Hurricane Frances info-- post here

Hi folks. Rather than having a number of different threads on the board, how about posting any news you have about Hurricane Frances on this thread. That way there is one place for everyone to go.

Also, please check out our news page, which is being kept up to date as the cruise lines inform us of what they plan to do. The page is located at http://cruisecritic.com/news/index.cfm.

Everyone, be safe!

Someone posted a wonderful link for meterology info on the storm, but the thread appears to be having problems. I will repost the link here:

http://www.boatus.com/hurricanes/tracking.asp

The following info is from USAir's website.....

Airport Closures Due to Hurricane Frances

September 3 - 5, 2004

Ft. Lauderdale - Closed from September 3 through 12:00pm September 5

Miami - Closed from September 3 through 12:00 pm September 5

Orlando - Closed from September 3 through 12:00 pm September 5

West Palm Beach - Closed from September 3 through 12:00 pm September 5

I heard on the noon news that Tampa International is still open.

St. Petersburg/Clearwater is open and ATA has added 5 more flights.

Sarasota/Bradenton airport is open

SW Florida Airport in Ft. Myers is open.

All of the above are taking a wait and see attitude at this time.

As of 2:30pm ET 9/3, according to the FAA, Orlando (MCO), Ft. Lauderdale (FLL) and Melbourne (MLB) are the only major FL airports currently closed. Miami (MIA) is still officially open but most, if not all, airlines, have suspended flights, or will suspend flights into/out of MIA as of 6pm local time. How long the airlines keep the flights suspended is up to them, so check the airlines, or for Miami airport info, check the MIA website:

www.miami-airport.com (be warned - it's a busy, therefore, slow site right now).

SE USA FAA airport information site (for closings):

http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/semap.jsp or

http://www.fly.faa.gov/flyfaa/plaintext.html

Frank

<LI>Due to HURRICANE, the BCT airport was closed as of Sep 03 at 19:45 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is Sep 05 at 18:00 UTC.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE FRANCES, the FPR airport was closed as of Sep 02 at 19:00 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE FRANCES, the HST airport was closed as of Sep 03 at 04:00 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE FRANCES, the ISM airport was closed as of Sep 03 at 16:00 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE FRANCES, the MBGT airport was closed as of Sep 02 at 19:00 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to OPEN WITH PPR ONLY TO GA/CARGO, NO AIR CARRIER OPS ARE BEING ALLOWED, the Orlando International Airport (MCO) was closed as of Sep 03 at 02:00 PM EDT. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE FRANCES, the Melbourne International Airport (MLB) was closed as of Sep 03 at 01:30 PM EDT. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE FRANCES, the MYNN airport was closed as of Sep 02 at 18:30 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE FRANCES, the SFB airport was closed as of Sep 03 at 10:00 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE, the SUA airport was closed as of Sep 03 at 00:00 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is Sep 05 at 18:00 UTC.

<LI>Due to HURRICANE FRANCES, the VRB airport was closed as of Sep 03 at 16:00 UTC. The date/time when the airport is expected to reopen is not known.

<LI>Due to WEATHER, LOW VIS, departure traffic destined to The William B Hartsfield International Airport, Atlanta, GA (ATL) is currently experiencing delays averaging 13 minutes.

FYI, got pulled off RCCL SOS a day early due to Frances! They offered $200 or the option of staying on, with no known return date!! Many on the ship stayed.... anyone else back??

Took us 28 hours to drive back to Buffalo, 8 of which was spent on rte 75...

Glad to see you made it back safely. I read at Cruise News Daily about that offer for those on the SOS and the Majesty to stay on for free and like you said many did. Between the 2 ships it was reported that approx 1200 passengers elected to stay remain onboard.

According to the US Weather Service -Java Tracker...Frances is expanding in size but diminishing in wind speed. Looks like she will be one giant rain storm with winds around 70 mph. or less. Let's hope she continues to decrease in wind speed and become a tropical storm.

ROSS

Just out of curiousity...why did you get off? Was it job, school, etc. related or were you scared?

Wife is a teacher, first day back is Tuesday, DD starts on wednesday.. and I knew we could not get a flight out on Monday.. in fact, they said they would be back Sat, Sun or Monday.. not sure when. I figured that was a little too vague for me, in addition, not knowing what we would face at the port when we came back.

In addition, to be honest, there was so little info from the captain during the cruise, that I didn't really trust RCCL to look out for my interests... They took us to CoCo first, knowing that Nassua wouyld be boarding up, probably so that they would have the time to board up Coco, which they were doing as we left...

With your car left at port, I guess you had to worry about it as well. Sounds like you made the correct decision. Glad you made it back safely. Did you get the $200 in cash, credit for a future cruise or shipboard credit taken off your bill? Was that $200 per person? Doesn't seem like fare compensation versus being able to have three extra days on the ship.

I don't know what kind of news the TV gives on the storm around the country, but the storm has now stalled and appears to be staionary for the last 1-2 hours.

My Daughter is on the Cruise Directors staff on Majesty and called Thurs afternoon as they were going back out. She said the Capt told them that they would turn and come back as soon as the Port in Miami was reopened. This could be Fri, Sat, or Sun night, or as late as Mon morn. There is very limited food service since there is no place to port and re-stock as it costs to do so. They had over 700, a few that were already in town for the weekend cruise, that went back out on board.

EW

Hey there dad, thought this might be a little easier than email since you look at this soooo much during the day. Hey everyone. This is Lauryn, Wallie's daughter onboard the Majesty. We are near Key West heading back west again as we had to drop off one of our crew members for emergency surgery on his appendix. Water is more than just rough at the moment beacuse we are just sitting still. Still having a great time with all the passengers that came back to cruise for free on what we have named our "Cruise to Nowhere"

Somewhat of just a downtime cruise for us so it was a well needed break from the fast paced world of a 3-4 day cruise rotation. As seeing pictures from Nassau and Coco Cay, we wont be visiting there anytime in the next 2 weeks unless they can clean clean clean and quickly. The 4 day cruise coming up we will be going to Cozumel on wednesday and having a few days at sea. Just a relaxing time. OK dad time to go to Bingo. Talk to you later.

-Lauryn

LaurynRCI & Wallie5446,

Thank you for sharing your love for each other with us while you keep everyone up-dated on the sea conditions.

:)

Hi Lauryn:

Diane and I are on your Monday cruise to Cozumel. Thanks for all the updates, glad you all made it through everything just fine, and we'll be among the one's with the green rubber bands, green olives, limes, green tomatoes, etc. around our wrists around the pool bar around 3:30 on Monday

Looking forward to meeting you! :)

Frank

:) Lauryn

What a lovely surprise your message would be for your Dad,I will admit I am choked by it so I hope your Mum has the hankies for your Dad.

Glad to hear you are ok.

Best wishes for a safe journey

Liz

I agree Lauryn what a great surprise for your Dad! And all of us appreciate your update first hand. Your in our prayers as you float around out there. Stay safe!

Ahh no problemo guys... Cant wait to meet everyone coming onboard on monday. I will try my best to get down the the pool bar, but as you well know, we are going to be going crzy due to such time-pushed debarkation and embarkation tomorrow. We are scheduled to get in sometime tomorrow morning, as I was just told from the Capitan's announcement. Everyone is just going to have to be patient as there will be 6 RCI ships in during the day tomorrow that have been stranded out during the storm. Im tryin to get a few different activities going just for the CC folks and if I cant get it done "formally" we will for sure have a few get-togethers on our own. You can concider me your personal party planner. Look forward to seein you guys tomorrow at the pool and if not then, stop by for the crusie staff sail away party at 5. See yall soon....

Lauryn

Lauryn....my son was a casino dealer for Princess for 3-1/2 yrs....this board was great not only to communicate with him but to send messages to him and he made many new friends from this board. We also watched him sail on the krooozcams like when he was in Alaska or Europe or the panama canal.

Enjoy your experiences he did.....we had 2 wonderfull sailings with him and was able to meet many of his coworkers...great bunch of kids! He cannot put a price to the places he saw and people he met during his contracts.

Just had a relative call home from Grandeur of the Seas, which left out of Baltimore on Saturday, Sept. 4 - she said They were around the Carolinas, and the waters are so rough everybody's getting sick and the ship's rocking so bad that people have to hold on to something to walk! 20 foot waves being reported, and she said it's scary.

The captain said Monday is supposed to be more of the same - Their first stop is supposed to be Key West on Tuesday, and I have read from these message boards that Grandeur will be stopping at Charleston, S.C. instead of Port Canaveral on the return trip.

I guess once they get to Key West the water will be much calmer.

Boy, those forecasters were dead on earlier this year when they said 2004 was going to be a busy hurricane season.

My son would love it! :)

Glad we made the decision to get off.. wife and DD get seasick easily...

BTW, we did NOT have a car at port. The boat brought us back to a legally evacuated port (Canaveral), where all car rental places had been closed, then charged us to get out of the threatened area. They took our $19 per head, and dumped us at Orlando Airport. We finally got a rental car, and drove back to Buffalo. 8 hours to get out of Orlando... 13 to Atlanta, and 28 to Buffalo!!

I think that since Canaveral had been closed, and that it was not safe to go there, that if they were truly concerned about us and not just the boat, they would have left us off in Miami (Closer) or Jacksonville, niether of which had been closed at that point...

The $200 was per cabin, we had 2 poeple and had paid tips, transport and all other fees per person not cabin... it was applied to your credit card or SS card...

BTW, this was a 25th anniversary cruise, just our bad luck... but as with the rest of our marriage, it was an experience... :rolleyes:

Swack,

Hi, my family was also on the SOS. I had mixed feelings about staying on but my oldest was planning a trip home from college for the weekend, so off we went. We had a car reserved at Budget but they were closed. Tried to get the $19. ship transfer to the airport, but they were sold out (turned out to be a good thing. Couldn't get a flight out anyway.) Finally was able to get a car from Enterprise and drove home to New Jersey. Do you know if the people who stayed are getting off today? I can't seem to find out if the port is reopening or not.

Debbie