What's your best guess for the upcoming prime cruise season in the Caribbean?

Many of the islands that are port calls are heavily damaged and Maria may add some more to the list (PUerto RICO, St. Kitts, Dominica). ST. Thomas and St. John may be struck again. ST. MArtin in bad shape.

prime season starts 11/1. WHat tack will the major cruise lines take? WIll they cancel cruises? ATtempt to re-route? The western Caribbean is already heavily overburdened with the large mega ships in port. CAn't believe many more could be squeezed into those ports. THe Carribean islands are for the most part very poor and do not have the infrastructure to quickly move to make repairs. COuld be a long time before they are up and ready to accept cruise passengers. SO, what do you think the major cruise lines will do?

I think there will be more sea days as cruise lines are forced to miss damaged ports.

Without knowing what Maria will do, I doubt there will be many cancelled cruises. Cruise lines do not make money on cancelled cruises. Not all of us will like the new itinerary, but the ships will sail

The ships will sail. barring something we cannot know without using our crystal balls.. :)

Hard to say at this point, depends on the damage Maria (and any other storms) will do and how long it takes the islands to recover.

Probably some ports being substituted.

We are booked on a 14 day out of NYC in early Feb. there are already six seadays, at least four, and looking like 5 of the 8 ports severely damaged. We're waiting and hoping to hear, before final payment, what NCL will do.

Actually I'm also concerned about other lines too. Those ports that are functioning will likely be slammed as the demand will be high.

I think there will be more sea days as cruise lines are forced to miss damaged ports.

 

Without knowing what Maria will do, I doubt there will be many cancelled cruises. Cruise lines do not make money on cancelled cruises. Not all of us will like the new itinerary, but the ships will sail

Agreed.

We're sailing on a true 14 day round day round trip out of Ft. Lauderdale in January.

While substitute ports may be possible for some that were badly hit by hurricanes, there may be others that become a sea day.

My heart goes out to all living on those islands. :(

Probably some ports being substituted.

Not a lot left after Maria....[emoji849]

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I don't pay attention to the private islands, but is it possible that if any/all of those are still intact that there will be more and/or longer stops there? will the lines share them?

We are booked on a 14 day out of NYC in early Feb. there are already six seadays, at least four, and looking like 5 of the 8 ports severely damaged. We're waiting and hoping to hear, before final payment, what NCL will do.

 

Actually I'm also concerned about other lines too. Those ports that are functioning will likely be slammed as the demand will be high.

We're in the same boat (no pun intended). Our cruise is in March. Trying to decide whether or not to cancel before final payment.

Wherever possible they will not cancel cruises and come up with other ports to visit.

They make money from excursions.

Keith

Many of the islands that are port calls are heavily damaged and Maria may add some more to the list (PUerto RICO, St. Kitts, Dominica). ST. Thomas and St. John may be struck again. ST. MArtin in bad shape.

prime season starts 11/1. WHat tack will the major cruise lines take? WIll they cancel cruises? ATtempt to re-route? The western Caribbean is already heavily overburdened with the large mega ships in port. CAn't believe many more could be squeezed into those ports. THe Carribean islands are for the most part very poor and do not have the infrastructure to quickly move to make repairs. COuld be a long time before they are up and ready to accept cruise passengers. SO, what do you think the major cruise lines will do?

They could cancel and/or re-route, but I think they would be more likely to re-route if possible.

I leave in two weeks. I thought we were spared as the only Port severely damaged was St Martin. Well, Maria has changed that. San Juan, St Kitts and Grand Turk are right in the middle of her path. I guess Carnival will switch our route. I would hate to go back to Belize and Roatan...am really hoping for the ABC islands. Either way, it's a vacation and I have the drink package so I don't really care where we go! Oh, and my husband and I are looking distance so it's 8 days with him regardless.....I am a happy lady!

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I have my Celebrity cruise on Reflection in February. This cruise goes to Caymans, Cartagena, Aruba, Curucao and Bonaire. All fine and should remain that way. Celebrity also does a cruise I was on and liked going to Cartegena, Panama, Costa Rica, Belize and Mexico. I would cancel and rebook on either of these two. My Feb 2019 does a 12 day of eastern and southern Carribean so I have lots of time to evaluate my Celebrity Cruise for reconstruction. No way I would go to that area in 3-4 months and pay thousands. I am not a huge fan of sea days.

We are cruising the Eastern Caribbean on Celebrity in mid October and they are rerouting with the same number of stops. We enjoy sea days, so the changes don't matter to us. But it looks like there are enough ports in the Caribbean to reroute ships without cancelling port days.

Burt

As a matter of interest what ports did they replace and now going to. Unfortunately with 2 months of Hurricane season more may be eliminated any week. Thanks!

I don't have the changes in front of me, Sally is keeping closer track than I am. Two of the ports were St. Thomas and St. Martin. I believe at least four of the six original ports were changed. Of course things are still changing.

Personally I'm pushing for Hawaii, but Sally says that is unlikely. You never know.:confused:

Burt

Is it possible we will see more ports using tendering? That could be an option too. I'm thinking of St Vincent and the Grenadines for example.

There will obviously be a lot of itinerary changes for the coming year. St Maarten will likely be out of the mix until late next year, as the damage on that island is devastating. St Thomas has significant damage and it might be months until their infrastructure can even think about supporting cruise ship passengers. And now we have Maria which is going to knock PR out of the cruise world for some time. This is a double whammy for cruise lines that used San Juan as their home port. Some of the announced port changes will now have to change again (due to Maria).

We have to wonder how this will work out for the monster Mega ships of RCI and NCL. Those ships cannot just go into any port, and their ability to tender is somewhat limited by the huge number of cruisers. The Western Caribbean ports are going to be overwhelmed with cruise ship calls....which will create their on problems on some of these islands. Some of these ports will have great difficulty handling the influx of even more cruisers as ship itineraries are adjusted to utilize undamaged ports/islands. What is happening with these multiple hurricanes is unprecedented and the damage so widespread that every cruise line will have to totally revise their contingency plans. But one can be sure that the ships will continue to sail...we know not where!

Hank