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I have 2 questions. 

 

1. I am scheduled to be on a cruise leaving Port Canaveral on Monday on the Majesty of the Seas and going to the Bahamas. It looks like Hurricane Matthew will effect the cruise is some way. How will I now if anything changes with the itinerary or if the cruise will be canceled?

 

2. Is there a refund or the cost of this cruise toward another if it is canceled?

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Someone else will be able to explain this much better than I.. but in my understanding, you shouldn't worry. Keep an eye on the Royal Caribbean website as well as your email to see if there are any changes to your itinerary. It seems highly unlikely that the ship would cancel, and rather that you will sail around it to alternate ports. 

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If the cruise is cancelled by the cruise line, you'll likely be presented options including a refund.  If you don't show up because of the storm, or because you can't make a flight (unless booked via RCI), that's a different story entirely

 

Royal Caribbean will contact you via whatever means you specified at check-in (email, text message, possibly others) to ensure you're kept in the loop.  Know that these storms are somwhat unpredictable, it's still early to tell.  Also, if the ship is able to leave, they may simple alter the itinerary to keep your sailing from running into bad weather.

 

Lastly, while the most important updates are those coming directly from Royal Caribbean, you'll likely see updates on this site if anything significant changes.

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First and foremost, keep in mind that hurricane forecasts are notoriously incorrect, especially when you are talking 5+ days away.  Forecasts for them change all the time, so I wouldn't bet on this current prediction quite yet.

 

With that in mind, cancelling a cruise is rare.  More often, the ship goes around the storm.  According to the forecast in your post, the storm will be around Jamaica on Monday, which is quite a distance from Port Canaveral.  There are a few options for RC if they want to avoid the storm (assuming this projection is even still valid on Monday).  

 

If I were to put money down on a bet, your cruise will happen.

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I can't recall a cruise being cancelled due to a hurricane in recent years.  They can and do alter the itinerary of sailing time, though, so that's a possibility.

 

Keep visiting the Royal Caribbean homepage for updates as they'll be posted there and they'll likely email you, too.  However, they can change the itinerary at any time including during the sailing.

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My in-laws were on Majesty this past weekend, rained almost the whole cruise. RC had to cancel Coco Cay due to waves being too rough for the tenders (as mentioned on here in previous posts about various tender ports). They were offered 20% of their next cruise (I'm sure there are stipulations).

Just enjoy as best you can no matter what, have fun!

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My in-laws were on Majesty this past weekend, rained almost the whole cruise. RC had to cancel Coco Cay due to waves being too rough for the tenders (as mentioned on here in previous posts about various tender ports). They were offered 20% of their next cruise (I'm sure there are stipulations).

Just enjoy as best you can no matter what, have fun!

 

A rainy day at sea is still better than a regular day on land!

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Don't sweat it oobeau78!

 

Really the only time a cruise would be cancelled is if they couldn't safely leave the departure port in advance of the storm  (Or if the ship decided to stay away from a port because of an expected landfall of a storm).  I'm going on another cruise line this week on a Saturday to Saturday western caribbean and I would give it about 35% odds at this point that my itinerary might be affected.  No sweat if it is changed though, I actually look forward to the chance that we might end up at an unexpected port that I haven't been to. 

 

Last year I was on a 3 night in September and there was a tropical storm coming through so the captain just took us to blue skies away from the storm and we lost out on a day at Nassau.  I wouldn't have gotten off the ship anyway so no loss there!  Also you could only slightly feel any extra motion on the ship, it was a non issue for everyone I saw including my 3 and 5 year old. 

 

I'll take the slightly cooler weather of fall crusing and the lower prices over summer cruising any day.  The only downside is situations like this where if you had your heart set on a certain destination it could be modified due to weather. 

 

Have fun, I'm thinking about a Majesty cruise in December.

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Like everyone else, don't sweat it, the Captain and crew will do everything possible to go around the weather.

 

During my parents 50th anniversary celebration aboard the Navigator of the Seas we went to San Juan instead of Grand Cayman & Cozumel and Ocho Rios was delayed 2 days as the crew was avoiding Hurricane Wilma (lowest pressure recorded in the Caribbean Sea) in Oct 2005 (our Labadee stop wasn't affected).  If you remember, Cozumel/Cancun were hit hard and the Cancun hotels barely opened 6 weeks later for Thanksgiving.  The Captain and Cruise Director would give us hourly updates via TV with weather maps and schedule changes.  After we left San Juan we were now chasing the hurricane so the skies were dark and foreboding; however, the waves were low and no one got seasick.  They had complimentary alcoholic drinks (in plastic cups) a few times and our port charges & excursions were refunded.  After Jamaica we had to out run the hurricane back to Miami before it hit Southern Florida (which it did a day after we flew out and the ship left port for its next cruise).

 

The crew went well above what was expected in informing everyone of the situation to the point of being annoying.  The only problem we had was my sister's family took the Scuba class on board so they missed their certification dive in Cozumel.  They took another cruise (also on Navigator) later and finished their certification.

 

The cruise was one of our favorites and most memorable.

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We are going to Key West. I am bummed. I've been there several times and could probably drive down faster than the ship could get there.

Funny enough I've always been of the opposite opinion.  I enjoy Key West, but even as a South Florida resident I refuse to drive there.  Slow (and constantly changing) speed limits, lots of speed traps, one road in and out means a fender bender can cause hours of delay.  I only go by plane or ship :-)

 

Hope you manage to enjoy your day nonetheless.  Look at it like a sea day if nothing else.

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In Sept. 2004 my sister spent her honeymoon on a Princess ship that spent all week dodging Hurricane Ivan.  IIRC they only made one stop the entire week.

 

Despite all that, she's still an avid cruiser.

 

Curiously enough another sister was onboard the first ship allowed back to Cayman Islands after Ivan, and I was onboard the following week.  It was weird seeing all the trees with all the vegetation stripped off of them except for the sides protected from the wind by the tree's trunk.

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I was wondering.....since the hurricane appears to be heading towards central east coast of Florida Thursday into Friday as of now what happens to say Majesty when it is scheduled to return to Port Canaveral on Friday morning?  Would they still attempt to return to there?   The forecast now appears that will be the worst impact near Orlando.

 

We were on the 4 night last week, I guess we couldn't have picked a better time....weather was great the whole cruise.

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With the direction the hurricane is heading does anyone think that any ship could sail out of Port Canaveral on Friday? This will be our first cruise so I don't know what conditions they would still sail. Seems like the odds are increasing that the storm will be nearly on top of that area and I imagine evacuations will be recommended too. So even getting to the terminal from say Orlando might be difficult. I hope RCI doesn't wait till the last minute to make final plans for this weekends' cruises.

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Royal will make plans as reasonably possible.  Keep in mind that the path can change and has already been updated a couple of times today.  They will not keep the ship in port when a storm or hurricane is likely to hit, though, as the ship is much more likely to take damage while in port than when out at sea.

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Our first cruise is supposed to be majesty of the sea Oct 7 (on my birthday) my question is why royal is waiting so long to cancel? We have a 15+ hour drive do get to the port that is now closed we would have to leave today to make it to florida but I hear traffic is so bad it's taking people hours to get out of florida I know majesty is in the keys now how do they expect it to be in port canaveral by Friday? Not sure if we would just stay home would they change our 3 day cruise just to make it a. 2 day cruise?

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Susieeq67 I feel kind of bad for you.  The cruise lines are in a tough spot right now.  The situation is changing every few hours.  The only advise is to do the best you can.  Some years ago, we had a fall vacation interrupted by a hurricane.  we ended up going in December and had a great time.  I'm pretty sure the cruise line will be willing to work with you if you can't get there or if the itinerary changes because of weather.

 

You may be able to get a nice discount on a 7 day cruise two months from now.  Think how that could be for your first cruise.

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From all I have read, there are not cancelling any cruises.  They are delaying return and departure dates/times but nothing is being cancelled, so chances are you will simply be leaving a day later than you were scheduled to leave.  I also suspect that your cruise will be shortened by 1 day, unfortunately.

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Our first cruise is supposed to be majesty of the sea Oct 7 (on my birthday) my question is why royal is waiting so long to cancel?

Cancellation is unlikely.  As Raye indicated, they will more than likely delay the ship's return.  You should also know that forecasts more than 24 hours away are not good enough for the cruise line to act on.  There are a lot of moving parts, but what if they canceled and then the storm moved away?  

 

Honestly, this is a no-win situation for RC or any cruise line. Cancel, and you have some people upset. Delay, and you have some people upset. Do nothing, and you have some people upset. There is nothing they can do that wont have some folks second-guessing what RC did.

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I agree on that Matt.  What angers me is when you have to make a decision with the best information available at the time, and then you are criticized after the fact when all the important data is available.  None of the cruise lines can win in this situation.  No matter what they do, lots of people will be mad.  There are millions of hall-of-fame Monday morning quarterbacks.  Very few of them have what it takes to make a decision when the chips are down. 

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Been watching closely, as we're supposed to be leaving on Freedom of the Seas Sunday morning out of Port Canaveral.  No changes to our cruise yet.  My guess is at this point they just need to let Matthew pass through and then assess afterwards.  Hopefully not too much damage and the port can still open Saturday as they are planning.  We're going to start the drive down to FL from Indy tomorrow morning and just plan on staying inland, instead of staying Friday night on the coast as we had planned.

 

As much as I REALLY hope this cruise still happens, I'm sure Royal will make the best decision for everyone!  Fingers crossed!!

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Majesty of the Seas is departing Port Canaveral now on Saturday Oct 8th - since the port is closed

I figured you have this information but just in case someone else does not

OBC is being give to guests based on the cost of that one day cruise fare they are missing.

This will be done on the ship

Future Cruise credit of 33% also will be given to guests.

Look for a letter in your cabin onboard

Actually I have now seen two ships cancel and one ship the Disney Magic do a complete itinerary change
Just hoping Port Canaveral does not have too much damage to it or too big of waves for the ships to return Saturday

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Will RCI give refunds/future cruise credit you think? I'm not getting emails from them. Sometimes I get text messages but our friends who were going too get no updates and we all did online checkin.

They have already said they would give OBC and refunds for missed days. For Empress, "As a gesture of goodwill, we will also be providing all sailing guests with a 25% future cruise credit."

 

Not sure what they will offer to guests on the canceled Majesty sailing.

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