San Juan Cancelled for 1-28-12

[Yvonne]

After much cruise research we decided on the Carnival Freedom for 1-28-12, one of the main reasons being the port of San Juan. My Mother is paying for the cruise and really wanted to see that port. Now, after reading here on CC, I got nervous so went to Carnival's web site and lo and behold they have cancelled San Juan for us. :( Never received any e-mail notification about it. I just sent them an e-mail asking about it. I'm not sure we will be able to do anything about it, as we did book ES rate. The Victory leaves from San Juan, but with air fare going up, up, up I don't know if I'd want to switch to that ship even if we had the chance to. I haven't even been able to check the current air fare for 1/12, as the web sites only go to 11/12. As it is right now we could drive to Ft. Lauderdale if we had to, if air fare goes too high. But if we changed to the Victory we wouldn't be able to do that. It's so frustrating, because I'm planning this cruise for other people as well as myself and I feel "responsible." We've never had a port cancelled BEFORE the cruise started. I'm hoping to find out WHY San Juan was taken off our itinerary months before the cruise, and if there is any chance it will be given back to us at a later date.

[Cruise, J.D.]

There are already threads about this. Sucks, but it happens. At least you are getting nearly 9 months of notice.

[ILUVCRUIZN]

That stinks!! That is one of many cruises that we are looking at. We liked all of the ports and less sea days. Wonder why they would not go to San Juan? :confused:

[GaNavy]

The reason Carnival has given is port congestion. Everyone will draw their own conclusions, so I'll just speak from experience: SJ is a relatively small port and handles lots of ships other than cruise liners. When I was there on Freedom in November, we were the only cruise ship docked, but the port was still crowded and there was lots of construction going on. SJ is already rebuilding (maybe they finished by now) the pier where Carnival

Dream was supposed to dock because a sculpture had been placed on the pier that made it impossible for Dream to actually dock there - great thinking, huh?

 

Kind of unusual to have a port canceled this far out, but it does happen - my Legend cruise in 07 was supposed to dock at Costa Maya, but then Hurricane David blew C.Maya away and that was that - we went to Roatan instead.

 

My suggestion is this: if your heart is set on your cruise going to one specific port, you probably shouldn't be on a cruise - book a land vacation/all-inclusive instead. There are just too many reasons why ships miss ports; on my last trip we missed Nassau because we were delayed by an emergency medical evacuation of a passenger. Annoying perhaps, until you realize that Carnival would do the same thing if you were the one who needed the evac.