A cruise passenger who just got off the ship is warning others about a critical issue about being on time.
Cruise vacations are unlike other types of vacations for a myriad of reasons. You wake up in a different place every morning, you live in a cashless society, and you can typically eat from dozens of venues for no extra cost.
But the most important rule of cruising is being on time. This is especially true when visiting a port of call and making sure you’re actually on “ship time”.
As veteran cruisers know, the cruise ship will often have a slightly different time than the destination the ship is visiting. And for people who always rely on their phones to give them the time, this could lead to a big headache.
A recent passenger on Carnival Horizon took to Reddit to post a PSA warning with a post title that read “Always ensure you are paying attention to the correct ship time”.
“I’ve been on multiple cruises before. I’ve heard the CD make mentions of ship time,etc but I never had to really pay attention. My phone has always stayed on the standard ship time. No problem,” the user stated.
“Well, just got off the horizon, and on the morning of our Jamaica port, both my wife and I phone times went back an hour. We didn’t notice it until we were already off ship. Apparently, it didn’t just happen to us, a couple people were left at the pier, a fairly large group of people made it on board just barely in time. And I heard from multiple people who missed their excursions completely due to the time confusion.”
The convenience of a phone automatically adjusting to local time can quickly turn into a major inconvenience for cruise travelers not aware of the time discrepancy.
I’ve been on many cruises where my phone adjusted the time to something different from ship time as well. This is why I usually like to wear an “old school” watch that I can set to ship time and use that as my compass.
While cruise passengers should try to make it back to the ship well before the “all aboard” time anyway, relying on the wrong time could lead to a very expensive addition to the travel budget.
After all, this requires making your own travel arrangements to meet back up with the ship at the next port of call.
This would not be the first or last time someone has been left at the pier because they relied on their phones to give them the correct time.
Wrong Time On Board Can Mess with Plans Too
But for this cruise passenger it was more of an annoyance than a vacation nightmare.
“Funnily enough, we missed out on dinner that night due to the timing issues. Once back in our room, the wife and I showered and took a nice long winter’s nap. Woke up at “8” to get dressed very quickly for dinner. Tried to check in on the hub app, only to find out that check-in was now closed. Idk how we forgot that our phones got switched away from ship time, but due to that mistake we were stuck with the deli line for dinner,” the user stated.
The post concluded with the simple warning, “Don’t depend only on your phone to keep up with time while in port.”
Experienced cruisers in the comment section offered a few words of advice for passengers in the same boat. One suggested, “you can turn off that feature of your phone that automatically sets time where you are,” to prevent unexpected changes. Another recommended, “We also set a timer. If we’re getting off at 11am and need to be back on at 5pm, the timer is set to 6 hours. The timer isn’t connected to the phone’s time, so it will always be accurate.”
Some also emphasized the reliability of a dedicated watch as I have suggested, saying, “set the watch to ship time and don’t adjust it for ports.”
Others cautioned about the app as well saying, “On occasion, we’ve also found the Hub app to be incorrect.”
In a world where more people rely on their phones for the time, it’s easy, especially for first-time cruisers, to overlook this common issue.
When I’m on a cruise, ship time is the only time. Keep this rule and you’ll keep yourself from a lot of headaches. I’d rather be watching the pier runners than become one myself. I hope that’s not selfish.
