Hi there!
I crossed the international date line on a cruise ship going west, which is the direction of going from the US to Asia.
👆 Spot the United States! Spot the international date line! Spot Asia!
👆 Spot California! Spot the international date line! Bonus: Can you spot Hawaii?! Yes that little dot in the middle is Hawaii. Most international date line cruises from the US will include a stop in Hawaii. Explore the map.
👆 Spot the Hawaiian islands! Spot the international date line! Explore the map.
What is it like to cross the international date line on a cruise ship?!
Well, it is really more about the anticipation that you build up yourself.
Like, here is how Celebrity Cruises builds up the excitement of crossing the international date line by cruise ship:
A cruise across the International Date Line is a once-in-a-lifetime event, particularly when you celebrate the time change from a luxurious cruise ship.
Itineraries on Celebrity Solstice or Celebrity Eclipse to the South Pacific, Japan and the Bering Sea, or Hawaii, Tahiti and Bora Bora all spend a day at sea cruising past the International Date Line.
Cross “time travel” off your bucket list when you embark on a transpacific cruise which takes you across the famous International Date Line.
This imaginary marker runs between the North and South Poles and is located in the center of the Bering Sea.
When you travel east across it, you’ll “travel” backward in time by 24 hours.
When you’re traveling west, crossing the International Date Line means you’ll set your clock exactly 24 hours ahead.
You can search for international date line cruises with Celebrity Cruises.
If you don’t care about it, then it’s like nothing happened.
Depending on which direction you’re going, you’ll either skip a day, or you’ll repeat a day.
If you’re crossing the international date line on a cruise ship, it means that you’re already at sea for days on it, so you will hardly notice that you suddenly skipped a day or that you have an extra day at sea.
I was on a Princess cruise, and I looked in the cruise activities schedule and even walked around the cruise ship (a few times) the evening before we were going to be skipping a day, and I did not see anything special going on.
I was thinking maybe they would be handing out a free glass of champagne or something, NYE-style!
But no, there was nothing.
Oh well. 🤷
I got my excitement from constantly look at google maps and the GPS location!
Yes, you can follow along on google maps to know when you’re getting close to the international date line!
I found that I did have to be out on the open deck in order for the GPS to work.
It didn’t work in my cabin. I even had a balcony and tried to get outside but it still didn’t really work for me.
So really, if you want to follow along on google maps, you’ll want to be somewhere on the cruise ship with open skies.
👆 Out on the open deck at night as the cruise ship is hours away from crossing the international date line. (You can see the moon!)
What happens when a cruise ship crosses the international date line from east to west?!
So if you are on an international date line cruise, as the days go on, you will be adjusting an hour on a sea day here and an hour a sea day there.
Sailing from California to the international date line, there were several days over the course of the cruise in which the clock was set one hour back overnight.
In the same way that happens every fall when the clocks “fall back” for daylight savings time.
So basically, if you are on a cruise ship from California that includes crossing the international date line from east to west, you have several 25-hour days!
On the flip side, if you’re going in the opposite direction, if you are on a cruise ship crossing the international date line from west to east, you will have several 23-hour days.
👆 Watch the international date line cruise video.
Skipping a day on a cruise that crosses the international date line
I did a transpacific cruise from California to Japan on the Princess cruise ship called the Diamond Princess.
👆 Spot the international date line! This was a transpacific cruise from California to Hawaii to Guam to Japan. The crossing of the international date line happened during the Hawaii to Guam portion of the cruise.
Since this is a cruise ship sailing from east to west, it means that it skips a day!
👆 The transpacific cruise itinerary for the section of Hawaii to Guam. There were a lot of sea days between Hawaii and Guam and it included crossing the international date line! The cruise itinerary shows the schedule to skip February 26. We got to the international date line earlier than the original schedule, as we actually skipped February 24!
This cruise crossed the international date line overnight.
On the cruise itineraries, it seems like they just put in a certain time as a filler. That is not necessarily when you will actually cross the international date line.
👆 The cruise itinerary showed “cross international date line” as during the day, but we actually crossed overnight.
👆 The international date line came on the night of day 12 of my 25-day cruise! In was in the middle of 9 straight days at sea without seeing land!
👆 Sailing on a cruise ship going from east to west. Approaching the international date line! Explore the map.
It seemed like we would be actually crossing the international date line in the overnight hours so I went to sleep.
Then, when I woke up the next morning, we were on the other side of the international date line!
👆 Sailing on a cruise ship going from east to west. We crossed the international date line! Explore the map.
👆 After crossing the international date line, it was onwards to sail more of the vast Pacific Ocean…!
How can you go on an international date line cruise from the United States?
From the US, the most common cruises that cross the international date line are cruises from California to the South Pacific, Australia, and/or New Zealand. These cruises will also stop by Hawaii.
Search: Princess cruises
For example, you can filter the search results so that the “destination” will include Tahiti, the South Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand. You can then further filter so that the “start/end port” will include all west coast cities. Choose Hawaii, all California ports, Seattle, and Vancouver in Canada, if they are there! You also might find it helpful to sort by “date.” (The default is the lowest price cruises show up first.)
Look through the cruises and look out for “international date line” on the cruise itinerary!
You are more likely to find one-way cruises, although you may also find the rare round trip cruise to the South Pacific from California.
A cruise that crosses the international date line will be long cruises with a lot of sea days!
Expect international date line cruises from the US to be over 20 days long.
👆 There is a cruise from San Francisco California to the South Pacific in September 2023 that crosses the international date line. It’s a transpacific cruise from California to Hawaii, Moorea, Tahiti, the American Samoa, Auckland New Zealand, and Sydney Australia. Search Princess cruises
Certificate for crossing the international date line by cruise ship
While there were no specific cruise activities around crossing the international date line, we did get a certificate to “certify” that we crossed the international date line! 😂
The certificate was titled “Crossing the International Date Line” and had the following text:
This is to certify that on 24 February 2023, [name] was aboard the mv Diamond Princess when the vessel crossed the International Dateline at the following position:
Latitude 18° 42′ N and
Longitude 180° 00′ W/E
The certificate was made official by being signed by the captain of the ship (Stefano Ravera) and the Cruise Director of the ship (Sophie Gideon). 😂
It was a fun certificate to receive!
HAPPY CRUISING ACROSS THE INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE!
NEXT: Watch the sea days from my 25-day transpacific cruise on youtube!
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