Going, despite the storms, bombs

After a week of crises affecting travel to the Caribbean and areas of the U.S. as well as London, airlines and cruise lines adjusted policies, and tropical resorts cleaned up storm damage and braced for more.

Hurricane Dennis, later downgraded to a tropical depression, last week disrupted flights in the Caribbean and the southern U.S. Days earlier, terrorist bombings claimed dozens of lives on London transit.

Vacationers seemed resilient.

“Remarkably, there’s been very little impact from a business standpoint,” said Nigel Osborne, president of 1-800-FlyEurope, which sends more than 50,000 people to Europe each year. “I think we had nine cancellations, but overall bookings were up 20% over last year during the same period.”

They also were undeterred. “We had a group of 35 to 40 people that had arrived in London the morning of the bombing, and, to a person, they stayed on,” said Tom Armstrong, spokesman for Tauck World Discovery, a tour company in Norwalk, Conn., that sends about 1,500 people per year to or through London.

Many times, a vacationer has too much invested to alter plans. Jennifer de la Cruz, spokeswoman for Carnival Cruise Lines, said that was often true with people who booked Caribbean cruises that encountered storms.

“So much time and planning has gone into a cruise that the majority doesn’t cancel,” she said. “And we try to offer enough incentives to keep consumers satisfied.”

Five Carnival ships -- sailing out of Tampa, Fla., Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans -- had to juggle their schedules to avoid Hurricane Dennis. When a storm causes a cruise to miss a scheduled port, passengers receive $25, De la Cruz said; for more significant changes, there are partial refunds and shipboard credits.

Major domestic airlines loosened policies governing cancellations and changes for storm-hit areas and London. For example, American Airlines gave passengers ticketed to, through or from London until July 31 to make changes or to apply a ticket’s value to another destination, said spokesman Tim Wagner.

Many hotels and resorts along Florida’s Gulf Coast that were in Dennis’ path were still closed for repairs for damage suffered in Hurricane Ivan, which devastated the area in September.

In Pensacola, Fla., Dennis tore off roofs and knocked out electricity, but damage this time appeared less severe. In nearby Destin, the Country Inn & Suites spent Tuesday cleaning up and assessing minor damage. Just west of the storm’s eye, the Biloxi Beach Resort in Mississippi evacuated for Dennis but was back up and running the next day. Like the Country Inn, it was offering refunds to anyone forced to cancel.

The U.S. State Department has posted a warning, in effect until Dec. 5, alerting Americans to take precautions for the hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30. See www.travel.state.gov.

-- Compiled by Times staff