What happens to booked excursions during hurricane season?

[travelmatron]

Cruise lines are starting to change their itineraries because of Hurricane Earl, and now are planning stops at some completely different ports. I'm sure that there are no penalties to cancel HAL excursions with port changes, but does that happen automatically? Does anyone have any experience with how quickly new excursions become available? And what happens with private excursions? Has anyone had any problem getting their payments returned? Can you tell we have a Caribbean cruise scheduled during the hurricane season?

[Krazy Kruizers]

In 2009 we were on a repositioning cruise when the swine flu broke out and all our Mexican ports were cancelled -- 4 of them. Any tours we booked for those ports was immediately cancelled by the shore excursion people and credited to our shipboard accounts.

We did get a new port added at the last minute -- literally the day before we got there. The shore excursion people quickly contacted this new port for HAL and within a couple of hours we had a list with a bit of a description in our cabins. The shore excursion desk had special hours so that those of us who wanted to take a tour could get booked.

Very fast and very efficient.

[travelmatron]

Thanks KK, I knew a more experienced cruiser would have answers! Congratulations on your 40,000 post too...you're appreciated