Whenever sailing during hurricane season, it’s important to be flexible. The size and path of storms mean that cruise lines have to regularly adjust itineraries to steer clear. Often this simply means skipping a port to stay out of the way or sometimes rearranging the ship’s schedule to visit an unaffected port of call until the storm passes.
Other times, it can actually lead to big changes in your route altogether, as thousands of Carnival passengers are learning this week. Multiple ships that were originally slated to head to the warm Bahamas are instead sailing to much chillier New England and Canada to avoid sailing through a hurricane.
Hurricane Imelda Causes Havoc With Cruise Schedules
By strength, Hurricane Imelda is nothing special. With maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour, it’s just barely a hurricane. However, it is in a perfect position to cause havoc with cruise schedules.
Originally forming near the eastern end of Cuba, the storm’s track has taken it over The Bahamas, including busy ports like Nassau, Freeport, Princess Cays, CocoCay, and Celebration Key. Now Imelda is positioned a couple of hundred miles east of Port Canaveral, meaning a number of ships from different lines are having to maneuver around the storm.
Carnival Cruise Line is one of those lines. Carnival has announced a number of itinerary tweaks to keep passengers out of harm’s way. This includes cancelling ports, adjusting schedules, and in the case of two ships, sailing a drastically different route than what was originally planned.
Carnival Sunshine departed Norfolk, Virginia on Sunday. It was originally scheduled to visit Celebration Key, Nassau, and Bimini. These are three warm-weather Bahamian ports with clear water, white-sand beaches, and tons of sunshine in normal circumstances.
Due to Imelda being right in the path, however, passengers are headed the exact opposite direction. Carnival Sunshine will instead have an overnight stop in Saint John, New Brunswick from September 30-October 1. The high temperature for Wednesday in Saint John is slated to be a cool 57 degrees, compared to 83 degrees in Nassau. That’s just a “slight” 26 degree difference!
The ship will return to Norfolk as scheduled on October 4.
A similar change has happened with Carnival Pride sailing from Baltimore. Again, Imelda is between the path from Baltimore to The Bahamas. Instead of a 7-day cruise with stops at Half Moon Cay, Nassau, and Celebration Key, the schedule is now headed north with visits to Portland, Maine and Saint John in Canada.
Combined, the two ships hold about 5,000 passengers at double occupancy, meaning thousands of cruisers are having a very different vacation than what they originally imagined.
Short Notice, But Some Compensation for Passengers
While the amount of money isn’t clear, Carnival Brand Ambassador John Heald did share on Facebook that passengers will have some compensation for the change in the form of a “big dollop” of onboard credit. This should allow them to let loose a little more on the ship without having to worry about the budget.
It’s not clear if they were also offered the chance to cancel the cruise as is sometimes the case with such a major change to the schedule.
And while sailing New England and Canada is certainly a much different experience than The Bahamas, both Portland and Saint Johns are widely loved ports themselves.
The cruise line was able to give passengers some advance notice of the change, seemingly the evening before embarkation based on posts from John Heald. Hopefully passengers were able to pack some warm clothes in addition to their swimsuits.
The good news is that with Imelda forecasted to head east quickly over the next few days, it will soon no longer affect itineraries. And with October coming, hurricane season will soon be over, hopefully meaning any disruptions to more cruises will hopefully be minimal.
