Travellers booked to cruise the Caribbean this week are being advised of minor tweaks to their itineraries as Hurricane Maria continues to make its way across the region.
The category five storm battered through Dominica, Guadeloupe and Puerto Rico on Monday through Wednesday.
According to a Spokesperson from the Puerto Rico State Agency for Emergency and Disaster Management, electricity across Puerto Rico was knocked out during Maria and locals are being warned to stay on guard for any post-storm flooding and mudslides.
Close to my brother's house…insane
Hard hit for the already econominally depressed island nation
🙏🙏🙏#PuertoRico#Maria pic.twitter.com/ijor319k90— 🇺🇸🇨🇺🇺🇸MamaReg🇺🇸🇨🇺🇺🇸 (@MamaReg2) September 20, 2017
Puerto Rico’s Governor has also extended an island-wide curfew of 6pm to 6am through until Saturday.
“We find ourselves in a critical phase to help the thousands of Puerto Ricans who urgently need help and to determine the serious damages caused by Hurricane Maria.”
Ricardo RossellĂł, Puerto Rico Governor
In the meantime, the US National Hurricane Centre has warned that people living and travelling through Eastern Dominican Republic will experience deteriorating conditions today as Maria’s strong winds and heavy rainfall approaches.
Ensuring the safety of the guests, cruise lines such as Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean have made slight adjustments to current and upcoming trips.
Norwegian Cruise Line has modified Norwegian Breakaway’s itinerary so that she will now only spend two days in port in Bermuda, which will allow extra time for the vessel to return to New York on a longer route.
“The company is closely watching Hurricanes Maria and Jose in the Atlantic, and will be slightly modifying the itinerary for Norwegian Breakaway, to ensure that our guests have the best vacation experience possible.”
Norwegian Cruise Line
The cruise line has also altered its itineraries for Norwegian Escape’s Eastern Caribbean cruises for the remainder of 2017 and said it is working closely with partners in affected destinations to ensure they’re “up and running and ready to welcome guests again very soon”.
Over at Royal Caribbean, both Adventure of the Seas and Allure of the Seas have been modified to keep guests and crew out of Maria’s path.
“Our goal remains to provide notice of any future itinerary changes within a minimum of 48 hours prior to departure.”
Royal Caribbean
The cruise line said it is also working on alternative ports to replace St Maarten, St Thomas and Key West, which were all affected during last week’s Hurricane Irma.
“We have communicated all changes on sailings through the end of September directly with guests that have itineraries with port calls to these islands,” the cruise line said.
“As the situation remains fluid, and each island is working diligently to get back up and running, we will continue to communicate any port changes approximately four weeks prior to departure.”