Horrible Situation From Using Air Plane Mode!!

In November of 2013 I took my family on a what was supposed to be a 7 day cruise. During the cruise we turned our cell phones to airplane mode so that we wouldn't accidentally incur charges for calls or texts that my come in. Before exiting the ship on our first dock at Cozumel we triple checked our phones to make sure that they were in sync with the ship time; in this way we would know exactly when we need to get back to the ship on time to depart. Well, while spending some time at a place called Paradise Beach we turned on WiFi so that we could check our mail on our phones. While in airplane mode on the ship, the time would not change even while in a different time zone. Little did we know that when we turned on WiFi (even while still in airplane mode) the time would change to the local time some minutes after connecting to the internet. What I think is ridiculous is that our phones did not notify us that the time was being changed to one hour earlier. There was no text or pop-up notification, it just changed while we set the phone down to relax and swim (while it's still in airplane mode). So long story short, we didn't make it back ontime to the ship and we missed the rest of our trip! Of course, I cannot blame Apple for my misfortune. But I can complain that there isn't some kind of notification that lets it's user know that the time of the phone has changed. In fact, I've seen a few apps like calendar apps notify me of time zone changes. Why wouldn't this just be built into the iPhone itself? This is the only avenue I have to vent to Apple about this problem that contirubted to a family of 4 being stranded on an island. This problem really needs to be addresssed. Does anyone know how I can send a feature request? I can't even call or chat with Apple because my 4S is out of warranty. I've been very very happy with Apple up until this happened to us.