Ship's Time?

[shmoggy]

Can anyone explain to me what time ship time is? Does the time change according to the port you are in, or are you always on the time of the home port? I bought a watch to wear specifically for the cruise, because I hate wearing a watch in real life and I just want to make sure we always know what time it is!

 

Thanks!

[buddyjo143]

When you are sailing from ports on the East coast (EST) going to Mexico, say, they are an hour behind the time of the ship, same with some of the other islands you will visit.

 

The ship will tell you to stay on ship time so that you don't ask a taxi driver or vendor what time it is and think that you have an extra hour when in reality you are late :eek:

 

This is especially important to remember now that we have gone to daylight saving time.

[2PinaColadas]

From what I understand, you stay on the time you are at in the original port. For example, if you leave from Miami you stay on eastern time, if you leave from New Orleans, you stay on central time etc...

 

Have fun on your first cruise. Once is all it takes to get hooked.

[rsjc]

ships time has always been the time from the home port on the cruise we've gone on.

[DavidandPaula]

On our cruise in July on Freedom the time was always the local time and announcements were made backed up with notices in Capers about changing your watches.

 

Times for excursions were local times also.

 

We changed our watches but I left my mobile on home time throughout the trip to make sure I did not make phones calls or send text messages at really bad times.

 

David

[LarryR]

It depends on the ship - and possibly even which set of ports are being visited. For what is generically called Western Caribbean, ship's time may or may not follow local time. Two examples:

(1) Carnival Liberty, on its Feb 16, 2008 cruise to Cozumel, Costa Rica and Panama: ship's time changed to match local time. This was prominently stated in Capers. I was on this cruise and can verify this.

(2) Carnival Legend, on its Feb 17, 2008 cruise to Cayman Islands, Cozumel, Belize and Honduras: ship's time did NOT match local time, as stated in Capers. I was not on this cruise, but someone else verified the correctness of Capers.

 

Lots of fun!

 

p.s.: Don't count on Carnival's help line, either. They gave me the wrong answer when I asked.