Atlantic hurricane season roars to life

mercedes · August 18, 2009

Two months after hurricane season began, the first named storms of the season swirled through the Atlantic over the weekend, impacting several cruise itineraries.

Tropical Storm Ana, downgraded to a tropical depression, drenched Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands over the weekend en route to the Dominican Republic. Hurricane Bill became the first hurricane of the 2009 season today, and is predicted to become a Category 3 storm by Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The Carnival Freedom, on an eight-day cruise out of Fort Lauderdale, called at Nassau yesterday rather than staying at sea, and postponed its visit to San Juan until tomorrow. It is at sea today, and on Wednesday will call in St. Thomas instead of Antigua. Its stop in Tortola will be on schedule Thursday and it will spend Friday at sea rather than go back to Nassau.

The Carnival Glory’s itinerary was modified yesterday, but has been changed back to its original itinerary.

The Caribbean Princess, sailing out of New York, visited Grand Turk today instead of San Juan, will miss St. Thomas tomorrow and stay at sea, will visit Nassau on Wednesday instead of Grand Turk, and make an unplanned call at Port Canaveral on Thursday.

KeithnRita · August 18, 2009

Bill is starting to come in the picture now and is supposed to head north towards Bermuda.

DebbieandJerry · August 18, 2009

May be a bit too soon in August for all of this, but then again, nothing has been going "by the book" lately now, has it?

cruznchris · August 18, 2009

Good to see you guys are carribean weather bugs like me. hehe, I look daily at the National huricanne website for updates and position changes of the storms. Our fear of the storms increased after we got stuck between Wilma and Beta when we were on the Valor at sea, we saw only 1 good day of 7 and while on the ship we often thought about what had happen to miami just as we left port. Kinda hard to leave your troubles away when you knew the tens of thousands were without power and cleaning a big mess. When we came back the top floor of our hotel was gone, they had just got power back the day before we got there. Rough trip and a rough hurricane season... :blink: Hopefully this season will be a bit more forgiving...