Tryin' to Reason with Hurricane Season

[HighLordDave]

We are due to sail on the Star Princess from Ft. Lauderdale this coming Sunday.

 

This, of course, is right about the time Hurricane Wilma is projected to make landfall along the coast of southwest Florida, run across the state and then exit into the Atlantic.

 

I checked Princess's website and they have no mention of weather contingencies or updates from their main page.

 

Last year, when Orlando and Port Canaveral were the bulleyes for Hurricane Ivan(?), Royal Caribbean had constant updates on their website about weather contingencies and they ended up holding some people over for two days while cutting other people's cruises short (and compensating them for the shortened itineraries).

 

Has anyone had any experience with Princess and how they deal with hurricane/weather related situations? Do I need to contact them directly to get the scoop or are they likely to post it were it is easily accessible?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Twaincruisers]

Here in Miami we went to bed last night to TS Wilma and woke up to Hurricane Wilma, the most powerful hurricane in history...I think everyone is surprised, including cruise lines. I am sure they will be putting up notices soon.

 

I hope everything goes well for your cruise.

[Terre]

HighLordDave, we, too are on the Star Sunday. There've been lots of speculation and some on our roll call have actually called Princess. Check out our roll call under Princes Roll Calls -- Star. It will most likely be the first or second one. We're all trying to decide what we'll do.

[Ti2m]

Has anyone had any experience with Princess and how they deal with hurricane/weather related situations? Do I need to contact them directly to get the scoop or are they likely to post it were it is easily accessible?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Unfortunately we have two first hand experiences with Princess hurricane/weather related situations. Last year Frances delayed our CB cruise. Guess what ... we are booked to leave this Saturday again on the CB! Oh Willlllma!!!!

 

Last year we called Princess many times. We rarely got the same answers. Eventually they posted the delay on their web site and we could adjust our flight schedule. It was very last minute and we were lucky to be able to rearrange our flight. Our travel agent also notified us about the same time. We had a great but abbreviated cruise!

 

I called Princess last night and there are no changes for the weekend at this time. We will be flying on Friday morning and I double-checked with our hotel to make sure we were still welcome in FLL.

 

All systems are go at this point. If the ship doesn’t make it to port Saturday we will at least be in FLL ready to board ... whenever.

 

Good luck with your trip.

 

Timm

[JPEvans]

Timm

 

I'm impressed with your attitude of you coming up cruise. lots of people would be spitting nails at the idea that "their" cruise could or will be altered. You seem to be taking it very well. Good for you!!!!!

[DMickey28]

We are also on Star this Sunday. Three flying in Saturday mid day from Boston, My husband and I are flying in EARLY Saturday AM from Chicago and one other guy from Boston on Sunday AM.

 

I too have called Princess and there is nothing yet. We are all systems go at this point, trying to beat the storm Saturday into Ft. Lauderdale. We have one room for Saturday and one for Sunday, currently trying to get a second for Sunday but all the hotels around our orginal one are sold out. We do have people in town so worst case some of use stay there other's at the hotel!!

 

Just keeping our fingers crossed. This year we bought cruise insurance. Last year I was married last week on a cruise on St. Thomas and NONE of use had INSURANCE. I look back and think how lucky we were!!!!

 

IT's a week out of Chicago and a week away from work!!

[gatour]

As a somewhat dis-interested bystander last year ( I live in Florida but didn't have a cruise booked) I did keep an eye on the boards here along with the various cruise line's websites. I felt RCCL was the most forthcoming with information, providing a link on their home page to further information, even when they still hadn't made up their minds several days in advance. Carnival would provide similiar information but you would have to dig for it, until the time they had made some hard decisions. Princess along with other lines were much worse in regards to this.

 

I have heard several times in the last few hours about how hard this storm is becoming to predict, the models are "blowing up" because of all of the variables.

[lynwar]

We are also scheduled for the Star on Sunday.We have fellow cruisers, one couple due to return on the CB Princess on Saturday and join us on the Star on Sunday,and another couple who will stay on the Star with us on Sunday for the second half of their back to back cruise.The Star went East this week when it was supposed to go west.

One member of our roll call group has started a list of where all of us will be staying in Ft. Lauderdale so that we can keep in contact. Some have changed their flight reservations to Saturday from Sunday, and have booked 2 nights, even at high prices, to ensure a place to stay should we have to delay departure. We live 150 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale and have reservations for Saturday night. I'm glad to hear that the city will be open to the travellers. If not, we'll stay here and drive down on Sunday or Monday, as the schedule predicts.

Whether I go on a 7 day cruise or a 5 day cruise, this will be my vacation week!! Also, we do have family in Ft. Lauderdale and can crash with them if necessary, if we do go down Saturday and have to stay Sunday night.We could attend the "pre-cruise party" (LOL) and then go to Mom-in-Law's for a free night's sleep!!! (20 miles inland).

I won't complain, because we got to have a 9 day cruise out of a 7 day cruise with Hurricane Jeanne last year on the CB Princess, so I guess it's "our turn."

Lynne (plus, our guy, Jake can be in charge of nefarious activities in Ft. L !!)

[Bookworm77]

Over on the Roll Call for the CB 10/22 sailing we've really been discussing hard what options we each have. DH and I are taking our first cruise, and didn't really know the importance of flying in a day ahead.... BOY OH BOY has Wilma taught us a lesson in that.

 

Last night we made reservations at a hotel in FLL for friday night, and are at the ready to change our flight from saturday morn to friday mid day if necessary. I can tell you now that our next cruise we'll just plan in advance to arrive a day ahead.

 

There is a large disparity in what the models are saying this storm is going to do. All models do have it crossing FL, just at different times. Some of the models are as much as 24 hours different from others. Very unpredictable.

 

I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that Wilma just tears herself apart and disipates into nothing!!

[laginog]

Keep an eye on when the Hurricane is supposed to come in. Our group (of 3 families with children) was evidently on the cruise with Timm last year. Before we left home, I called the hotel (Embassy Suites) and had them add the additional nights to our reservation, just in case we didn't get to sail on time. They said it was no problem if we had to cancel. It was a good thing we did because we were delayed by two days. The next day, they said if we hadn't called, we wouldn't have had rooms. We may have ended up in a shelter at that point. Just a "heads up" in case.

[ppeckham]

My last two cruises were affected by hurricane/tropical storm. The first one the storm was in the Gulf. Our cruise just sailed around her. We did get into Playa del Carmen a little later but it was no big deal. BTW, the seas were pretty rough that first day. Although we were 200 miles away from the storm, the ship was still rocking. I was ill that morning as were many other passengers.

 

The second trip was hurricane Emily in July. We didn't leave any later, but our intinerary was changed. We found that out when we arrived in port. I was really disappointed as I had done that same itinerary three times. I had selected that cruise because the itinerary had two different ports. Oh, well. We made the most of the trip.

 

What I have noticed is varied levels of communication. Carnival has a weather update link on its website. I can't seem to find one on Princess.