Have You Ever Cruised During Hurricane Season?

[funat55]

I am trying to put together a cruise for next year, sometime in August which I realize is hurricane season. It won't matter if our itinerary gets modified because of bad weather, but is there any other reason why I shouldn't just go ahead and make my plans? Have any of you out there cruised during hurricane season and if so, did everything turn out alright??:confused:

[Langley Cruisers]

Hi there,

 

For your information, there are literally dozens of threads about hurricanes and cruising in hurricane season; feel free to use the Search function to read them. They are interesting.

 

To answer you quickly, though, we have sailed around two hurricanes without incident. We've often booked in summer due to scheduling; there is no guarantee you either will or will not encounter a storm. Rest assured the captain will do his utmost to keep his passengers and crew safe; if it means missing a port or altering an itinerary, he will do so.

 

Make your plans. :) You have no control over it anyway.

[Crissy699]

Sounds like you are perfect for cruising during Hurricane season! ;) You may have your cruise routed to a different port, but you say you wont mind that, so enjoy the lower prices and cruise along happily! :D There is nothing more important to the captain on a ship than the safety of his ship and passengers, they will cruise you to safety-no worries. The only thing is if your home is a place where a hurricane may hit-make sure everything is safe and secure before you leave-same goes for your car, dont leave it in a lot next to the ocean in Miami if a hurricane is on its way there LOL

[Cruzman]

We have sailed 6 times during hurricane season and only once did we even have an itinerary change. Having said that, that doesn't mean that you will be so lucky, lol.

[sail7seas]

We cruised for years during Hurricane season and all cruises combined, we may have missed maybe two ports due to storms. Maybe we were lucky but it wasn't an issue for us in any way.

 

We love the Caribbean in the summer and only stopped sailing the islands during summer months because we only sail HAL ships and they move their ships to more costly itineraries from mid April through mid October.

[Grandpaul]

On our first cruise in 1989 we ran into 2 hurricanes. We sail just about every fall season. Great rates.

[GlendaleCruiser]

I usually always cruise during hurricane season. I know that I've been fortunate and not everyone has been. I've never even missed a port, but raced around a couple of hurricanes. I think if you are open to changing ports and a little rough water, it is well worth the discounted price to cruise during this time.

[Leafpeeper]

Where do you want to cruise? If you are planning on a caribbean cruise, you should expect hot and humid weather. I would prefer a cruise to Hawaii from California that time of year or a Pacific Coastal or Alaskan cruise in August.

 

Mexico is often hit with rain and hurricanes in the summer.

We've taken 2 cruises in early October and were fortunate that we did not hit a hurricane but we did have some stormy weather near Florida. We also found the caribbean to be extremely hot and humid in October compared to our winter cruises. We prefer to cruise to warm places from January thru March.

[sail7seas]

Canada/New England cruises are fabulous during spring/summer/fall months. When HAL stopped summer sailings in the Caribbean, we started sailing from Boston to Montreal to Boston every summer. We do the b-to-b and never tire of it. Fabulous!

 

That's not to say there is no chance of a hurricane coming up the coast..... as is possible this very weekend. Our local (Boston) weathermen are currently monitoring Hurricane Bill. :eek:

 

[zacc]

We have cruised every Sept. for the past 7 years. This Sept will make 8. Safe to say hurricane season doesn't worry us! I should add that we have only hit extremely bad weather once and it was not in the Caribbean. We got slammed in Newport RI on a New England/Canada cruise by Hurricane Ivan in Sept 2004! Winds speeds were reported to hit gusts of 95 MPH that day. Our tender landed ashore just as they closed the harbor to small crafts. They had us land because they decided that would be safer than trying to get us back to the ship. Made sense to me since as we neared shore the waves were actually going over the top of our tender. Finally after several hours the winds let up and we were allowed to return to the ship.......it was exciting to say the very least!

[iheartbda]

The official Atlantic hurricane season is from June 1 thru Nov. 30 so it's very likely that many, many people have cruised during the season.;) The very peaked season is from Aug. to Oct. with early to mid Sept. being the pinnacle of the peaked season.

 

Here's an old mariner's poem about hurricanes.:)

 

June- too soon.

July-- stand by!

August-- look out you must.

September-- remember.

October, all over.

[rnff2]

We have cruised in hurricane season several times and only once did we miss scheduled ports. As long as you keep an open mind and know that your ports may be changed or missed you can have a great cruise. I feel it is as safe a time to cruise as any other time...they would never put a ship full of people in harms way. Go for it and have a great cruise.

[BonnieVA]

We cruised last Aug when Fran (I think), Gustav & Hannah were all bearing down on the US. Gustav re-routed us from Jamaica & Grand Cayman to the Bahamas & Hannah just made us a bit uneasy knowing she was headed our way. But our biggest stressor was from Fran (or whatever the "F" one was last year) because we weren't sure we would be able to get TO the port (Miami). We stressed for a week watching her progress & the forecasts. Every day (& hourly, it seemed) her projected path changed.

 

We did make it down there, driving through some high winds & a bit of rain, & the cruise was fun but the stress was in the travel pre-cruise.

[beachbum6264]

Check my sig... we usually sail in hurricane season and it's all been good. Sure, some changed itineraries, ports changed, ports missed, extra days added. But we know the risk and we don't care where we go, we're on vacation and having a blast! We've had a couple of rough days (got pictures of the little white bags hanging everywhere!), but nothing that would stop us from doing it again... since we're sailing on Aug. 30. With the right attitude you'll have a great time.

[funat55]

Hi there,

 

For your information, there are literally dozens of threads about hurricanes and cruising in hurricane season; feel free to use the Search function to read them. They are interesting.

 

To answer you quickly, though, we have sailed around two hurricanes without incident. We've often booked in summer due to scheduling; there is no guarantee you either will or will not encounter a storm. Rest assured the captain will do his utmost to keep his passengers and crew safe; if it means missing a port or altering an itinerary, he will do so.

 

Make your plans. :) You have no control over it anyway.

 

I did notice there was a topic concerning the 2009 hurricane season on the main page but you (and the other posters) gave me the info I was looking for. Like you, I am planning to cruise on the Oasis and originally was planning September, but some of my family members have kids in school and this year school started early (Aug 10th), so now I am planning earlier. Come to think of it, I too have probably cruised during hurricane season but never thought about it before. I think I will go forward with the planning and not worry about the weather.

[Teeara]

I cruised on Mariner during Hurricane Jeanne. We were able to leave Port Canaveral okay, but since she was heading straight for it we spent two additional days at sea. Captain added Labadee to our itinerary rather than just going in circles with everyone else in the middle of the gulf. Since FLL shut down for Jeanne, all outbound flights were rescheduled. Also, because of the damage caused by Jeanne to PC, we docked instead in Miami. RCCL provided buses to transport us to FLL for our flights which were rescheduled. RCCL charged us $20 pp for the buses for those of us who didn't change our FLL flights to MIA flights. So we got 2 extra days at sea. Those cruising after us got 2 less or option to skip and rebook. Would I cruise during hurricane season again? Sure. It's a crapshoot and you just have to be flexible and make sure you have travel insurance just in case. Also, don't get too wedded to your itinerary. If you have your heart set on going to one particular port and your cruise would be ruined if you didn't hit it, then you might want to reconsider booking your cruise for April or May instead of June - November.

[trish1c]

The only thing that happened to us was we didn't get to see our friend in Key West b/c he's an air traffic controller for the Navy & he was a little busy b/c of the hurricanne making landfall in Norfalk.

We also go delayed 5 hours flying home.

[BroncosFan2010]

My honeymoon cruise was back in 2005, and we sailed between two major hurricanes (including Katrina). The technology on the ship is amazing, and they really do try to avoid hurricanes and even cloudy weather (on sea days) as much as possible. Our itinerary was not affected, and the seas were calm, as the captain did a great job of choosing alternative routes to get from one island to another.

 

I am planning a B2B for next August, and have very little concern about hurricanes. I am sure that if a port needs to be substituted, it will not ruin my cruise. Make sure you have travel insurance that includes hurricane coverage, and you will be fine!

[momofmeg]

In my 15 cruises, 11 were during hurricane season. (June 1- November 30-hurricane season is 6 months of the year) The other 4 cruises, were in December 03, February 06, April 04, and May 01. Both, the December 03 and the February 06 cruises, we had heavy winter storms-that were just as bad as the remains of Floyd we ran into in September 2002 on our way to Bermuda.

 

We even took a cruise in September 04 between Frances, and Jeanne. That cruise, the weather was not nearly as bad as the two winter cruises we took.

[Senoj84]

My 1st and 2nd cruise were in hurricane season. The first cruise the port (Costa Maya) got completely wiped out from Hurricane Dean so we were assigned to another port which was Cozumel. The second cruise we were supposed to go to Grand Turk and it received some damage from Hurricane Ike so were reassigned to go to Nassau, Bahamas. Both times I was really looking forward to going to those islands but I was happy with the replacement.

[momofmeg]

I cruised on Mariner during Hurricane Jeanne. We were able to leave Port Canaveral okay, but since she was heading straight for it we spent two additional days at sea. Captain added Labadee to our itinerary rather than just going in circles with everyone else in the middle of the gulf. Since FLL shut down for Jeanne, all outbound flights were rescheduled. Also, because of the damage caused by Jeanne to PC, we docked instead in Miami. RCCL provided buses to transport us to FLL for our flights which were rescheduled. RCCL charged us $20 pp for the buses for those of us who didn't change our FLL flights to MIA flights. So we got 2 extra days at sea. Those cruising after us got 2 less or option to skip and rebook. Would I cruise during hurricane season again? Sure. It's a crapshoot and you just have to be flexible and make sure you have travel insurance just in case. Also, don't get too wedded to your itinerary. If you have your heart set on going to one particular port and your cruise would be ruined if you didn't hit it, then you might want to reconsider booking your cruise for April or May instead of June - November.

 

I was on Disney Wonder-a four day-I may have waved at you during the muster drill, or as your ship pulled away-as the two ships conducted their drills at the same time, and the MOS left a few minutes ahead of the Wonder. I was waving on my balcony as your ship left port.

 

after debarking, we spent Thursday night at Coco Beach and visited the space center. The space center was actually a 2 day tour, but we missed a good bit of it, as vacationers were STRONGLY advised to leave before Saturday morning. We left coca Beach Friday around 3 to head home. Traffic was horrific until we reached the Macon, GA area.

 

We had friends who cruised the MOS the following week. As you said, their cruise was shortened to 5 day-but they were given a refund for the 2 days, a $300 on board credit, plus a half off certificate for a future cruise.

[Traveler353]

"Have You Ever Cruised During Hurricane Season?"

 

Every year and I have be rerouted twice so far. No big deal. I don't care where the ship is going.

[Rockportgirl]

Yes, and we will never do it again. The rerouting and missing ports was no big deal. The stress and financial loss we experienced was not worth saving a few bucks on the tickets.

[Toto2Kansas]

We have sailed many times during hurricane season, and only once did the ship sail just way too close to the storm. It was on Celebrity, and we had an aft stateroom. It took me over 5 years to even think of booking another aft stateroom after that. :eek:

We lost half the pool furniture overboard (even though it was all tied down, it still came loose), waves were hitting the windows of the upper lounge (deck 12 or 14, sorry, can't remember which one it was now), and we actually had to crawl in our stateroom, you couldn't walk (not an exageration). If you tried, you were thrown into the walls and furniture as the ship pitched and rolled.

 

But, I figure only having a bad experience once after sailing that many times to the Caribbean in hurricane season isn't so bad.

 

Other times we have skipped ports, reversed the port schedule, those types of things. But just once did we have a terrible time sailing during that time of year. ;)

[BROOKSIDE]

Sailed during hurricane ike last year. Cruise was fine but lost car in galveston. They will make sure nothing happens to the ship. Ended up in new orleans instead of galveston.