Caribbean time zones vs. ship time question

[sunseeker09]

We'll be on the Carnival Victory for a Southern Caribbean cruise in Jan. It looks like all the islands, including Puerto Ric where we start/end, are on the same time zone. Coming from Canada, we observe daylight savings time, but it looks like none of the islands we'll be visiting do.

So will be be on the same time (Puerto Rico time) through the whole cruise? We need to know for private excursions. TIA.

[kitty9]

Unfortunately there may not be a way to tell. It's all up to the Captain, and he decides whether or not to change clocks. Even ships from the same company may do different things where one may stay on the same ship's time and others will change to reflect the time zone changes.

[jsglow]

We sailed Destiny on the Southern route a couple of years back. A am confident that once onboard, we never changed our clocks during the duration of the cruise. So even if Barbados is an hour ahead, we stayed on "ship time".

 

What I don't recall is San Juan's time zone. I believe that it is either one or two hours ahead of US Eastern time. Of course, the ship's time will be the same as local time in San Juan. Anything else would be foolish. Set your watch when you land at the airport. :)

 

And just to add a thought......

 

Private tour operators are well versed in Ship Time. They understand the concept better than we do most of the time. If you need some recommendations, I'm happy to provide you with our experience on that trip.

[sunseeker09]

We sailed Destiny on the Southern route a couple of years back. A am confident that once onboard, we never changed our clocks during the duration of the cruise. So even if Barbados is an hour ahead, we stayed on "ship time".

 

What I don't recall is San Juan's time zone. I believe that it is either one or two hours ahead of US Eastern time. Of course, the ship's time will be the same as local time in San Juan. Anything else would be foolish. Set your watch when you land at the airport. :) .

 

That's what I thought too, but I'm new and I've just read so many confusing things about ship's time vs. island time. :confused:

 

And just to add a thought......

 

Private tour operators are well versed in Ship Time. They understand the concept better than we do most of the time. If you need some recommendations, I'm happy to provide you with our experience on that trip.

 

Thanks! We're doing a private tour in Dominica, where our ship doesn't get in until 10:00 and we are meeting our tour op asap after that. Also, on St. Maarten our ship gets into port at 7:00 and we've booked a private snorkel tour where we meet at 8:15. So you can see where a misunderstanding about time wouldn't be a good thing. If the islands were on different time I would think/hope they would've mentioned it.

 

I think we'll be ok and should keep to the same time giving the islands are all in the same zone and don't appear to do daylight savings time.