Disney Dream August 26 - TROPICAL STORM ??!!!

[djhsolara]

A bit of rain several times throughout the day at Castaway Cay. Not a deal breaker.

 

 

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[Ex techie]

Glad you made it!

 

ex techie

Edited August 29, 2016 by Ex techie

[moki'smommy]

How DCL handles each storm situation depends on the details of the storm and what can be done. We've been in a couple of hurricane situations.

 

In one, the captain took us to an alternate port to allow time to see what the storm track would be. The shore excursion people scrambled to make it possible to book excursions for the alternate port and to refund those for the port we would be missing. There was no compensation for the altered cruise (nor should there have been IMHO). Another cruise had loss of an island stop due to a storm. It became a sea day, no compensation.

 

In another situation, DCL knew more than a day in advance that Port Canaveral would be closed. We were given 24 hours notice that we could cancel and receive a full refund from DCL or take the alternate cruise out of Port Everglades with complimentary transportation from MCO or WDW and receive a 40% refund as the cruise would decrease from 7 nights to 5--it actually ended up being a 4 night cruise and on top of the 40%, we got $200 in OBC.

 

I've read a lot of other decisions, but these three were DCL cruise that I was on.

 

I don't believe that Castaway Cay is missed more than other ports. There was a lay person keeping a record of "misses" at CC for many years. It consistently ran at about 1% of cruises. I can't address whether this has changed in recent years as I haven't seen his postings. Yes, tender ports are often skipped due to the safety issues involved in tendering.

 

A large part of the problem is that hurricane tracks can be guessed at, but cannot be ACCURATELY predicted more than a day or two in advance when the storm is at sea. But it is relatively easy to take the ship away from the storm.

 

Coverage for private insurance depends on the fine print in the contract. Read it and call the company.

Edited September 1, 2016 by moki'smommy

[gometros]

Funny story. We cruised out of Ft. Lauderdale on another line right around Hurricane Matt in 2010. I chose this cruise specifically becuase it was going to Panama as one of the ports. I really wanted to see the canal. The night before the cruise, we got notification that because of the storm, they were changing the itinerary. We stayed up all night, esearching the new ports to determine what excursions we would do on this changed itienrary. Shortly after we biarded, the captain made an announcment that the storm moved out quicker than they expected, so they were resuming the original itinerary. While I'm always of the mind that flexibility is the key to a happy vacation, I had been a little disappointed we might miss Panama and was relieved that we were able to go. I also learned how much work the cruise staff goes through when there are sudden itinerary changes.