Hurricanes at Sea!

[Olwyn]

We are sailing on the Star Princess, October 9th, and I am concerned about the weather.

Has anyone been on a ship during a Hurricane, what can the cruise do, in these situations...and YIKES! what about sea sickness? :(

Olwyn

[CaptData]

Due to modern methods of tracking the ship will go around the hurrican. In some cases last year they could not go and dock in FL so they just sailed around fortwo extra days. As for sea sickness look into bonimine or the patch or wrist bands. Ginger can work too and in combination with the others.

 

 

Your ports will change if nessisary due to hurrican. So be flexible, you may miss one or all of your ports. They can change from western to eastern ect. If you book private tours, read the fine print and check cancellation policies to see if this situation is covered or not. Ship's tours will be refunded for missed ports.

[DEL67]

In general, cruise ships try to move out of the path of hurricanes; however, we went through a hurricane while on a transatlantic cruise a few years ago. The captain tried to go around it, but the hurricane stayed in our path.

 

The waves rocked the ship badly, but I never felt unsafe. They locked the doors to the outside decks and closed the glass cover over the pool area. Otherwise everything went on as usual. Some people did get seasick, but we were fine. Our only issue is that we had an outside cabin on the lowest passenger deck just where the ship widened. Everytime we hit a wave, it sounded like a cannon was going off in our cabin.

[BEAUFOEHEAD]

My advise don't book a cruise during hurricane season. I was on a cruise (western carribean) in late Nov. and we went through a Tropical Depression as the previous writter said you can not go out on deck they have all of that closed off and you will see barf bags taped every where. Myself and my friend were walking down the hall going to our room and we were literally bounced from one side to the other side. I did not get sick but, she got deathly sick and stayed that way until the end of the cruise. We also did not get to port anywhere except Cozumel and their must have been at least 25 other cruise ships there also.

 

Happy Sailing

[jfishe]

We were on the HAL Zuiderdam during Hurricane Frances and were unable to make it back to FLL the day we were supposed to.. actually, we were out circling around in the Gulf for 2 extra days. We missed the stop at Nassau and our day in Tortola was a bit rainy and windy, but other than that, it was a great trip. The captain would make announcements everyday letting us know where we were going and what the status of the storm was. They posted the hurricane information at the front desk for people to keep updated on. We were kept in calm waters and sunny skies for the days when poor Florida was getting beat up. Honestly, it was more stressful to drive from FLL to Orlando once we docked than it was to be on the ship !

[phillyg]

Olwyn,

 

I agree, cruise ships will attempt to steer around a hurricane, plus they have stabilizers and 1,000ft ships tend not to move around too much anyway, although they can occasionally make some sensitive folks seasick. I was on the Zuiderdam a couple of years ago and folks were complaining about all the rocking and rolling one night. To me, it seemed minimal.

 

I've never been through a hurricane on a cruise ship, but about 35yrs ago I went directly through the eye of a mid-sized hurricane while on a USN heavy-cruiser (about 700 ft long). We tried to avoid it all night, but it changed direction every time we did. The seas were up to 50ft and we were taking green water up to the bridge as we were steering almost directly into the waves to minimize rolling. We were in a small group of destroyers and other larger ships, and the destroyers kept disappearing from sight when they were in the troughs of the waves.

 

I happened to be on the Admiral's staff riding the cruiser. The following memory is forever burned into my mind: I was on radio watch in the flag bridge at about 4am when the Admiral came up to see what was going on. He was wearing a real gaudy red bathrobe and slippers. He leaned over a radar repeater to look at the well-defined eye. Just as he said "a damn fine bunch of sailors we are," about a bucket of seawater worked its way through the overhead and much of it fell on him. I'll give him some credit because he never said a word; the rest of us were able to keep a straight face until he left, but it wasn't easy. I know this story probably seems a bit unbelievable, but it happened just like I told it.