Where To Find Hurricane Updates On Disney Cruises

Hurricane season in the Atlantic basin and Gulf of Mexico runs from June to November, but the storm season often hits its stride in Baronial, September, and October. Powerful tropical waves advance across the Atlantic Ocean from the Cape Verde Islands and become hurricanes equally they reach the warm Caribbean Sea. Low pressure systems organize off the coast of United mexican states and quickly strengthen into wind and rain machines over the bathwater temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico.

(Non at all) coincidentally, this is likewise when some not bad bargains evidence up for Walt Disney World and Disney Prowl Line vacations. Costless Dining? A fall staple. September prowl sailings? Significantly less expensive than June.

The Disney Dream at Castaway Cay, surrounded by beautiful — and warm, hurricane-brewing — waters.

And so what's your vacation savings worth to you—in terms of financial chance? The fact is, those gorgeous waters around Florida and the Caribbean Ocean are nurseries for powerful cyclones. These storms tin disrupt your vacation in a variety of disastrous ways: shutting down airports and shipping lanes, flooding interstates and cutting off power, closing theme parks and damaging ship moorings.

Then once more, nothing could happen.

So how do yous brand that phone call when you lot see a great deal for late summer travel? Is information technology worth the risk of a hurricane blowing it all away? How tin can you lot soften the potential loss of a rain-out from a whirlwind?

Luckily, Walt Disney World and Disney Cruise Line accept also considered these risks. Hurricane protection policies exist to help you program, rebook, or cancel your vacation— all depending on what the weather is doing.

Walt Disney World'southward Hurricane Protection Policy

A June storm pops over World Drive as a rainy afternoon gets started. — When it rains at Walt Disney World, it commonly pours.

Walt Disney World has a specific Hurricane Policy to address the potential for storm-related cancelations. This became necessary as strong hurricanes affected Key Florida with more than frequency in the early 2000s.

Structured around official hurricane warnings issued by the National Hurricane Center, the hurricane policy allows you lot to reschedule or cancel your Walt Disney Globe package or room reservation with no fees. Going to i of Disney's embankment resorts? The policy too includes Disney's Vero Beach and Disney's Hilton Head Isle Resorts.

How does Disney's hurricane policy piece of work? You can cancel or reschedule your Disney holiday if a hurricane warning is issued by the National Hurricane Center within seven days of your scheduled inflow engagement. The hurricane warning tin be for Orlando (or Vero Beach, or Hilton Head Isle) or it can exist for your place of residence. So if yous're from the Outer Banks of North Carolina and need to stay dwelling to prep for an approaching storm, you can utilize this hurricane policy equally shortly equally the hurricane alarm is issued.

This is not a great deal of advance alarm time. A hurricane warning advises of hurricane conditions affecting an area within forty-eight hours. Generally, you won't get official word on whether yous tin utilize the Hurricane Policy until y'all've already pulled downwards your suitcases and started prepping for your trip.

If the hurricane warning is issued, y'all'll need to call in advance to modify your reservations. Block out some time for that telephone call if the hurricane alarm is for Orlando—Disney's phone lines can get bogged downwardly speedily. You'll also exist responsible for cancelling everything else that can trigger a no-show fee, like dining reservations and recreation bookings. Most of these tin can be washed online.

If you're just rescheduling your Disney vacation package, Disney will waive the fee. That's great, only what nearly that crawly offer you booked for the slow autumn season?

Pitiful, that's not coming with you lot. Switching your September bargain calendar week to a total-price week in Apr won't deport your discount over to the new reservation. Disney will apply everything you lot've paid already to your new vacation package, but yous might detect you owe more.

If you booked airfare through Disney, they'll aid yous with changing your flights, but airfare is not covered through the Hurricane Policy.

Grouping bookings, sports groups, and convention bookings are non covered nether Disney's hurricane policy. They also aren't covered by third-party bookings and online travel agents (OTAs) similar Expedia, Southwest Vacations, or similar providers. For these instances, yous'll want to read the fine impress of your booking partner, and possibly consider boosted travel insurance.

If you booked with a third political party instead of straight with Disney, y'all'll exist discipline to the 3rd party's cancellation policies, not Disney'southward. Some OTAs, like Expedia, have hurricane policies which waive fees for changes.

Hurricanes and Disney Cruise Line

Cruise hurricane policies tend to modify with each storm.

Disney Prowl Line'due south hurricane strategy is a footling more fluid. Cruise lines will usually try to shift an itinerary to avoid a hurricane rather than simply canceling the sailing. So your Eastern Caribbean itinerary might get a Western Caribbean with just a few days' detect. If DCL tin operate safely and take passengers abroad from the storm, that will be their first pick.

However, in 2017 three DCL cruises were canceled due to Hurricane Irma. In each case, guests were given a full refund plus a discount on their next booking.

What isn't covered by these refunds? Everything that isn't Disney's: your airfare, rental car, and pre-prowl hotel, if y'all're staying near the port. To get your money dorsum on these bookings, you lot'll want to check their individual hurricane policies, and look into travel insurance.

Airline Changes during Hurricanes

Airlines typically waive change fees for a brief window of fourth dimension when a hurricane threatens. All the same, your mileage with these policies may vary, peculiarly if you make up one's mind to reschedule your holiday instead of canceling or shortening it. You'll probably exist offered a window of time in which to move your flying—for example, instead of leaving Tuesday, you'll now leave Friday. No charge for that convenience, what a bargain!

On the other hand, virtually airlines will non let you to move your September flight to Apr without a change fee, hurricane or no hurricane. While each hurricane poses different challenges to the airlines, their policies are generally designed to assist you travel hassle-free during the hurricane warning period, non to help yous reschedule your entire holiday. To move your flight, you'll probably be charged a change fee, which could exist several hundred dollars per ticket. Check that fine print before yous book. You'll want to know your run a risk factor.

Should you buy travel insurance?

Travel insurance tin be a traveler's best friend, especially in Florida and the Caribbean, particularly in late summer and fall. That is, if you can find a policy that covers your vacation for the correct cost.

In that location are many good reasons to purchase travel insurance, from medical emergencies to job lay-offs, and you can larn more about it with this Touring Plans article. But hurricane flavour has its own concerns. Figuring out the added price of a worst-case hurricane scenario tin can help you determine if you demand to add an insurance policy, and how much you should pay for i. Add up all of your non-refundable bookings, things like airfare, rental cars, pre-cruise hotel rooms and the like, to discover out what you'd be on the claw for if your vacation is disrupted by a hurricane.

And so, take a good look at your options. Will you book along with your Disney package, or can you observe better rates and coverage?

Disney offers travel insurance to cover your package, including airfare. Photo: Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa – ©Disney

When you book a Walt Disney World travel package, yous'll exist offered travel insurance through their preferred vendor, which can change from yr to twelvemonth. The travel insurance is a flat rate per person, and can be added right onto your package toll up until your final payment date. While you lot don't need travel insurance to take advantage of the hurricane policy for your room and tickets, you might benefit from its flight coverage—fifty-fifty if y'all don't book your airfare through Disney.

Disney Cruise Line offers travel insurance as well, but it's priced at eight% of your full prowl toll, and it doesn't comprehend your flights. For larger parties or more than expensive bookings, you might find a better rate elsewhere.

Third political party insurance companies, airlines, AAA and some credit cards also offering travel insurance, but always cheque for a hurricane policy you can live with included in your coverage.

What about after the storm has passed? Once the hurricane warnings have expired and the declension is clear, hurricane policies terminate to embrace travel. Unless a region remains under a mandatory evacuation or the airdrome is still closed, your vacation is back on. Walt Disney World recovers apace from storms; chances are if y'all arrive a couple of days after a hurricane, you may only notice some actress landscaping work being done. Disney Cruise Line might brand itinerary adjustments based upon damage to ports and destinations, which could take days or weeks to put right. Merely equally long every bit Port Canaveral or whichever scheduled port DCL is using remains operational, cruises volition get dorsum on schedule quickly.

Essentially, travel insurance during hurricane season is worth the research. Figuring out your potential gamble and checking the hurricane policies of each plan open to you takes a little time, only could save you a lot of money later on on.

Walt Disney Globe'south Unexpected Hurricane Costs

Who wouldn't desire to savour this view a fiddling longer?

Allow'southward say you've adamant your risk factor, yous've decided which insurance to purchase, and yous're ready to travel as long as the airports or roads stay open.

Hurricane season vacations practice include one extra layer of risk: the accidentally extended vacation.

That'due south what happens when you're already happily at your resort and a hurricane warning is issued for either Orlando or your hometown. Suddenly, your flight domicile in two days is canceled. You're calling the front end desk and securing your room for an additional nighttime or 2—surely that will exist enough time for the storm to pass and the airport to reopen and the airlines to recover from the domino issue of cancellations. And then, you have to determine what you're going to exercise with your extra vacation time.

Working at a Disney resort front desk in past years, I've seen guests add on bonus expenditures similar Mickey'southward Not-And so-Scary Halloween Political party tickets, dining at signature restaurants, and additional days on their theme park tickets—even if the theme parks will be impacted by the hurricane. The mentality is piece of cake to understand: if you have to exist here, you might as well bask yourself. And where amend to be stranded by bad weather than at Disney Globe?

Certain, this can happen anywhere, just the potential to really rack up the extra spending on "only ane more day" at Disney is pretty serious—peculiarly with larger parties!

If yous're going to travel despite a hurricane warning in your surface area, or in Orlando, know ahead of time what you can afford to spend if you accept to extend your stay. When Orlando is threatened by a hurricane, it does not accept long for the resort hotels to fill up with extended stays. Are yous going to add two nights to your Polynesian stay, or should you lot try to move to the All-Star Resorts for those nights? Practice you want to movement to a hotel with interior halls, similar Animal Kingdom Guild, so that you're non stuck in your room during the storm? Do you need to brand additional dining reservations, or are you happy with quick-service for the rest of your stay?

You won't be the simply ones changing plans in a hurry if a hurricane warning is issued, then it's best to make these decisions ahead of time.

The chances of good weather during hurricane season are immeasurably higher than the chances of a hurricane. Simply hurricanes pose the potential of so much disruption—to air travel, to aircraft lanes, to ports, to theme parks, to interstates—that they rightfully occupy our minds with all of the what-ifs. Their last-minute nature and unpredictability add together fuel to the fire. It'southward never going to exist straightforward when your vacation is afflicted by a hurricane. Just you can ask yourself questions most what how to reduce your chance, and be certain that your smashing vacation deal doesn't turn into a stressful coin pit.