise line involved would be far more appropriate.

[lisiamc]

We’ve done it on two different cruise lines, and they’ve done it the same way. We had all the time changes as we went across, then the day change as we crossed the dateline. So going west we lost an hour a day for 9 days, and gained a day. Eastbound, we gained an hour a day for 9 days to make the 9 hours, then lost a day. (I’m not sure it was 9 days in a row, it might have taken 11 or 12 days to get all the changes made.)

 

Losing a day isn’t too bad, but we had 2 Friday the 13ths when we gained a day! It was a challenge booking dinner in the speciality restaurant. “Which Friday the 13th do you want?”

:D

 

Losing 9 hours made us miss a lot of breakfasts. Gaining 9 hours was nearly as bad the other way! We became really early risers, unusual for us, for me especially. All fun, though.

[zqvol]

It works exactly the same when sailing across the dateline as it does when flying, except that wth flying it happens more quickly.

[Floridiana]

On our upcoming HAL cruise, we lose an hour per day crossing the northern Pacific. Maybe they jump two hours ahead, I don't know yet. On other ships on different cruises, they always did an hour a day on the ocean passages and the time of the country in ports.

On the way back we get one day twice because Samoa is in the western time zone and American Samoa is in the eastern time zone which has the same date as the USA..

[Kartgv]

On all cruise lines the daily newsletter will clearly define time and date changes the night before. On one cruise we crossed the date line 4 times in the South Pacific, so everyone quit worrying about what day it was and just tried to get the time right with ship time. The only thing that got really confusing for people was booking private tours - they had to make sure they booked for the right date for each port. As I recall, we skipped Oct. 31 (Halloween) but celebrated anyway.

[crzndeb]

In simplest terms, using random days and dates, you go to bed on Tues Sept 5 and get up on Thurs Sep 7 ( although the actual crossing can happen at any time). But that’s it in a nutshell.

 

I have done it twice from the West coast to Sydney, Australia.

[lisiamc]

We’ve done it on two different cruise lines, and they’ve done it the same way. We had all the time changes as we went across, then the day change as we crossed the dateline. So going west we lost an hour a day for 9 days, and gained a day. Eastbound, we gained an hour a day for 9 days to make the 9 hours, then lost a day. (I’m not sure it was 9 days in a row, it might have taken 11 or 12 days to get all the changes made.)

 

Losing a day isn’t too bad, but we had 2 Friday the 13ths when we gained a day! It was a challenge booking dinner in the speciality restaurant. “Which Friday the 13th do you want?”

:D

 

Losing 9 hours made us miss a lot of breakfasts. Gaining 9 hours was nearly as bad the other way! We became really early risers, unusual for us, for me especially. All fun, though.

 

Oops, I’m a bit dyslexic. Going east, we lost hours and gained a day, and going west, we gained hours and lost a day. Sorry about the confusion. I knew what I meant, but that doesn’t help!

 

At any rate, we liked it so much that we’re going to do it again next year. It’s a great cruise in either direction if you enjoy sea days.

[Heidi13]

Departing Vancouver you are heading North & West. I assume you will visit Alaska enroute to Tokyo, so between Vancouver & Ketchikan (or first AK port) the clox will move back 1 hr normally at 02:00. Therefore, you get 1 hr extra sleep. Departing Alaska, about every 2nd night clox will again go back 1 hour at 02:00, so you gain an extra hour sleep on many nights.

 

At the date line, the clox theoretically zoom forward 24 hrs. Regardless of when the ship actually crosses the dateline, this is normally applied at midnight. Therefore, if you go to bed on say Monday evening, you wake up Wednesday morning.

 

After the date line, clox will continue to be moved back some nights until the ship has reached Tokyo time.

 

If you decide to head in an Easterly direction, the clox are put forward, so you loose an hours sleep; however, one Trans-Atlantic crossing the Captain elected to move clox forward at Noon rather than 02:00, so no sleep was lost.

[Von & John]

Perhaps asking on the board for the cruise line involved would be far more appropriate.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, posted there as well. Started w/ the general question - as there are fewer International Date Line Crossings than Transatlantic sailings...

[Von & John]

Oops, I’m a bit dyslexic. Going east, we lost hours and gained a day, and going west, we gained hours and lost a day. Sorry about the confusion. I knew what I meant, but that doesn’t help!

 

At any rate, we liked it so much that we’re going to do it again next year. It’s a great cruise in either direction if you enjoy sea days.

 

Thanks for the response & correction ;p

[Von & John]

Thanks All!!! Looking forward to our trip. Yes - we are hitting Alaska & Russia along the way...