Planning a cruise during hurricane season? Think on this

For their sixth wedding anniversary, Mark and Melissa Hill looked forward to a four-day Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Ecstasy.

"We get one vacation a year," said Mark, a telephone technician from Dallas. "And this was our first trip alone together since we had kids."

The Hills now wish they had stayed home. Their story shows how cruising during hurricane season can create a perfect storm of problems.

With Hurricane Ike headed toward Galveston, Texas, where their ship was to depart Sept. 11, the Hills tried to cancel their booking, but Carnival said they would forfeit their cruise fares, about $1,100 total, if they did.

So the couple drove to Galveston and boarded the ship. Two days later, Ike devastated the coastal town and flooded vehicles parked at the port, including the Hills' 2003 sport coupe, which was destroyed.

The Ecstasy cruised safely. But unable to return to Galveston, the ship diverted to New Orleans and later to Houston. The Hills, like more than 1,200 of their fellow cruisers, disembarked in New Orleans. After finding "not a single rental car," Mark said, they paid nearly $400 total to fly home.

The Carnival Ecstasy's plight has kept cruise chat rooms buzzing. Some blame the cruise line for the fiasco; some say it did the best it could; some say passengers were foolish to sail.

Mark said he and Melissa weighed "a guaranteed loss of money" against "a risk of something possibly happening to my car."

"We took the risk, and we paid," he said.

To avoid such a Hobson's choice, you need to evaluate the risks of a Caribbean cruise during the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs June 1 to Nov. 30. Your trip could be trouble-free, of course. But if bad weather develops, things can go very wrong.

As some Carnival passengers learned, safeguards that seemed sturdy can crumble faster than a sand castle in a rainstorm. Here are some of the questions that arose and the lessons cruisers can take from them.



Can I get a weather-related refund?

It's logical to expect a cruise line to return your money if the ship's departure city is under a hurricane warning. Logical, but in this case wrong.

Cruise lines generally decline last-minute refunds. Carnival's ticket contract says, "No refunds will be made in the event of 'no shows,' unused tickets . . . or cancellations received late or after the start of the cruise."

Like the Hills, Chris and Shelly Nors of Waco, Texas, tried to cancel their Ecstasy bookings because of Ike. If the ship sailed, Carnival said, it would keep the couple's money, whether they boarded or not.

At 9:30 a.m. on departure day, Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas ordered an immediate, mandatory evacuation of the city. And the National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane warning that included Galveston.

Surely Carnival would cancel the cruise now, the Norses figured. But when they called around noon, the company again said the Ecstasy would sail. And when the ship departed that afternoon with 1,694 passengers, the Norses were on it.

In interviews and e-mails, Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said the Galveston port and the U.S. Coast Guard cleared the Ecstasy to sail.

She also said that the ship's guests were allowed into Galveston. But despite being given several opportunities to do so, she did not say which agency authorized guests to enter the city despite the evacuation order.

Carnival sailed because it knew it could safely operate the voyage, De la Cruz said, and it didn't want to disrupt its customers' vacation plans. At the time, she added, the company was "optimistic" that the ship would be able to return to Galveston.