Passengers normally book a cruise from (usually) warm and sunny Florida to get away from the cold. For tens of thousands of cruise passengers this weekend, sailing from warm-weather ports like Port Canaveral, Port Everglades, and Miami will see historic cold for the area.
Let’s just say that nobody is likely going to be taking a dip in the pool as their ship leaves port!
Winter Weather Seen Across the United States Makes its Way to Florida
For much of the past two weeks, the United States has seen major winter weather disruptions stretching across the country. Cities from Dallas to New York have seen frigid temperatures, ice, snow, school cancellations and more.
Now, it’s Florida’s turn to get in on the cold weather action. It’s leading to what we imagine is a shock for many people anticipating a warm cruise.
According to local weather stations, Sunday morning saw some of the coldest temperatures for Florida not just in years, but in more than a decade.
The Miami airport saw a low of 35 degrees this morning. Tamiami — about 15 miles inland from the Port of Miami — saw a low of 30 degrees. That’s right, freezing temperatures in deep south Florida.
Fort Lauderdale saw the same 35-degree weather as Miami. Further north, the temperatures dropped even more. Cocoa Beach (home to Port Canaveral) saw lows in the 20s this morning!
Even normally warm Key West saw temperatures in the lower 50s.
According to WPLG, the 35-degree mark for Miami marks the coldest recorded low since December 2010. They said that just one degree lower would have been the coldest temperature since 1989.
If the cold temperatures weren’t enough, the area is also dealing with wind chills that bring the “feels like” temperatures into the 20s.
More than 20 Cruise Ships Sailing From the State Today with Cool Weather All Week
This cold weather is being felt by tens of thousands of cruise passengers that are coming from or going to the Caribbean to escape the cold. In fact, this cold snap is perfectly timed to impact the most cruise passengers possible.
Weekend days are always busy in port with ships coming in, disembarking thousands of passengers, resupplying, welcoming on thousands of new passengers and then heading back out.
Today, eight ships are ported in Miami, five are in Port Everglades, six are in Port Canaveral, two in Tampa, and one in Jacksonville.
That’s more than 20 different cruise ships — representing tens of thousands of passengers — seeing frigid temperatures.
And while it’s a little warmer in the Caribbean, it’s not exactly tropical weather. Nassau is seeing a high temperature of just 58 degrees today. Freeport, where Carnival’s Celebration Key is located, will see temperatures into the 40s this morning and not make it out of the 60s until later this week.
Cruises Continue, But Temperatures Stay Moderate
Now despite the unusual cold, cruises should go on as scheduled. And temperatures will gradually warm up over the next several days, although checks of forecasts show lows in the 40s-50s for Miami through at least the next week and highs in the 60s-70s, depending on the day.
In other words, while it won’t be as cold, a lot of passengers are about to take a winter cruise to the Caribbean that feels more like a summer cruise to Alaska.
Hopefully these folks brought something a little warmer than a swimsuit.
