Hurricane worries

[lawofraven]

We are sailing 9/11 on the Caribbean Princess and I just realized it's hurricane season. DH and I have sailed winter and spring before. What happens if there is a hurricane in our path? I slightly remember some stories from the old boards and just was curious if there are CC members who have any tales to tell. Also any advice on if we should pack anything that we normally wouldn't? Thanks a bunch!

Angie

[CruiseFever]

Well 9-11 is not exactly a lucky number but they'll drive the ship as far away from anything like that as they can up to and including cancelling ports and/or your entire cruise if necessary,

[isujim]

I have sailed twice before in September during "peak" hurricane season. Once we skirted Hurricane Isidore and had some very rough seas for about 30 hours. The captains all do a great job of missing storms. In a worse case scenario you might be diverted from one itinerary to another but I wouldn't worry........you will have a great cruise and normally this is the least expensive time of year to cruise.

 

Jim

[jhannah]

A ship's captain will avoid extreme weather by all means possible. As Jim just noted, you might not be able to avoid the effects of wind and rough seas. Those extend out far beyond the boundries of a hurricane. But diversions will be made if necessary to minimize discomfort and avoid danger.

[spongerob]

Trust me, those ships won't go anywhere near large-scale storms. Your itinerary might be altered or changed completely (i.e. swapping a Western cruise for an Eastern), so keep that in mind. Just because a storm is hitting one place doesn't mean it's not nice somewhere else.

[lawofraven]

Do the cruiselines offer any compensation for a cancelled cruise? I assume that they figure you know this travel time might be precarious. I'm all right with changes in itinerary as long as I'm sailing, but a cancellation would be awful!!

Thanks Chris, somehow I knew you would be one of the first to respond. Your posts are some of my favorites (Sue and Steve too).

Angie

[jhannah]

I believe there would have to be an extreme set of circumstances before a cruise would be entirely cancelled. Something along the lines that every port would be absolutely filled to capacity with ships every day of the scheduled sailing so as to prevent going anywhere.

[Toto2Kansas]

I have not seen a cruise cancelled before because of a hurricane. But we have reversed itinerays in the past to avoid them. We did get within wave range once a few years ago, the waves were hitting deck 11, not a pretty site, even the staff became ill on that one.

Best to always go prepared, just in case. It doesn't happen often when ships are too close, but it does happen.

If you think you might encounter high seas because of any storm brewing, just take that seasickness precaution BEFORE you need it, it is very hard to play catch up once it hits you.

And best of luck. We are cruising in less than two weeks and know that we chance finding rough seas on our cruise. It is the chance we take when we cruise during hurricane season though.

 

Just a footnote, we often cruise this time of year and we end up with beautiful weather more times than not.

[bidro]

To address some of the questions you have.

 

1) Packing. I wouldn't change anything in this area with on exception: bring a pancho or wind breaker in case of rain. I rains all the time in the Caribbean, so I always take a couple anyway. The chance of rain is much higher around hurricanes.

 

2) Don't worry about a hurricane canceling your cruise. These new ships are so fast, they can out run them, avoid them, etc. Besides, the "caribbean" is so large that there will more than likely be ports they can hit that are away from the storm.

 

3) Seas may be rougher if there is a hurricane near. He prepared with some motion sickness meds if you know that you can get seasick or if you have no idea if you would get seasick. If you forget them or run out, they sell them on the ship also.

[dbeckett]

We went on back-to-back Western/Eastern Caribbean cruises but actually ended up doing two Western cruises because of a hurricane. About a month after we got off we got a letter saying we would get 25% off the next cruise. There was a time limit in which to use the discount (18 months). I don't know if there was any compensation if the Eastern had been your only destination.

 

There some irate passengers wanting a variety of things including full refunds and returned home as well as the refund. The purser seemed amazed when we said that all we wanted was him to note that we weren't getting what was expected and would hope for some compsenstation.

 

Dorothy

(Doing Sydney to Bangkok in March to use up the credit!)

[geoherb]

Hurricane Fabian last year forced some cruise ships to avoid Bermuda and head for Canada. Here's one review. I remember seeing news reports of unhappy passengers who had packed for tropical weather and ended up in the cold.

 

The worst-case scenario would be a hurricane hitting Florida and keeping the ship or you from getting to Fort Lauderdale. The second worse would be a hurricane hitting your city and keeping you from going. Our airport (Raleigh-Durham, N.C.) was closed at least a day after Fran came through.