How many of you who cruise during "hurricane season" have actually...

[MamaParrotHead]

had it effect your cruise? Like being rerouted or having rougher-than-normal seas? Or the opposite and your cruise hasn't been effected?

 

Just curious.

[Bunkie103]

We've done quite a few cruises during hurricane season and had both issues happen to us. One time our ports were "switched" to different days, but luckily we made all ports. Other times there was no change at all. It's really just a luck of the draw issue.

[H82seaUgo]

never <crossing fingers>

 

and i don't think it would bother me unless i was bound for bermuda, and ended up in canada like those poor people a couple or more years ago.

[cruisenanny]

I would say about 2/3 of our cruises have been taken durring the summer or fall. We have never had a problem with hurricanes, a few times we have encountered rough seas, maybe 12-15 feet, I think we have been very lucky! Never any missed ports or re-routes (at least not due to weather):)

[jenwales]

had it effect your cruise? Like being rerouted or having rougher-than-normal seas? Or the opposite and your cruise hasn't been effected?

 

Just curious.

 

On our first cruise in 2008, a tropical storm parked itself over the east coast of Florida and Port Canaveral was closed for a couple of days. We were on the Disney Wonder and ultimately had to be diverted to FLL. The first seating for breakfast on debarkation day was something like 4:30 AM, and Disney bused everyone back up to either PC or Orlando from there. The efficiency was impressive.

 

The cruise itself was great. We had 2 days on Castaway Cay and one of them was so windy all water based excursions were cancelled but other than that the storm didn't affect us much. The seas were a little rough, but not too bad.

[nytraveller53]

Both my cruises were during Hurricane season, and it didn't affect anything.

[Blind Squirrel]

Have sailed twice in Oct. We made all the ports on the first one and were rerouted on the second one.

[*Mach*]

We, the Crazies, did...

We sailed last fall on the Conquest and missed two ports... MoBay and Grand Cayman, due to a tropical storm that blew up while we were headed for Jamaica. We still had a fantastic time but a couple of uninformed/ill informed passengers tried to lead some flavor of a revolt to get their money back for the cruise.

We were very supportive of the Carnival folks and that earned us the designation 'SWAT Team of Fun' from John Heald...

:)

I sail every year in the fall, peak of hurricane season, and that was the only time that I've had a problem with the weather...

:)

[sinned19]

We were on a cruise in the caribbean but the hurricane was in different areas so we experirenced no ill effects, but could not return to port canaveral on our return date, we were "forced" to stay on board an additional 2 days;).

The down side was we were told we would arrive in a differnet port each day which had us wait on long lines each day to try make flight arrangements with the limited phone lines on ship.RCCL was very gracious they provided transportation to a hotel and vouchers for stay and meals.

[nybumpkin]

2005 - Conquest and Hurricane Dennis. We skipped Grand Cayman, had an overnight in Cozumel (we actually have two gangway photos dated two consecutive days), and had the cruise extended a day. Even though we were a good distance from the hurricane the seas were pretty rough and there were lots of "do not disturb" signs on cabin doors and barf bags at the elevators.

 

2006: Victory and TS Eduardo. This was a NYC-Canada cruise and we sailed through the remnants of the storm on the way back to NYC. I didn't think it was too rough, but they put the barf bags by the elevators.

 

2010: Glory and Hurricane Earl. Another NYC-Canada cruise. I truly thought this would end up being a 4-day cruise to nowhere since the storm was predicted to follow the same track as our itinerary, but we sailed ahead of the storm, reached port early, and stayed in port during the storm. It made for a lousy port day and we ended up staying on the ship most of the day.

 

We're pretty much limited to summer cruising now since DH teaches college and we have school-age kids, so hurricane season is just something we have to live with. We just go with the flow....

[bitemyfly]

did 3 , 7 day cruises in the last 4 years, 2 of the cruises has issues

east turned to the west , which was great cause no weather issues at all

the other , well alot of clouds, and one night of rough seas-- which i loved!

price you pay for a cheap cruise...

 

it happens.. we also did a booze cruise (4 day)to Coz out of Tampa in early May and hit a tropical storm...

[Carnivalcruiselady]

We always have one cruise during hurricane season and we have been lucky. We had a cruise last year during Hurricane Earl and we had very rough water and a very rocky cruise but otherwise that was it. We called it a "barf bag cruise".

[gadan1]

In 2005: I had booked the Conquest for September earlier in the year out of New Orleans. Then Katrina hit and Conquest got moved to Galveston. Then, we depart Galveston and Rita decides to aim for the Texas/Louisiana gulf coast area while we were gone. So the Port of Galveston closed and we got an extra two days on the ship (with an extra stop to Costa Maya added). I also did the Glory that Thanksgiving and we got re-routed due to a hurricane (this is also the only cruise I got sea sick on, the first night only). We lost Belize and added Freeport or Nassau.

[Rochmom]

First eastern cruise, we missed St. Maarten because of a TS. We stayed extra hours in St. Thomas and then substituted Grand Turk.

 

Last year, we went western again, and although it wasn't technically hurricane season, we couldn't make Mahogany Bay because of high seas/winds, but they docked at Coxen Hole instead. All water/beach excursions were canceled, leaving not much to do in Roatan. Spent the day aboard ship.

 

Between my job and the kids' school, plus the off season pricing, we'll still choose to sail during hurricane season. As long as you know the possibilities going into it, and have a good attitude, it's fine.

[westview1]

We've sailed 5 times in hurricane season and have never missed ports or been diverted to a different port. We have hit some rough seas, on the Caribbean Princess the bathroom door was banging so much it woke us up. But that was about the worse we experienced. :)

[MamaParrotHead]

Thanks for the replies so far, keep them coming. My thinking is that at this point (with 4 cruises under our belt), even if our route does get changed, I've done enough reading here on CC about ports, plus our own experiences, that I'd still have an educated guess or two as to what our excursion options are. Just trying to widen our "window of opportunity" a bit as to when we can go.

[CruiseAdict218]

Lol, while on the Caribbean Princess we were just getting ready to depart from St. John's NB and the capitan told us that Halifax would be cancelled and we would head back a day early to NYC. We winding up having a day in Manhattan.

[Room Service!]

We have sailed 5 of our 6 cruises during hurricane season.

Luckily we have never been caught in an actual hurricane. We have had missed and delayed port stops because of previous storms.

Once we experienced 85 mph at sea, was rather exciting. Very high waves and barf bags all over the place.

Hope our good luck continues for our Halloween sailing this year. :)

[ItsAllAboutTheSass]

2008 we missed Nassau due to Ike. 2010 we had Jamaica and Grand Cayman ports reversed due to Nicole (I think, could have been Matthew) and missed HMC due to Otto.

[bassmaster150]

We were on the same Conquest cruise that Host Match and his group were on. Nicole spun up suddenly, and we missed Montego Bay and Grand Cayman...spent 4 days in a row at sea, but we had a blast......when we did get to Cozumel, EVERYONE was ready to get off the boat. Of our seven cruises, five of them have been in the Caribbean during hurricane season, and we sail Sept 24 on the Liberty as well.

[oncruisecontrol]

The biggest concern of cruising during hurricane season is not being rerouted and missing ports. The most problematic thing during hurricane season is if a hurricane were to hit your port of initial embarkation. This happened back in 2004 when friends were going on a cruise departing from Ft. Lauderdale. Both the port and the airport were closed preventing cruisers from even getting to Ft. Lauderdale. It was not so problematic for my friends as they live in Ft. Lauderdale. Two days later when the port opened and the ship was able to dock and disembark passengers from the previous sailing, there were still scores of people who still could not make the ship even though it was departing 48hrs late( because of the backlog of cancelled flights due to the airport also having been closed). So, in my view, it doesn't matter if there is a storm at sea, the ship can always take you somewhere else, at least you're still on a cruise. But if a hurricane hits your embarkation port, you may not get to cruise at all.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

2005 - Conquest and Hurricane Dennis. We skipped Grand Cayman, had an overnight in Cozumel (we actually have two gangway photos dated two consecutive days), and had the cruise extended a day. Even though we were a good distance from the hurricane the seas were pretty rough and there were lots of "do not disturb" signs on cabin doors and barf bags at the elevators.

 

...

 

Here is your ship (on your sailing) in Cozumel:

 

 

 

We were right next to you on the Miracle. When we left Tampa a few days prior the seas were somewhat rough due to Hurricane Cindy - heading back to Tampa, it was all Dennis.

 

It was definitely rough seas - and we stayed in our cabin most of the day, mainly because it was somewhat difficult to stand!

 

 

 

We picked up a hitchhiker going around the tip of Cuba - this guy, once he found a landing place, stayed right there for over 36 hours!

 

 

 

We were basically coming in behind the Hurricane on our way back to Tampa. We had to do circles in the gulf ALL DAY LONG (the day we should have been off that morning) due to the fact that the Coast Guard had not yet given the "thumbs up" to open up the channel back to the pier. Thus, we managed to have a sunset shot going under the Sunshine Skyway bridge BACK into Tampa Bay that evening. The weather was much nicer now!

 

 

 

We did not get off the ship until almost MIDNIGHT. All day long they would make announcements onboard along the lines of: "we expect to be cleared to reenter Tampa Bay by 10 AM"... many people were already out of their cabins sitting with their bags in public areas. Then they would say that it will be a couple more hours - and then they opened the casino and put together some light activities. Then "by 3 PM we should be cleared". Casino closed... then reopened again when "we should be cleared by 5". You get the idea - it was like a yo-yo all day long. I felt bad for all those who had left their cabins assuming that they would be getting off relatively soon. We let our cabin steward know that we were in ours until we reentered the bay. There were many people at Channelside waiting for the ship to return - after all, they had just missed the first day of their cruise. What really ticks me off about that whole thing was the fact that we had to get off the ship SO late - after a long tiring day, when they did not then allow boarding for the next sailing until the next day. We had called a friend an hour or so north of the port to crash at his place that night, as we were not going to be able to make the drive back to Tallahassee (where we lived then)! Why Carnival didn't have the decency to just let us rest the night, and debark the next morning in beyond me. :mad:

 

 

Tom

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

Before debarkation, I spied this guy (another stowaway) above the lifeboats. My guess is he came aboard near Cuba as well:

 

 

 

Tom

[truchattycathy]

First time to Grand Cayman a hurricane was due to hit, so we left early. The water was extremely rough during snorkeling that day.

 

Last cruise they completely changed up our itinerary, we missed Belize because of a hurricane and it was to rough for us to dock in Costa Maya, even tho they really tried. It was ok with me, we got to go to Cozumel a second time. :D

[pafam4]

Four cruises, all during hurricane season. Two were unaffected by any storms. During our honeymoon cruise (Sept 1987), there was a hurricane affecting the seas we were headed into. Our captain adjusted our course and speed for the night, and headed to our first port (Barbados) slightly later than expected on the scheduled day. The seas were very rough during that night...lots of people running out of the MDR looking green...but my husband and I did not feel sick at all.

 

Last summer on the Dream (western carib) a tropical storm (Alex?) stirred up the waters quite a bit. All water activities were cancelled at Isla Pasion, however we still were able to ride the Twister Boats. Snorkelling in Belize was a waste due to very murky waters. We could not dock at Costa Maya due to high waves and wind. Even though the weather was beautiful throughout the week, the seas were very rough off and on. "Stomach distress" bags available all over the ship. But despite all that, we had a great cruise. Luckily my family does not experience sea sickness and we had a fabulous time.