Update Saturday, July 27, 9:00 pm: Tropical Storm Dorian lost some of its strength overnight and now has winds of 40 mph. Carnival has altered the Carnival Freedom July 27 sailing due to the storm. See below for details.
Tropical Storm Dorian, the fourth tropical storm of the 2013 Hurricane Season, has formed in the Atlantic Ocean. TS Dorian currently has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and is moving west-northwest at 22 mph.
Current projections by the National Hurricane Center have the storm passing to the north of popular cruise ports in the Eastern Caribbean and heading on a path towards the Bahamas and Florida by the middle of next week. While technology has improved the accuracy of predicting the paths of tropical storms and hurricanes, they are still difficult to track several days out.
Tropical Storm Dorian is not expected to strengthen into a hurricane at this time. Tropical storms become hurricanes when the maximum sustained winds are greater than 74 mph.
The only cruise that has been affected so far by Tropical Storm Dorian is the Carnival Freedom. The Freedom’s new itinerary will have two sea days, an overnight stop in Aruba, a day in La Romana, a day in Grand Turk, and then one final sea day before arriving back in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Visit Carnival.com for the latest updates.
While it is rare for a cruise line to cancel a cruise because of a storm, they will often change a ship’s itinerary for the safety and comfort of the passengers and crew members.
So far in 2013, only Tropical Storm Chantal have caused cruise lines to alter any cruises. The storm in early July resulted in 3 cruise ships having to make minor adjustments to ports. There were no cruises cancelled because of the storm.
Cruise Fever will monitor cruises with Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Disney, Princess, Holland America, and other major cruise lines and will update this page if any cruises have to change itineraries because of Tropical Storm Dorian.
For the latest updates on Tropical Storm Dorian, visit the National Hurricane Center.
