A Change Could Be Coming…

I want to start this week’s blog by saying that my thoughts and prayers are with those living in the Caribbean whose lives have been affected by the onset of this year’s hurricane season.  It has been heart breaking to watch, and I hope they can start to re build their lives and get back to some sense of normality soon.

This year’s hurricane season has seen more frequent and stronger storms than usual affecting the Caribbean.  Usually during this season (which tends to run between July and October) most cruise ships have vacated the area and are operating their summer seasons, usually in the med or Alaska, with only a few tending to offer Southern Caribbean itineraries avoiding the hurricane belt so most cruisers are usually rarely affected.  Yet this year we have seen many disrupted itineraries that have either been forced to cancel or completely reroute their itineraries.

For years now we have been warned of the effects of global warming and that we need to be prepared for more extreme weather and it looks like we could be starting to see some of that come into play this year in the Caribbean.  Cruise ships for obvious reasons follow the weather and move with the seasons, so as the seasons start to become more extreme, could we start to see the pattern of the cruise ships change?

Could the cruise lines who offer year-round itineraries in the Caribbean now be forced to rethink their schedules and we start to see ships such as Oasis and Allure of the Seas moving into the Mediterranean or Alaska?  It certainly must be something that the cruise lines will be asking themselves as they start to plan their next programme launches.  Could they go even further and as winters get warmer, could we start to see cruise ships sailing in Alaska in the winter period?

I don’t these are changes that will necessarily happen in the next few years, but beyond that as weather patterns start to change, it may become necessary for the cruise lines to start to implement changes to their cruise seasons.