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Oasis Ship Time vs Island Time?

bre

By bre,
in Royal Caribbean International

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leaveitallbehind

leaveitallbehind

Posted
Posted (edited)
Just trying to finalize excursions. Yay!!! But was wondering, if the ship goes off ship time or is it Island Time for it's itinerary?

 

A very frequently asked question - and the answer is that it depends. The Captain has sole discretion over whether or not the ship remains on ship time or local time when visiting ports of call that are in a different time zone.

 

If he remains on ship time it may be to maintain the same time for the ships operations schedule. If he decides to change to local time it may be for the convenience of the passengers and ship sponsored excursions.

 

What seems pretty likely is that the same Captain will use the same time on repeat itineraries, but that is not assured. So you can ask for the experience of recent cruisers on your ship and itinerary to see what has been done in the past. But that is not a guarantee of what will be done on your cruise.

 

Others mention that the published time on the RCI's website itineraries are the local times - which likely is true. But I don't know if that will necessarily assure the same ship time in port.

 

The good news is that the local operators in port understand this and typically schedule enough time around your pick up and return time to assure no issues regardless of what time the ship is on. I would also think that ship sponsored operators will be notified of the proper time to use and will adjust their times accordingly if need be.

 

Also, the time for each port will be shown on the ships clocks, in the Cruise Compass, announced by the CD, and posted as you exit the ship and arrive on the pier so that there will be no question as to what the correct time to follow would be in that port of call.

Edited by leaveitallbehind
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bre

bre

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A very frequently asked question - and the answer is that it depends. The Captain has sole discretion over whether or not the ship remains on ship time or local time when visiting ports of call that are in a different time zone.

 

If he remains on ship time it may be to maintain the same time for the ships operations schedule. If he decides to change to local time it may be for the convenience of the passengers and ship sponsored excursions.

 

What seems pretty likely is that the same Captain will use the same time on repeat itineraries, but that is not assured. So you can ask for the experience of recent cruisers on your ship and itinerary to see what has been done in the past. But that is not a guarantee of what will be done on your cruise.

 

Others mention that the published time on the RCI's website itineraries are the local times - which likely is true. But I don't know if that will necessarily assure the same ship time in port.

 

The good news is that the local operators in port understand this and typically schedule enough time around your pick up and return time to assure no issues regardless of what time the ship is on. I would also think that ship sponsored operators will be notified of the proper time to use and will adjust their times accordingly if need be.

 

Also, the time for each port will be shown on the ships clocks, in the Cruise Compass, announced by the CD, and posted as you exit the ship and arrive on the pier so that there will be no question as to what the correct time to follow would be in that port of call.

 

Yes! Thank you for your quick response. NOW can someone who has recently sailed on the Oasis, tell me if they change to local time when they port? Why I ask, is because I am looking at booking the VI Ecotours on St Thomas. But their site, says the tour begins at 9:30 am. But the itinerary for the Oasis per RCI site, states that we don't dock until 10 am. Just thought it was silly that a company would have an excursion begin, before one of the largest ships are even in port.

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nolesrule

nolesrule

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Posted (edited)

Itinerary times posted on the website and in the cruise docs are in local time for each port.

 

Ship's time is only relevent while on the ship or when trying not get left behind by the ship at a port.

 

 

Excursions like the one being discussed in this thread won't be listed in ship's time, because there might be multiple ships in port that day, and they won't all have the same ship's time.

Edited by nolesrule
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nolesrule

nolesrule

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Most ships will be on island because of the excursions. The only cruise line I've heard that stays on ship time is Carnival in the Caribbean and Mexivan Rivera (west coast) .

 

This is the kind of statement that can confuse someone.

 

All ships are on ship's time at all times. Whether there is a time change or not on a ship, it is still ship's time.

 

Don't confuse ship's time with the local time at the port of departure.

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nolesrule

nolesrule

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Allure Eastern and Oasis Western never went off of ship time. Always check your watch (I take backups). Don't rely on cell phone clock.

 

Cell phones are just fine as long as you don't turn on the cell service once you depart the original port :-)

 

 

And again, there's no such thing as a ship going off or away from ship's time. Ship's time is ship's time, no matter if it gets adjusted during the cruise.

Edited by nolesrule
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S.A.M.J.R.

S.A.M.J.R.

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The ship is always on ships time and it us up to the captain as to whether he adjusts the ship time to match the local time. Some do and some don't.

Of course, this doesn't matter when planning 3rd party excursions. RCI's website says Oasis will dock in Cozumel for an upcoming cruise at 10am. So can you book a 3rd party excursion for 10am? In the planning stages, it doesn't matter WHAT the captain will do.

 

Going against the "times on the website are local time for the island"...

 

1) On our June 2013 Oasis cruise, we were scheduled for arrival at 8am SHIP time. However, Cozumel was an hour behind. That's what's listed in Compass.

2) I've been in contact with a 3rd party operator for our upcoming Freedom cruise. I told them when Freedom is supposed to be in port (according to the RCI website) and the operator said that will be an hour prior island time. I'm assuming the tour operators know what time the ships are in.

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nolesrule

nolesrule

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Posted
Of course, this doesn't matter when planning 3rd party excursions. RCI's website says Oasis will dock in Cozumel for an upcoming cruise at 10am. So can you book a 3rd party excursion for 10am? In the planning stages, it doesn't matter WHAT the captain will do.

 

Going against the "times on the website are local time for the island"...

 

1) On our June 2013 Oasis cruise, we were scheduled for arrival at 8am SHIP time. However, Cozumel was an hour behind. That's what's listed in Compass.

2) I've been in contact with a 3rd party operator for our upcoming Freedom cruise. I told them when Freedom is supposed to be in port (according to the RCI website) and the operator said that will be an hour prior island time. I'm assuming the tour operators know what time the ships are in.

 

Times listed in the Compass are ship's time.

 

Times listed in the itinerary tab for a specific sailing on the RCI website AND in the Cruise Documents delivered to you 7 weeks prior to sailing are the local time that the ship is expected to dock at the port.

 

I detailed this out in another thread, but last year I went to Cozumel twice out of Tampa. One time ship's time changed to match Cozumel time, the other time, ship's time stayed the same as Tampa time. On the cruise where the time changed on the ship, the cruise docs/website itinerary matched both ship's time and Cozumel time. On the cruise where the time on the ship did not change, the cruise docs/website itinerary time did NOT match the ship's time, but it did match Cozumel time.

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S.A.M.J.R.

S.A.M.J.R.

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Posted

Times listed in the itinerary tab for a specific sailing on the RCI website AND in the Cruise Documents delivered to you 7 weeks prior to sailing are the local time that the ship is expected to dock at the port.

THAT's what needs to be pointed out. Other posters did.

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