Interesting Approach to Daylight Saving Time

[BamaVol]

We just got back from a Panama Canal cruise on Caribbean Princess.  We had a couple time changes during the cruise.  The first was to and from Costa Rica.  We changed from Eastern to Central time overnight and then back the following evening.  The second was the change from standard to daylight saving.  The US made that change Saturday night.  For the ship, that would have led to chaos, as Sunday was our disembarkation day.  So, the ship time “sprung ahead” a day early.  That way, we did not lose an hour the night before disembarkation.

 

Bravo to Princess for figuring this out.

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, BamaVol said:

We changed from Eastern to Central time overnight and then back the following evening.

It bugs me when Princess makes two time changes for one day worth.  Can't adults figure out for one day when they need to be back to the ship on ship time and not the port time?  Seems like a lot of disruption for not much benefit.

[cruisingrob21]

Interesting, I was wondering how the transition would work on a cruise spanning several time zones.

 

Some of the time zone tricks the ships have to do are interesting.  I haven't been to Puerto Vallarta in a while but I recall that Princess thought it was simpler to stay in mountain time rather than switch to central time (even thought PV is in central time).  The issue is that the time zone boundary is 3 miles from the dock so they have a sign at the gangplank telling you that local time is 1 hour later than ship time.  I suppose that reduces the likelyhood of folks being late to the ship .

[Thrak]

2 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Can't adults figure out for one day when they need to be back to the ship on ship time and not the port time? 

 

Okay... Have you actually met many people who are competent? I worked for the State and common sense (or general knowledge for that matter) was not in great abundance. Sadly, it seems that the majority of people are pretty clueless. I'm pretty sure that those who couldn't figure it out would scream about Princess screwing them over.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Thrak
typo

[DallasGuy75219]

3 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Can't adults figure out for one day when they need to be back to the ship on ship time and not the port time?

Simply, no.

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

Okay... Have you actually met many people who are competent? I worked for the State and common sense (or general knowledge for that matter) was not in great abundance. Sadly, it seems that the majority of people are pretty clueless. I'm pretty sure that those who couldn't figure it out would scream about Princess screwing them over.

 

2 hours ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

Simply, no.

Well, then, how are they competent enough to change their watches?

[DallasGuy75219]

2 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

 

Well, then, how are they competent enough to change their watches?

They have smartphones and smart watches....  which they leave a set to automatically update time zones while on a cruise, so they still wind up getting themselves in trouble by being at least an off hour at some point(s) in the cruise.

[Thrak]

2 hours ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

They have smartphones and smart watches....  which they leave a set to automatically update time zones while on a cruise, so they still wind up getting themselves in trouble by being at least an off hour at some point(s) in the cruise.

 

My smart phone has told me I am in Paris when I was in the middle of the Panama Canal. Sometimes the phones aren't as smart as we would like them to be. Also, there are a lot of people who either stick their phones in the safe on a cruise and, even if they take them out at a port stop the phones don't have a data plan for the area and are in airplane mode so don't update the time. Many other people simply don't own a smart phone.

 

I don't understand why people have a problem with the way Princess handled the time change. What is the real problem?

[caribill]

2 hours ago, DallasGuy75219 said:

They have smartphones and smart watches....  which they leave a set to automatically update time zones while on a cruise, so they still wind up getting themselves in trouble by being at least an off hour at some point(s) in the cruise.

Ship time may not (and usually does not) change as you enter a new time zone.

 

Any automated updating can have your timepiece with a time different than the ship has.

[caribill]

8 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

Can't adults figure out for one day when they need to be back to the ship on ship time and not the port time?  Seems like a lot of disruption for not much benefit.

 

One source of confusion is when you have booked an independent excursion.

 

If the vendor says it will start at 9:30 AM, you wonder is that 9:30 AM ship time or port time.

 

In other words, does the vendor know what ship time will be or not?

 

Best that local time and ship time be the same for port calls.

 

And even if you know that ship time is an hour different from port time, you must be sure if it is an hour earlier or an hour later.

[DallasGuy75219]

2 minutes ago, Thrak said:

 

My smart phone has told me I am in Paris when I was in the middle of the Panama Canal. Sometimes the phones aren't as smart as we would like them to be. Also, there are a lot of people who either stick their phones in the safe on a cruise and, even if they take them out at a port stop the phones don't have a data plan for the area and are in airplane mode so don't update the time. Many other people simply don't own a smart phone.

On my last cruise (Royal Carribean) I'm seated for MDR dinner and another couple gets seated near me.  They're on the verge of livid because it's not at the table and in the server's section they had a reservation for all week, telling the MDR supervisor that management is incompetent, doesn't know what they're doing, etc. because someone else is at their reserved table.

 

Why? He pulls his phone out and shows me it's 7:10 and says he was even early for his 7:30 reservation.  I tell him no, it's 8:10; your phone updated the time zone to our last port, meanwhile the ship stayed on Miami time so you're actually 40 minutes late and that's the reason they gave your table away.

[DallasGuy75219]

17 minutes ago, caribill said:

Any automated updating can have your timepiece with a time different than the ship has.

That was my point.

 

11 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

One source of confusion is when you have booked an independent excursion.

 

If the vendor says it will start at 9:30 AM, you wonder is that 9:30 AM ship time or port time.

 

In other words, does the vendor know what ship time will be or not?

Not always.  Someone posted to CC that they were on a B2B... same ship, same itinerary, same Captain.  One week ship time changed for local time and the other week it didn't. 

 

Most independent excursions show times in local time with a warning that ship time may not be the same and to check with Guest Services if there's any doubt whatsoever about whether there's a time difference. 

[Steelers36]

7 hours ago, caribill said:

If the vendor says it will start at 9:30 AM, you wonder is that 9:30 AM ship time or port time.

It is totally logical to me that the excursion vendor will be using their local time.  Wouldn't expect them to know or care what time each cruise ship that calls in their port is using.  I understand the ship makes it simpler for people to know what time it is, but we travelers should also be aware of the local time where we are going.

[caribill]

7 hours ago, caribill said:

 

If the vendor says it will start at 9:30 AM, you wonder is that 9:30 AM ship time or port time.

 

3 minutes ago, Steelers36 said:

It is totally logical to me that the excursion vendor will be using their local time.  Wouldn't expect them to know or care what time each cruise ship that calls in their port is using.  I understand the ship makes it simpler for people to know what time it is, but we travelers should also be aware of the local time where we are going.

 

I guess I did not phrase it properly.

 

Yes, the vendor will be using local time.

 

But when you want to book the excursion weeks or more before the cruise, you do not know if the ship will be using local time and thus cannot always be sure the ship will dock before the start of the excursion.

 

I can always be aware of local time before a cruise, but I cannot always be aware of what ship time will be in every port before as cruise.

[Steelers36]

3 minutes ago, caribill said:

 

 

I guess I did not phrase it properly.

 

Yes, the vendor will be using local time.

 

But when you want to book the excursion weeks or more before the cruise, you do not know if the ship will be using local time and thus cannot always be sure the ship will dock before the start of the excursion.

 

I can always be aware of local time before a cruise, but I cannot always be aware of what ship time will be in every port before as cruise.

Ahh.  I see. 

 

Well I guess we know Princess publishes itineraries using local time.  From experience, we expect the ship will be on local time as well.  But, be prepared for an unexpected change in what the ship does I suppose.  What the ship does is irrelevant as long as one knows the actual local time.

 

And, the experienced guest also knows that reputable excursion vendors are on top of the port schedules and make any required adjustments if ship time in port changes.

 

Suffice to say it may be hard on the body to make a lot of time changes in a short period, but it does remove any confusion between ship and port.

 

[BamaVol]

Having booked an excursion in Costa Rica with an independent provider, I appreciated the time change to match local time for that day.  One less detail to be concerned about.  I handle time changes just fine.  I’m retired and I go to bed when I’m tired and get up when I’m refreshed and most things in my calendar are flexible.  I let my phone tell me what time it is and it’s usually correct.

 

We did run into three time flubs last week.  1.  The fitness center had a schedule that didn’t match the one in the patter.  Mrs BV missed the first yoga session as a result.  2.  The clocks on the walking/jogging track were all different …. And wrong. 3.  I manually set my phone to Halifax (Atlantic?) to handle the early daylight saving time change.  When we got to port and I exited airplane mode, it corrected for DST and I was an hour ahead of Ft Lauderdale EDT.  I figured it out somewhere on Floridas Turnpike and fixed it.

[Thrak]

10 hours ago, BamaVol said:

We did run into three time flubs last week.  1.  The fitness center had a schedule that didn’t match the one in the patter.  Mrs BV missed the first yoga session as a result.  2.  The clocks on the walking/jogging track were all different …. And wrong. 3.  I manually set my phone to Halifax (Atlantic?) to handle the early daylight saving time change.  When we got to port and I exited airplane mode, it corrected for DST and I was an hour ahead of Ft Lauderdale EDT.  I figured it out somewhere on Floridas Turnpike and fixed it.

 

I never trust a "deck clock" as they have pretty much always been incorrect when I've bothered to look at them. I don't always trust the phone to update properly on the ship. At home and around the US it works fine but onboard ships it sometimes messes up. For port time and such I have an old school approach - I wear a watch and set it manually whenever there is a time change.

[caribill]

3 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

I never trust a "deck clock" as they have pretty much always been incorrect when I've bothered to look at them. I don't always trust the phone to update properly on the ship. At home and around the US it works fine but onboard ships it sometimes messes up.

 

The best place I have found to look for current ship time is on the display on the cabin telephone.

[Roberto256]

4 hours ago, caribill said:

 

The best place I have found to look for current ship time is on the display on the cabin telephone.

Who is this guy "Pax Cabin", and why is his name always on my phone ?

[RNRcruisers]

The Costa Rica time change was confusing for us. I wasn't sure if my phone would change automatically and we had an excursion and my phone is my alarm. So I kept waking up all night to check my phone against my watch (luckily not a smart watch). It did not so I changed my alarm to get us up at the right time without the change. Then to make sure I had it right, in the morning when we got up I checked the TV (thinking it would be correct) and it had also not changed. Some of our group assumed this was the correct time and went to breakfast in the MDR but it hadn't opened yet.

 

My phone updated itself in port and then didn't correct itself until the next port.

 

[caribill]

48 minutes ago, RNRcruisers said:

The Costa Rica time change was confusing for us. I wasn't sure if my phone would change automatically and we had an excursion and my phone is my alarm. So I kept waking up all night to check my phone against my watch (luckily not a smart watch). It did not so I changed my alarm to get us up at the right time without the change.

 

 

I always use the cabin phone to set up a wake up call from the ship. That call has always been at the correct ship time.

[caribill]

6 hours ago, Roberto256 said:

Who is this guy "Pax Cabin", and why is his name always on my phone ?

 

Pax Cabin is part of the Medallion effort to keep track of your every movement and, like Alexa, listens to your every spoken word so it not only knows where you are, but where you plan to be..

[JimmyVWine]

On 3/14/2023 at 1:41 AM, Thrak said:

My smart phone has told me I am in Paris when I was in the middle of the Panama Canal.

To many, they're both the Seine.

 

As to people figuring out timing issues:  The second most asked question in Disney World's Magic Kingdom (second only to "Where is the nearest restroom)?  What times does the 3:00 Parade start?