True but it's all situationally dependent. My comment was the broad thing and in response to you saying they were leaving passengers behind. It's what they have to do in situations like this and not the first time. Now if there was a war outbreak that I could see would prevent a ship from being able to come back. It's all situationally dependent.
Cruisemapper shows Pride of America floating off the coast of Hawaii close to Hilo but far enough out and has been since I posted the first time. They appear to be heading back into Hilo right now (it at least appears to be). Hopefully that's the case for the passengers.
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Last year the cruise company we sail with had to do this exact thing in Japan when there was a tsunami concern. They left to get into deeper waters further away from the coast and when it was safe enough to do so returned to the port to pick up the passengers on shore. (in that case I believe it was only 3 hours or so). That cruise was going around Japan so if that situation wouldn't have allowed for returning to port they would have, to the best they could, gotten the passengers picked up from the next available port.
The ship (Pride of America) is getting close to when they are supposed to be in the next port so they may have to skip that one or they may just get in later leaving less time. The flights part I mentioned is a broad comment as it's whatever they may have to do and at the time of my comment I was thinking about how ripple effects could be seen if there were flight disruptions and the cruise line had to go that route. Their next stop after this one that is supposed to occur today is on a different island which would have presented a bigger issue on getting passengers if they couldn't go back to Hilo.