Pacific Hurricane Season Cruising: What You Need to Know

Table Of Content

• How will the cruise line assist me with travel plans if we arrive back home late because of the storm?
• On The Best Vacations, Safety Comes First
• What happens if my car is damaged in port while I'm at sea?
• What happens if my flight is canceled and I can't get to the port because of the storm?
• "Very active" hurricane season prediction for 2024
• Hurricane Season Cruising: What You Need to Know Before You Go

If you choose to cruise during hurricane season, the fact that you likely booked a luxury cruise at an excellent price should make any itinerary changes easier to handle. One of the ways your captain might avoid a hurricane’s path is to make a last-minute schedule change to your cruise itinerary. If, for example, your Caribbean cruise itinerary had a scheduled stop in the U.S. Virgin Islands, but the route there is impacted by a hurricane, your cruise ship will reroute, and you’ll skip that port of call. Not only do cruise ships avoid the path of a hurricane, they will chart a course with the optimal sea conditions to avoid the worst of any rough seas.

How will the cruise line assist me with travel plans if we arrive back home late because of the storm?

The increase in activity is due to hurricane-favorite conditions, such as the transition from El Niño to La Nińa and the record-warn sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central Atlantic. The center also said hurricane-force winds "are expected along the coasts of South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina within the Hurricane Warning area soon," among other impacts. The Norwegian Sky will instead visit San Juan, Puerto Rico, Saint Thomas in the U.S.

On The Best Vacations, Safety Comes First

The fine print in cruise contracts allows them to make such changes when they see fit. In some cases, a storm will cause a port to be dropped from an itinerary with no new port added as a replacement. Occasionally, you'll see cruises shortened or extended by a day or two or even three. You may have noticed, that cruises are generally much cheaper during hurricane season. Typically, Caribbean, Bahamas and Bermuda cruises will be less expensive from September-November.

Man goes overboard Royal Caribbean cruise ship as Hurricane Idalia passed through Cuba - FOX 35 Orlando

Man goes overboard Royal Caribbean cruise ship as Hurricane Idalia passed through Cuba.

Posted: Wed, 30 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

What happens if my car is damaged in port while I'm at sea?

Still, even during peak weeks for hurricane formation, the odds of your cruise being affected by a hurricane are relatively small. A glance at any cruise booking site will show hundreds of sailings departing for the Caribbean and the Bahamas each year during cruise hurricane season. In most years, though, only a small portion of these are affected by tropical storms. The reality is that a cruise itinerary can change at any time of the year, that’s actually in the fine print when you book a cruise.

What happens if my flight is canceled and I can't get to the port because of the storm?

Purchasing travel insurance is recommended regardless of when your cruise is; however, it is a no-brainer when it comes to cruising during hurricane season. Royal Caribbean's top priority is the safety of the guests, crew, and ship, and they will never send a ship near a hurricane. To that point, if a storm is predicted to go anywhere near where a ship is scheduled to be, Royal Caribbean will be the first to cancel scheduled port stops or even completely change the itinerary. ► Carnival canceled three sailings due to port closures in Jacksonville, Tampa, and Port Canaveral in Florida. Carnival Elation and Carnival Paradise were scheduled to leave Thursday, with Carnival Liberty departing on Friday, and all passengers will get full refunds and 25% future cruise credits.

So, if bad weather forces you to miss or reroute a flight, miss part of a cruise because of a travel delay or get stuck unexpectedly in a city overnight, you should be covered under a travel insurance plan. However, if you need to reschedule a flight and the airline has agreed to waive change fees -- or if a cruise is cut short by a day but the line reimburses you for the missed day -- you won't get additional compensation payment. Thankfully, when storms and hurricanes do develop, cruise lines often have time to plan. And when it comes to cruise ships and storms, cruise lines leave nothing to chance. Today’s modern cruise ships are built to withstand storms, avoid them, and even outrun them.

How Cruises Navigate the Rough Seas of Hurricane Season

We were booked on a 6-night Western Caribbean cruise out of Fort Lauderdale, and the storm would be blocking our way in one way or another. First and foremost, you can expect more questions than answers in the days before a cruise when there's a hurricane. And if you have any questions, please ask and if I don’t know I’ll do my best to find the answers. You can’t look up the Royal Caribbean hurricane policy or the Carnival cruise hurricane policy online as they aren’t published anywhere. Instead, you must wait for an email from the cruise line with details of your refund. However, this means that the cruise is then delayed for the next passengers, meaning that their cruise will be shortened by the same length of time.

Some crew cabins needed to be temporarily taken out of service because of water damage. The ship's next voyage, on which it has since embarked, was also delayed. Whether you cruise multiple times per year or you're new to cruising, the goal of Royal Caribbean Blog is for it to be a useful resource for keeping up to date with what's new and exciting with Royal Caribbean.

If ports are missed, the cruise line may compensate passengers with onboard spending credit to use for drinks and Wi-Fi and other purchases, but that’s totally at its discretion. If the cruise is canceled due to a hurricane you can expect a full refund, and some lines will also provide a discount on a future sailing in addition to the refund, the cruise line’s effort to sweeten the pot so you will rebook. The East Pacific hurricane season is oft-overlooked because there are simply more people cruising in Caribbean hurricanes than on the Mexican Riviera.

The most common scenario when there is a hurricane is for the cruise line to change your itinerary to avoid the storm. She has worked in the cruise industry since 2015 and has taken over 30 cruises. Now, she helps over 1 million people per month to plan their perfect cruise holidays. If you have booked your cruise directly with the cruise line, you should contact them to let them know how you wish to proceed.

As an example, if a cruise is leaving out of Florida and a hurricane is forecast, your scheduled embarkation day can be affected. Of course, things like this can happen when leaving from other ports as well. Itineraries most affected by hurricanes are Caribbean itineraries, Bahamas and Bermuda cruises.

Without sounding pretentious, I feel bad for people on other cruise lines who don't have access to this kind of information because it must be mentally anguishing to not have the sort of information Mr. Van Fleet provides. Unlike every other cruise line, Royal Caribbean has its own Chief Meteorologist who not only provides each ship and the cruise line important guidance on the weather, but he also shares insight with guests. During my cruise, our ship went around Cuba, and by the time we made our way westward again, the ship stayed far enough away from Hurricane Ian to keep everything quite calm.

Those who sail will be compensated in on board credits, while passengers who decide to cancel can get a full refund. Lupoli said Carnival Ecstasy, which left from Mobile, Alabama, Monday, would reorder its visits to Cozumel and Progreso, Mexico, stopping in Progreso first. "Our cruise ship last night was literally sideways and slung everything in our room breaking, people in the hallways throwing up and sleeping on the stairs," Whited wrote in the post. At that point, the captain "turned the ship from sailing northwest toward Charleston to head north/northeast heading directly into the eye of the storm system," Taylor said.