Hurricane season cruise tips

If a change is made before the ship sails, it’s quite common for the cruise company to offer customers an chanced to cancel and receive a refund or rebook on a future sailing. But when the ship is forced to change course during a cruise passengers are rarely entitled to any compensation. Cruise lines go to great lengths to try to give guests the same or a comparable itinerary when weather dictates a change but problems arise when a storm hits a port on a turnaround day, when passengers are debarking and others are boarding for a new trip.

You can try and avoid this problem by avoiding the Caribbean altogether during the hurricane season. If that’s too much of a sacrifice for you, try booking a multi-port cruise rather than a one-stop one as that massively increases the chance that the entire trip won’t be ruined. Also, be prepared for the possibility that you might arrive home a day or two late and make sure that your friends and family (and the kennels where you’ve left your pets and so on) all know this could happen. Travel insurance is essential, but read the fine print carefully because a cruise ship’s change in itinerary to avoid a storm is not generally a covered reason for compensation.