Help past Spirit cruisers

[novellaherman]

We are sailing to the Mexican Riveria aboard the Spirit on March 23,2007. We will be going to the ports of of MANZANILLO, ACAPULCO, ZIHUA/IXTAPA. I have been planning private tours in two of the cities. I never once concidered a time zone change or conflict. So my question is this........since daylight savings starts 3/11/07 will we be on the same time as the ports. I understand to set your watch to ship time and leave it there so that you get back on time but if I am telling a local that I will be arriving at 9:00 am..........will I really be or is it later or sooner. I hope that makes sense. Any advice would be very welcome

novella

[BlueJacketsFan1]

You would think that they would deal with this regularly. I would simply contact them and let them know that you will be arriving by cruise ship. I'm sure they would be able to help you out.

[carol459]

The tour operators are not blind. They can see when the ship comes in, on time or not. They will adjust and be there waiting for you. Just tell them how long you have and when you want to be back on board. They'll work with you.

Rick

[cherylandtk]

Its best just to tell the tour operators you are on ships time, and they know how that works--having done this same trip last year, I can tell you that its not the same as local time (As I recall, all the ports were actually on the same time zone as the US Mountain time--the ship starts out in Pacific time and makes several adjustments; and this year there is a new twist with Daylight time in the US starting two weeks earlier)

[Paul&Kathy]

We are just back from the Spirit and you do need to be careful about the times. We put the clocks forward one hour on the 2nd night of the cruise but were still an hour behind the local time in all 3 ports and they recommemnd you to keep your watch on ships time. In Manzanillo we took the shuttle bus into town and were told that the return ran every 30 minutes until 5pm (which made sense - we were "all aboard" for 5.30 and sailing at 6pm). About a dozen of us were waiting for the 4.30 shuttle when a tourist information lady arrived to tell us that the last shuttle had already run at 5pm local time.

 

It was not a major problem as the taxi back to the ship only cost $3 but it was an annoyance and something to be aware of. If you plan to be later back to the ship then it would probably be as cheap to take a taxi into town to begin with (the shuttle was $3 each return) - or if you are feeling energetic then walk out of the port to the main road (probably half a mile or a little more) and pick up the excellent local bus service from there - right is into town (about a couple of mles) and left runs along all the beaches to the flea market and lovely beach at Miramar at the far side of the bay (must be at least 5-6 miles) . The buses run every few minutes and cost 4.5 pesos (about 25p or 50c US) each way.

[novellaherman]

Thanks for all your help, I think I will just notify our tour guides and tell them to double check our arrival time with the port athourity. That way I won't have any brain damage trying to figure out daylight savings, ship , port, here , there time and just have fun!