Traveling Smart / Issues And Ideas -- Cruisers Should Prepare For Hurricane Season

For cruise passenger Ellen Borreliz, it was the worst moment of a week of disappointments.

Around 6:30 a.m., as the Royal Majesty headed home to Boston from an unscheduled detour to the Bahamas, Borreliz was jolted awake by a splash of cold water from an ice bucket tumbling onto her bed. Like almost everything else in her heaving cabin, says Borreliz, the bucket stood little chance against the 20-foot swells generated by Hurricane Felix. The capricious storm disrupted thousands of vacation plans when it brushed Bermuda and churned off the East Coast last month.

The Royal Majesty hasn't been the only cruise liner affected by ill winds this hurricane season. The season peaks in early September, and forecasters warn it's shaping up to be the busiest on record.

Hurricane Felix forced three other cruise lines to bypass Bermuda in favor of the Bahamas or other ports. Hurricane Erin buffeted the Miami-based Dolphin IV in early August, prompting many of its seasick occupants to sign a petition asking for refunds or free cruises. (They wound up with a $35 per person refund and 15 percent credit towards a future trip.)

When weather wreaks havoc on a cruise schedule, passengers have limited recourse. Cruise line contracts include the right to substitute or eliminate ports of call, with no additional compensation to passengers. But as a goodwill gesture, companies often offer weather-related refunds of port charges, credits toward shipboard purchases, or discounts on future cruises. Key assets for disgruntled cruisers: solidarity and persistence.

Passengers on the Royal Majesty, which skipped Bermuda and ended up in New York City instead of Boston, initially were offered free shipboard drinks, a shore excursion in the Bahamas, and a $300 per cabin credit on a future cruise. But two days after the ship's arrival - the same day Boston newspaper headlines blared of "barf bags and misery" - the ship's owners announced a $300 per cabin cash refund, or a $500 credit.

"The bottom line is that every passenger agrees (by signing on for a cruise) that we can make whatever changes we want to, for whatever reason," says Rich Steck, a spokesman for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line. "But our moral bottom line is that we're obligated to give the best cruise vacation possible, within the limits of safety."

So when Felix forced Royal Caribbean's Song of Norway to divert to the Bahamas instead of Bermuda, passengers received $300 shipboard credit, plus a 25 percent discount toward a cruise through mid-December 1996.

Cruise line officials insist there's little correlation between hurricane season (June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Caribbean region) and the fact that cruise prices are at their lowest from September to mid-December. And this year notwithstanding, schedule disruptions prompted by tropical storms and hurricanes are relatively rare. Carnival Cruise Lines, which operates 13 Caribbean sailings a week, estimated that stormy weather forces the line to alter an itinerary three or four times a year.

Cruise ships receive updated weather information 24 hours a day via fax and radio. "They can usually outrun a system and duck into a safe harbor," says the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Guests at land-based lodgings don't have that option. For example, tourists chased from North Carolina's coast while Felix loitered offshore discovered that refunds aren't guaranteed if bad weather disrupts vacation plans.

Between 30 percent and 50 percent of real estate companies offering vacation rentals in the Outer Banks include weather provisions in their leases, estimates Rebecca Moore of North Carolina's Dare County Tourist Bureau. But in most cases, a government-ordered evacuation would be required before any refunds.

Hotels, meanwhile, often require one to three days' notice for cancellations. Since billings are done on a per-night basis, guests aren't liable beyond a lost deposit.

The best advice: Ask about cancellation policies before you book.

Traveling Smart focuses on consumer issues on the first Tuesday of the month.