Do cruise ships change time zones? What is cruise ship time? What is ship’s time? Three simple questions, which when asked of Google, return a combined total of more than 220 million results. Just view these forum threads on Cruise Critic and Cruise Habit and the importance of cruise ship time zones to passengers shines through.
Passenger experience is a vital component of the cruise industry, perhaps the most crucial. Anything that can be done to improve that is therefore equally as crucial. So what if there were a solution that could do that whilst also lightening the load for crew members?
theICEway believe that they have found the perfect solution to an issue that has long plagued cruise ships. In rather timely fashion, their tzChromar product has arrived when many other IT solutions providers are still searching for answers to questions posed by COVID*.
*theICEway are also working on additional solutions for that same cause, but more on that in the future.
Here we talk with Co-Founder and Managing Director of theICEway, Conor Byrne. As one of the creators of tzChromar, he reveals the reason for its development. We also speak with David Tibbles, Product Manager for this unique solution, to gauge his thoughts on how it will help.
Conor, what led to the creation of tzChromar?
Our team has worked in the cruise industry for over two decades, so we’re well aware of the many challenges it faces. One of our key pillars as a company is innovation, and we always strive to infuse that into our efforts. We’re always looking at the issues that exist and trying to think of ways to overcome them.
Why time zone management?
There are two methods for changing the time zone aboard a ship. One is to change the ship’s master clock. The other is to manually set the time zone within the PMS and POS applications. These are very manual processes which are vitally important to the cruise experience as a whole.
So you start by having a problem to solve, in this case the need for manual input on a vital task. The next step is to assess the impact a fix would have. Not just in terms of specific processes but also on the entire operation.
David, how can tzChromar help cruise companies?
As Conor alluded to, the key reason for us launching this solution is to combat a longstanding problem. Cruise ships have real issues in showing the correct time zone on devices. tzChromar plots the current position and you can then schedule time zone changes in advance or they can be applied instantly. All it takes is a couple of clicks and all devices will then update automatically. This product will enable cruise lines to have a fleet-wide overview of all ships.
Who will benefit most from this?
Conor: I think it will ultimately help everyone, which is one of the great things about it. The ship or shore administrator can use the portal to decide the most suitable time zone and exactly when the change is to be made. All registered devices are then updated via the tzChromar server. We can provide either a cloud-based or individual ship service, so it can be installed on a system as a virtual machine for those ships with irregular connectivity. That is literally going to save time, which is quite a commodity.
David: As we’ve said, the passenger experience is everything and tzChromar can help to make that an even more seamless one. It will of course be most beneficial to ships crossing multiple time zones but from the feedback we’ve already received, we’re hoping that it will give the industry as a whole a welcome boost.
tzChromar is powered by theICEway, and you can contact us to arrange a demonstration today.