Cancellation due to hurricane

[engle]

Anyone have experience with this? How often has the entire cruise been cancelled to due hurricane/tropical storms??

 

[Scotty69]

Anyone have experience with this? How often has the entire cruise been cancelled to due hurricane/tropical storms??

I have never had it happen but from what i have heard they divert the ship to a back up itinerary, I can't say for sure

 

[engle]

That would be fine with me...as long as it doesn't get cancelled all together. I mean, I have insurance, but it would just suck.

 

[Scotty69]

I am sure it would, we are going on the dream in October and December of 2011, I would hate to have it happen to us

 

[Pinkgurlshubby]

In October of 2008 we left St.Maarten early and bypassed St.Thomas due to hurrican Omar and diverted to Nassau. I honestly can't remember hearing a single person complain. Senor Frogs, Tortuga rum cakes, staw market, Del Sol and beautiful hot sun compared to Omar it was great.
I may have left out a detail or 2 but one of the mods here was on the cruise so she can take over from here.

 

[jjupiter]

I forget if it was a 3 day or 4 day - think a 4 day but when Frances visited South Florida a cruise was cancelled. We received a call from Disney Cruise because cruise was going to be delayed one day and they gave you option to cancel. We cancelled because Frances was coming right at us at home but cruise ended up being cancelled anyway.

 

[aliron682]

In October of 2008 we left St.Maarten early and bypassed St.Thomas due to hurrican Omar and diverted to Nassau. I honestly can't remember hearing a single person complain. Senor Frogs, Tortuga rum cakes, staw market, Del Sol and beautiful hot sun compared to Omar it was great.
I may have left out a detail or 2 but one of the mods here was on the cruise so she can take over from here.

We were on the same cruise and there were no complaints from us. We were scheduled to swim w/ dolphins in St Thomas, but getting a refund on that excursion was just fine with us. If I remember correctly the Captain avoided all the rain, except for some sprinkles at the sail away party. I think they have Plan A, B, C and D if needed due to weather.

 

[kandeebunny]

They do have multiple plans. We got diverted on our 7 night due to Swine Flu, Nassau instead of Cozumel. We were bummed as we had just done a 3 day wonder the month before, but it was still awesome!

 

[everafter1]

As the others have posted, they try to re-route the cruise, if they can. My parents were on one 2 years ago that got diverted because of a hurricane. They said the weather was absolutely perfect the whole trip.

We were diverted from Cozumel to Nassau last May because swine flu had just broken out, but they took care of everything for us. We were booked on a dolphin swim excursion in Cozumel and they automatically booked us on one for Nassau (at whichever price was less expensive) with the option to cancel if we wanted to.

 

[kcashner]

Hurricane Jeanne 7 night Magic cruise became a 4 1/2 night cruise (we boarded LATE on Monday, but didn't sail till after midnight on Tuesday out of Port Everglades). The corresponding Wonder cruisers got an extra day--they disembarked on Monday instead of Sunday. An earlier sailing that year became a 10 night cruise and went to Galveston to get supplies and wait out the weather.

Normally, the ship will sail somewhere that the hurricane isn't. For instant, we went to Key West before the "western" existed, and missed on of the "St." islands. The real problem comes when Port Canaveral has to close due to a hurricane--then they have to scramble!

 

[FLACRUISER]

That would be fine with me...as long as it doesn't get cancelled all together. I mean, I have insurance, but it would just suck.

But not as much as the folks that lose their homes.

 

[glindamood]

Hurricane Jeanne 7 night Magic cruise became a 4 1/2 night cruise (we boarded LATE on Monday, but didn't sail till after midnight on Tuesday out of Port Everglades). The corresponding Wonder cruisers got an extra day--they disembarked on Monday instead of Sunday. An earlier sailing that year became a 10 night cruise and went to Galveston to get supplies and wait out the weather.

Normally, the ship will sail somewhere that the hurricane isn't. For instant, we went to Key West before the "western" existed, and missed on of the "St." islands. The real problem comes when Port Canaveral has to close due to a hurricane--then they have to scramble!

We were on the cruise before that and missed Castaway Cay and returned to the port Friday night. We did not get off the ship until after dinner and they put us up at the Swan or the Dolphin (can't remember). We rented a car and drove up to Panama City and flew home on Saturday. DCL went above and beyond on that cruise - IMHO anyway.

 

[engle]

Honestly, I wouldn't even care if the ship just sat in the port!!! DH and I REALLY need this vacation and we don't plan on getting off except for at CC anyway. Everyone has been very encouraging....as long as we get on that ship, all is well!!! But, you can't control the weather!

 

[Eeyore's Tailfinder]

We got a bit re-routed after Hurricane Ike in 2008. We were on the 4 day Wonder and instead of Nassau - CC - DAS; we did DAS - Nassau - CC to avoid the storm, since it was just leaving Nassau.

The Captain made sure we were double the safe distance from the hurricane, and we never felt a thing.

 

[HooKooDooKu]

I don't recall hearing of any DCL cruises being flat out cancelled due to hurricans. While hurricans are large storms, the ocean is larger so there's always somewhere else the ship can go.

Now if the hurrican is approaching the area of Port Canaveral and the port gets closed, the ship will divert to another port, and even alter the length of a cruise.

For us, I believe it was September of 2004 we had a 7 day cruise booked when a hurrican was headed for the Florida East coast for embarkation day. DCL extended the current cruise by two days, diverted the ship to another port, and changed the following cruise (our cruise) to a 5 day cruise. DCL notified us of the changes and offered the choise of a partial refund and discount on a future booking if we sailed the 5 day cruise, or offered a 100% refund (including the cost of travel insurance purchased through DCL) if we wanted to cancel. The setup would have required us to drive through the hurrican to get to the diverted port, and require a lengthy bus trip to get back to our car, so we opted for the refund )

 

[Max1*]

I think it was 2001 we were in St. Thomas but had gone over to St. Marten when we were informed by our site seeing director that we had to get back to the ship ASAP as a Hurricane was approaching St. Thomas. It was a crazy and scary small boat ride back to the ship what took 35 or 40 min. to get there took almost 1 1/2 hours to get back on a very wet trolley boat. I think I remember the boats horn going off every now and again telling people to get back to the ship but not sure. I remember getting on after being in port maybe 4 or 5 hours only and we deported shortly after that. The captain came on apologied and we were off. He went as far around the storm as possible but it was one of the most amazing sights to see this storm from deck and many of the people working on the boat were out there watching and taking pics as we were. We had a great dinner that night and when we woke in the morning we had a short delay to Castaway Cay but only by 2 hour I think and if I remember we stayed an hour longer than what we should have before leaving. It was a hot and beautiful day!

 

[Poohbug]

I was scheduled for the 7 night cruise that was rescheduled because of Hurricane Francis. We did not have insurance but Disney still offered us a refund if we did not want to go on the shortened cruise. Or we could choose the other option of a discount, OBC and future cruise discount.

I'm sure that the ship just usually goes around the hurricane but could not get into PC that time. The ship had to stay out and eventually docked in Ft Lauderdale.

We did end up taking the shortened cruise-mainly because the kids were so looking forward to it. Our original flights were also cancelled because the airports were closed. It all worked out because by the time the ship could come into port, the airports were open. The airline let us change flights with no charge. We did have to be bussed to Ft Lauderdale-3 hours on the bus. That was interesting. You could tell that the ship was off it's normal schedule but we still had a nice time.

Some things I learned from that cruise:

1) Fly in a day early-things happen
2) DCL transfers are worth the money-especially when things happen
3) People are really crabby when their plans are interrupted - we looked at the experience as an adventure,others not so much.

I would not hesitate to book during hurricane season. DCL took care of us and it's pretty much the only time we can afford a Disney cruise.

 

[mmouse37]

Here is an article that is interesting on "Hurricane Season" and predictions for 2010.

http://travelwithkids.about.com/od/caribbeanfamilyvacations/qt/hurricane_seaso.htm

MJ

 

[arlenesp]

Hurricane Jeanne 7 night Magic cruise became a 4 1/2 night cruise (we boarded LATE on Monday, but didn't sail till after midnight on Tuesday out of Port Everglades). The corresponding Wonder cruisers got an extra day--they disembarked on Monday instead of Sunday. An earlier sailing that year became a 10 night cruise and went to Galveston to get supplies and wait out the weather.

Normally, the ship will sail somewhere that the hurricane isn't. For instant, we went to Key West before the "western" existed, and missed on of the "St." islands. The real problem comes when Port Canaveral has to close due to a hurricane--then they have to scramble!

I was on the 3 day Wonder. It went to Cozumel instead. We had a good time but the grandkids were bummed out they didn't get to Nassau, and Castaway Cay had already been damaged from the previous hurricanes. I did not have any issues on the extended cruise but was not happy the Captain waited til we were out of the port to announce the change in itinerary. Had we known we would have switched the date as the grandkids missed school and my kids had to call out work that Monday. I heard the previous cruises wound up in Galveston and Charleston. So we were happy we were at sea.

 

[JoRo]

Cant speak for Disney cruise but when honeymooning hurricane Wilma came through and made our 10 day cruise 7 days lost cozmel and grand caymen - good news less people on boat. Bad news Princess cruiselines had the WORST communication and had west coast hours even in emergency situations - so drove from WDW to Ft Lauderdale to Maimi just to find out cruise was not showing - good news got to go to WDW for another couple of days.

I would HIGHLY recommend insurance - we used and are using again Access America

http://www.accessamerica.com/