Fort Lauderdale - sailing to St. Maarten. Ship time/Island time?

D

Don B

Guest
I know that the Southern Caribbean islands are 1 hour ahead of Florida. So when they show the docking / departure times from these islands on Carnival website, do they mean ship time, or island time? This is pretty important, as we have booked a private tour on our own in St Maarten, and I need to know which time to go by. If you have experienced this and know for sure, please let me know the answer.

Thanks!
 
M

Mbandy

Guest
The times posted on the website are local island time. Some ships change times to match the time zone they are in and some ships stay on the same time as the home port. Inn Costa Maya a couple of years ago Century was docked next to one of the big Carnival ships. Up on the pool deck we could easily see over to the Carnival ship. I noticed that on Century our clock above the pool bar was one hour different the the one on the Carnival ship. Century was observing local time and the Carnival ship kept theirs on "ship time".

Not sure how they decide but I was once told it was at the Captain's discretion.

I miss Costa Maya :(
 
C

Cruizer

Guest
It is my understanding the listed time is always ship time. The problem is I don't know if the ships change their time to match local time. However, every cruise I have been on, we arrived at the listed time, which is always the same as ship time. Sometimes the ships change their time to match the local time, sometimes they do not.

In Alaska the ship changed its time. In the Mexican Riviera the ship changed its time by one hour, however the first port we arrived at (both times) were two hours ahead of us.

For the Western Caribbean the ships have not changed time. In Grand Cayman when we booked a private tour, we had to convert from ship time to local time to make sure we were on time for the tour. In the Eastern Caribbean the ship did not change its time. I don't know if the islands were on eastern time or not.

Passengers are always told to keep their watches on ship time. It would be to confusing to have the passengers constantly trying to convert from ship time to local time. That would guarantee that some people miss the ship.
 
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