Is ship time the same as local time??

[jemdot]

Hi, I am sailing on the Sapphire Princess this Saturday and have just found out that they changed the PV itinerary from 8am-6pm to 10am-8pm. I didn't get any sort of notification about this! I have a ziplining reservation at 11am. My questions is, if the itinerary says it is docking at 10am, does that mean local time? (I know some ships stay on Mountain Time for the entire cruise, even though PV is Central Time) I even called the Princess customer service line and the girl didn't know. :mad: Please help!

[MSN-Travelers]

Hi, I am sailing on the Sapphire Princess this Saturday and have just found out that they changed the PV itinerary from 8am-6pm to 10am-8pm. I didn't get any sort of notification about this! I have a ziplining reservation at 11am. My questions is, if the itinerary says it is docking at 10am, does that mean local time? (I know some ships stay on Mountain Time for the entire cruise, even though PV is Central Time) I even called the Princess customer service line and the girl didn't know. :mad: Please help!

 

It has been my experience that published arrival/departure times are in port local time. If you are ziplining with Los Veranos, I would suggest you contact them immediately and push back you excursion time to noon. You might make the 11 AM time but it will be a stressful rush to get there.

 

Good luck & enjoy!

[lbfluffy]

When our ship came in at 8, we did the 11 AM Los Veranos time. But since you are coming in later, I would take the later time.

[Sharwithme]

Good Question....I have been wondering this same thing.....I will be on the Carnival Pride out of Long Beach. When the Carnival Pride states they will be in Port from 8:00-10:00 in PV. Is this posted Port Time using Pacific Time and when the boat actually pulls into the port it is going to be 10:00 Central Time? I spoke to my Carnival Rep. and he stated "The ship will always operate throughout the whole cruise, keeping time with the time zone your departing from. Therefore, your cruise will always be running on Pac. time. ". I am hoping that this is correct for there is an excursion (Pirates of the Bay) that runs from 5:00-10:30pm on Central Time that I would like to do. This being said...I should be able to do this Excurision because it would be over at 8:30pm Pacific Time - Pride Time. Can anyone confirm that indeed this is correct. That the Carnival Pride is always on Pacific Time on all their ports? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Shar

[MSN-Travelers]

Good Question....I have been wondering this same thing.....I will be on the Carnival Pride out of Long Beach. When the Carnival Pride states they will be in Port from 8:00-10:00 in PV. Is this posted Port Time using Pacific Time and when the boat actually pulls into the port it is going to be 10:00 Central Time? I spoke to my Carnival Rep. and he stated "The ship will always operate throughout the whole cruise, keeping time with the time zone your departing from. Therefore, your cruise will always be running on Pac. time. ". I am hoping that this is correct for there is an excursion (Pirates of the Bay) that runs from 5:00-10:30pm on Central Time that I would like to do. This being said...I should be able to do this Excurision because it would be over at 8:30pm Pacific Time - Pride Time. Can anyone confirm that indeed this is correct. That the Carnival Pride is always on Pacific Time on all their ports? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Shar

 

As I indicated above, the published itinerary time is generally local time at the port.

 

I've watched the Pride sail into the harbor between 0730-0745 every Wednesday that we are in Vallarta. I have the port schedule from the Puerto Vallarta Port Authority web site in front of me and Pride is listed with an 08:00 arrival and 22:00 departure.

 

Carnival doesn't have the "Pirates of the Bay" listed as a ship's excursion so I think Pride sails before the excursion ends.

[jemdot]

It has been my experience that published arrival/departure times are in port local time. If you are ziplining with Los Veranos, I would suggest you contact them immediately and push back you excursion time to noon. You might make the 11 AM time but it will be a stressful rush to get there.

 

Good luck & enjoy!

 

Thank you for your advice! I was just frantic yesterday because I tried calling Los Veranos' toll free number all day and there was no answer, but they did reply to my email this morning and was able to push back to noon.

[Sharwithme]

Thank you so much for help on this. It can get confusing........ Again.....Thanks a million !!

[mrmac]

Paul & Marilyn have helped me before as well but I would debate this time issue. We do the Mex. Riv. every year and the last few years the ships (Pride, Sapphire, Oosterdam & Ryndam) have changed clocks ahead 1 hour only and remained on Mountain time until the ports are done and then change the time back. So when we get to PV, PV time is one hour ahead of ship time. We had to adjust in November after getting off the Oosterdam and heading for Los Veranos. The ships might well be arriving early but, to the best of my knowledge, your watch time will be different from local time. Six years ago the Princess ship would have 2 time changes, one hour each night, before getting to PV. But no more.

[MSN-Travelers]

Paul & Marilyn have helped me before as well but I would debate this time issue. We do the Mex. Riv. every year and the last few years the ships (Pride, Sapphire, Oosterdam & Ryndam) have changed clocks ahead 1 hour only and remained on Mountain time until the ports are done and then change the time back. So when we get to PV, PV time is one hour ahead of ship time. We had to adjust in November after getting off the Oosterdam and heading for Los Veranos. The ships might well be arriving early but, to the best of my knowledge, your watch time will be different from local time. Six years ago the Princess ship would have 2 time changes, one hour each night, before getting to PV. But no more.

 

You're right, Mr. Mac. However, the OP (jemdot) was concerned about a change in the ship's itinerary. His ship was originally scheduled to arrive in Vallarta at 8 AM and the cruise line changed the itinerary to have the ship arrive at 10 AM. Jemdot had booked an independent tour for 11 AM and was concerned about being able to make that tour start time. He, like most people, wasn't sure if the published itinerary times were listed in local or ship's time.

 

It has been my experience, from watching the ship's come and go every day, that the published arrival and departure itinerary times are local time for the port. In this case, ship's time will likely be 9 AM when the Sapphire pulls into Vallarta at 10 AM local time.

 

I am starting to see an increasing number of itineraries change with a later arrival time at the first port-o-call. Ships use less fuel if they steam at a slower speed and this is a good example of Princess saving a few bucks on that first leg between LA and PV.

[star gazer]

I'm going to miss the early arrival in PV. It was fun watching the lights of PV and the sunrise over the mountains as the ship approached the port.

[winewanderer]

I'm still unclear about this topic in PV. Next April 29th we are in PV 10:00am-10:00pm.

 

I want to book a zipline and a massage at Krystal. I contacted the zip company and they said the 10:00am port time is local time. I e-mailed Carnival and they said 10:00am is ship time which would be differnt because it's mountain time.

 

Figured to be safe I would book the 1:00pm zipline and 6:30pm massage (already booked the massage), this way of we have the 1 hour difference it wouldn't matter as we'd have plenty of time to get to our zip excursion and massage and get back to the ship long before it sails.

 

MSN-travellers, do you think this is a good plan? Thanks, you are very helpful. I've read many of your responses to various threads.

[MSN-Travelers]

I'm still unclear about this topic in PV. Next April 29th we are in PV 10:00am-10:00pm.

 

I want to book a zipline and a massage at Krystal. I contacted the zip company and they said the 10:00am port time is local time. I e-mailed Carnival and they said 10:00am is ship time which would be differnt because it's mountain time.

 

Figured to be safe I would book the 1:00pm zipline and 6:30pm massage (already booked the massage), this way of we have the 1 hour difference it wouldn't matter as we'd have plenty of time to get to our zip excursion and massage and get back to the ship long before it sails.

 

MSN-travellers, do you think this is a good plan? Thanks, you are very helpful. I've read many of your responses to various threads.

 

You're in good shape. If I am drop dead wrong, you will arrive in Vallarta at 11 AM local and still have a comfortable two hours to get to your zipline excursion.

 

I have read so many negative reports from people that were given conflicting information about "ship's time" from cruise line personnel that I don't think they can be trusted. I would be willing to bet that you would get a different answer if you called them and asked the question again. Many customer service reps don't know what "ship's time" is.

 

38 days until we arrive for our annual visit. :)

 

Enjoy!

[winewanderer]

Paul and Marilyn,

 

Thank you so much. From many things I have read I trust you are correct that we'll arrive in PV at 11:00am local time.

 

I'll stick my plan. Thanks again.

[mrmac]

Just returned from our wonderful trip on the Ryndam and I can confirm once again that the ships only change their clocks one hour and that ships time will be one hour behind local time. So if you get in at 8am it will be 9am in PV. That does make it hard to book many independent excursions from the cruise terminal that leave at 9am so I would suggest waiting to book until arrival. There are now 3 dock spots in PV so chances are you will be docked. We were ready to get off as soon as the ship was cleared and were able to get off a little early so we made our planned but not reserved 9am excursion on the Geronimo catamaran to the Las Marietas islands. This was easily the best snorkeling we've had on the Pacific coast and the water was really warm and clear. We also saw the first 2 whales of the season as well as a jumping marlin and a sea turtle. We followed that with our couple's massage at the Krystal. It was another great day in PV. Paul and Marilyn, I hope you guys have a wonderful stay.

 

I can't believe the Sapphire needs to slow down and not arrive until 10am ships time after 2 sea days. They arrived well after we left on our excursion. Can taking 65 hours instead of 63 hours to get there really save them much money? That certainly robs some daylight from the passengers during the winter.

[winewanderer]

Mr. Mac,

 

Thanks for your post about the time differnence.

 

Also, we're on the Carnival Splendor in April. I was interested in your comment about the 10am dock time for the Saphhire.

 

The Spendor also has a dock time of 10am which I too find odd. It's our first port and we have 2 days to get there. Yes, it does rob us of precious daylight time.

 

Other cruises out of the LA area dock at 8am or 9am.

 

Oh well, we'll deal with it.

[MSN-Travelers]

Just returned from our wonderful trip on the Ryndam and I can confirm once again that the ships only change their clocks one hour and that ships time will be one hour behind local time. So if you get in at 8am it will be 9am in PV. That does make it hard to book many independent excursions from the cruise terminal that leave at 9am so I would suggest waiting to book until arrival. There are now 3 dock spots in PV so chances are you will be docked. We were ready to get off as soon as the ship was cleared and were able to get off a little early so we made our planned but not reserved 9am excursion on the Geronimo catamaran to the Las Marietas islands. This was easily the best snorkeling we've had on the Pacific coast and the water was really warm and clear. We also saw the first 2 whales of the season as well as a jumping marlin and a sea turtle. We followed that with our couple's massage at the Krystal. It was another great day in PV. Paul and Marilyn, I hope you guys have a wonderful stay.

 

I can't believe the Sapphire needs to slow down and not arrive until 10am ships time after 2 sea days. They arrived well after we left on our excursion. Can taking 65 hours instead of 63 hours to get there really save them much money? That certainly robs some daylight from the passengers during the winter.

 

Marilyn & I have just returned too. 50 degree temp difference and light snow. :rolleyes: Next trip . . . to the eastern Caribbean in March to get away from the snow (105+ inches last year).

 

Had a great time and did log ship arrivals/departures. Ships did arrive at their published times and those times did match local time. Aboard ship, the clocks may be set differently but a scheduled 8 AM arrival time did have the ships in the port at (or a little before) 8 AM with passengers off the ship in time to make their 9 AM excursions.

 

Even the NCL Star backed into the inner harbor and dropped the hook so the tender run was under a 100 yards to the dock. The port was packed on Wednesday. Two cruise ships at the docks, along with a private yacht that was too big to get into the marina, and NCL Star at anchor. 6,700+ passenger load so we booked the Sierra Madre excursion to get outa town.

 

I'm not sure what the deal is with Sapphire but she was traveling pretty slow across the bay and into the harbor last Tuesday. We had a day-sail booked with Vallarta Adventures on the 11th. Normally we push off the dock at 10 AM but our departure was delayed roughly 45 minutes to accomodate 9 passengers from the ship. We left the marina dock around 1045, motored to the port and transferred the 9 people from a small boat used to haul people between the port and their marina office for other excursions.

Sapphire was away from the dock and into the bay at 8:30 PM when we got back from dinner that night. Vallarta Adventure said they have had to adjust the start times for a number of their Tuesday excursions to accomodate the Sapphire's new itinerary.