Upcoming port/itinerary changes HERE

[Dug720]

I heard the dock would not allow them to board additional passengers, not that it was Marriott's decision...

We're on the 2/18 Wonder which is supposed to go to St. Maarten and San Juan... no idea if that's happening.

I'm on that one too. Pretty sure San Juan can happen. St Maarten is much iffier I think.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I've been researching all afternoon to figure out what to change our 10/7 fantasy to. So hard to figure it out with missing info. I wish DCL knew/could share what will happen to eastern past ours. If there is a chance they do something more creative than switch to western I'd just postpone by a couple weeks or a month.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

My guess, on 7-night Eastern sailings, is there are really two options, and I don't know how legitimate the options are based on being able to dock and/or offer excursions.

1. Swap to Western itineraries, consistently.

2. A 7-day itinerary that includes San Juan, St. Kitts, Nassau, and CC in some combo, probably 2+CC if they maintain similar ports vs. sea as the current 7-day Eastern itineraries, which would save on docking fees.

 

[aaronm77]

I'd rather do 2 days at CC than 1 at CC and Cozumel...

 

[disneymagicgirl]

My guess, on 7-night Eastern sailings, is there are really two options, and I don't know how legitimate the options are based on being able to dock and/or offer excursions.

1. Swap to Western itineraries, consistently.

2. A 7-day itinerary that includes San Juan, St. Kitts, Nassau, and CC in some combo, probably 2+CC if they maintain similar ports vs. sea as the current 7-day Eastern itineraries, which would save on docking fees.

I was hoping for door number 2. Didn't work out for me.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

I was hoping for door number 2. Didn't work out for me.

My understanding is that St. Kitts isn't ready for a cruise to dock right now. But they're likely to be ready faster than any of the VI chain.

This is from The Guardian: "The prime minister, Timothy Harris, said St Kitts was “spared the full brunt” of Irma, but warned of “significant damage” to property and infrastructure, as well as power failures."

The airport reopened pretty quickly, but they may not be ready in the next few weeks to take on more passengers. By December? Maybe. St. Thomas and Tortola are a minimum of 6 months before they take cruise passengers. Minimum.

 

[mom4fun]

We are doing a 4 night repositioning cruise out of San Juan on February 4. The ports are St. Thomas and CC. I'm wondering what they will do with that if St. Thomas isn't a go. They definitely can't do a Western port with that one since the cruise ends at Port Canaveral.

 

[Bella29]

I hope Disney can find some open Eastern ports in time for the holiday cruises. We are doing a b2b and would not love doing 2 Westerns in a row, and paying the NYE premium to boot. We were particularly excited to visit Tortola, it looked so beautiful. The reports are so devastating, I can only imagine how those folks are surviving day to day right now.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

My understanding is that St. Kitts isn't ready for a cruise to dock right now. But they're likely to be ready faster than any of the VI chain.

This is from The Guardian: "The prime minister, Timothy Harris, said St Kitts was “spared the full brunt” of Irma, but warned of “significant damage” to property and infrastructure, as well as power failures."

The airport reopened pretty quickly, but they may not be ready in the next few weeks to take on more passengers. By December? Maybe. St. Thomas and Tortola are a minimum of 6 months before they take cruise passengers. Minimum.

I did see one of the lines had switched 2 sailings to st kitts in the near future. I ve read so much I can't remember where I saw it. Pretty sure it was sept dates.

ETA: found one...it was 9/23 rccl harmony. Changed st Thomas to st kitts.
Also st kitts tweeted on 9/7 that they were open for business and DCL fascination was stopping there the next day.

 

[aaronm77]

The next 6 months of itineraries to go to Eastern ports are:
10/21, 11/4, 11/18, 12/2, 12/16, 12/30, 1/13, 1/27, 2/10, 2/24, 3/10, 3/24 to Tortola and St Thomas,
11/26 to Tortola and San Juan,
12/1 from San Juan to St. Kitts, Tortola
1/9 to San Juan
1/14, 1/21, 1/28 from San Juan to Antigua & St Lucia
2/4 from San Juan to St. Thomas
2/18, 3/4 to St Maarten and San Juan

When you think about all the other ships, that's a lot of rescheduling ports.

 

[FigmentSpark]

We are an eastern in March, but our check-in (as Silver) will be early Dec. That means platinum and concierge will be making excursion decisions even earlier than that. While I hope, for the island's sake that Tortola and St. Thomas are back up and ready for tourism, my guess is that decisions on even those far out sailings has to be made in the coming weeks. I think DCL will make adjustments that will go right into spring.

 

[Dug720]

The airport reopened pretty quickly, but they may not be ready in the next few weeks to take on more passengers. By December? Maybe. St. Thomas and Tortola are a minimum of 6 months before they take cruise passengers. Minimum.

I'd say St Maarten is at least that as well. That has been on the Wonder's Eastern from PC itinerary.

 

[jrabbit]

I heard the dock would not allow them to board additional passengers, not that it was Marriott's decision...

We're on the 2/18 Wonder which is supposed to go to St. Maarten and San Juan... no idea if that's happening.

I saw that as well, it I don't understand it. To me it sounded like Marriott was putting a PR spin on a poor decision. The "port authority" kept the people from boarding the boat - I'm not buying it. Now if it was customs / immigration/ boarder patrol I would believe it more - but because of the severity of Irma, those rules / procedures have been effectively abandoned (temporarily)

 

[Uncleromulus]

Our cruise is 10/21--I continue to watch and wait. Hoping maybe San Juan, but looks more and more likely a return to Falmouth and Cozumel---

 

[Djscarlette]

Our cruise is 10/21--I continue to watch and wait. Hoping maybe San Juan, but looks more and more likely a return to Falmouth and Cozumel---

We are on 10/21, too, and it's our first Disney cruise. Hoping that we get some good ports, then we'll need lots of advice on what to do in those ports. So much research went into the Eastern stops, I feel a little lost and we don't even know where we are going yet.

 

[RRB]

It has been many years since we did a western cruise, what are the "hidden gem" excursions to consider?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Now if it was customs / immigration/ boarder patrol I would believe it more - but because of the severity of Irma, those rules / procedures have been effectively abandoned

Unfortunately, not necessarily. Customs has been not allowing people from Tortola with visitor permits over to the USVI: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/12/us-british-virgin-islands-hurricane-irma-refused-entry

It's chaos, really.

 

[Uncleromulus]

We are on 10/21, too, and it's our first Disney cruise. Hoping that we get some good ports, then we'll need lots of advice on what to do in those ports. So much research went into the Eastern stops, I feel a little lost and we don't even know where we are going yet.

Hard to say when we'll actually know--but might be a good idea to get on the DCL site and see what's offered on Cozumel, Falmouth and even Grand Cayman. Some other sites I am on are hinting strongly that's where we'll likely be headed..but who really knows???

 

[darnheather]

I've seen a lot of people promoting two days at CC in this thread. I thought the entire reason those double dip cruises were rare and more expensive is because 1) the island can only handle 1 ship at a time and 2) it is set ahead of time exactly which ships will be docking which days. I don't see anyone getting a surprise double dip.

 

[Dug720]

I've seen a lot of people promoting two days at CC in this thread. I thought the entire reason those double dip cruises were rare and more expensive is because 1) the island can only handle 1 ship at a time and 2) it is set ahead of time exactly which ships will be docking which days. I don't see anyone getting a surprise double dip.

Exactly. Maybe it was on Cruise Critic that I said the same thing. Especially as the Magic and Wonder return to Florida and Caribbean/Bahamas routes - there simply are not enough days for doubles. (Even if there are now prior to that, I don't see them making that switch because can you imagine the outcry...)