We didn’t get to experience any of that. Have you ever missed a cruise because of a Hurricane? We did and this is our story. Even years layer, this cruise has not been forgotten. Not because it was a memorable trip, but because it was blown away from the hurricane of the century. This is the story of the cruise that never was, but got us hooked on cruising anyway.
Four disappointed little boys and over a year and a half of planning down the drain all because of a storm.
This storm was no typical storm, so I must give it due credit. This storm had a name that anyone old enough at the time will remember for the rest of their lives.
Hurricane Katrina was the name of the storm and we are Hurricane Katrina Casualties. She wiped out what have been our very first cruise.
Britannica
How our story began
On August 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and decimated everything in it’s path, including our family’s plans of cruising for the first time.
What nerve Katrina had! Didn’t she know that our family was going on their very first cruise a few days later out of the port of Mobile embarking on Carnival Holiday.
We should have been boarding Frontier Airlines flight the morning the hurricane was set to make landfall headed for New Orleans. We then would driving the short three hours to Mobile where we we get on our much anticipated cruise.
Days before the Hurricane hit,I found myself glued to the news watching weather reports. As I saw the projected path of the hurricane,I began my daily calls to Carnival customer service and each time they assured me the cruise was still on.
Don’t worry. Your cruise is still on.
Carnival Cruise Lines Customer support
With each call to Carnival shore side, I was told the cruise was still on. I was realistic and hoped for just a shorter cruise.
The cruise I booked started out as a five day cruise. Then the next time I would call, your cruise is still on, but now it’s a four day cruise.
As a new cruiser , I had no idea how this worked. I never paid closer attention to a hurricane then I did at this moment.
By the time we were in the car on our way to the airport our five day cruise was getting cut down to two days or ?
But the cruise was still not canceled.
Other guests from our ship and other ships sailing out the Gulf Coast were hoping to cruise would now become Hurricane Katrina Causalities as well.
Packed and ready with no place to go
The plan was to fly into NOLA,pickup the rental car and stay near the Port of Mobile at my parents home. Our suit cases were packed, airline tickets in hand,and the rental car reserved. after our cruise we had many plans of exploring the Gulf Coast area.
This entire experience was so frustrating. All the time spent, planning for nothing.
Days prior to Katrina getting a name, it was only a tropical storm, but news stations warning the storm was gaining intensity.
Thankfully, I had been smart enough to purchase travel insurance, but never imagined that we would really need it.
Many Katrina Causalities were not so fortunate.
Image via Pixabay
This cruise can’t still be on, right?
The night before the storm, also the night before our scheduled flights, I called Frontier Airlines. I guess they had no clue of what was going on, or didn’t want to loose any business.
The airline was not canceling any flights, the same as Carnival not canceling the cruise.
After hanging up with Frontier,I called the travel insurance company.
Feel free to stay home, but you won’t be entitled to a refund
trip insurance company
Feel free to stay home, I was told, but then you will not be entitled to compensation since the storm has not been categorized a hurricane yet. If you want any chance to get your money back from this trip, you must make an attempt to get to your destination.
So attempt is what we did. Four little boys, each with a little suit case all their own. Two parents with big suitcases, each crammed into their van headed for airport long term parking, then to the airport.
Hind sight is 20/20
Why did you still bring your luggage????
I knew we would not be getting on the ship, so I don’t know why we bothered hauling all that luggage. Maybe in the back of my mind I was really hoping that we would would beat the storm or that by some miracle, the storm would go a different direction.
At the airport,checked the luggage and boarded our flight and headed to our first stop at the Denver airport. By the time we landed in DEN it was official. The storm was now increasing speed and intensity. However, this storm was still not a Hurricane quite yet.
Waiting at the airport
After waiting, at the airport and standing in line for what seemed like forever, the New Orleans Airport (MSY) finally officially closed the airport and inturn closed the doors to our cruise.
However, the Frontier Airlines agent really wanted to help us. She offered to have our flight rerouted to Pensacola, Florida.
Image via Pixabay
I can put your family on a flight to Pensacola (PNS). Pensacola is less than hour away from Mobile.
Kind Frontier agent
If a hurricane were not about to hit the entire Gulf Coast, I would have gladly taken an airport change to Pensacola, but sending us to a location just east of where the hurricane was about to hit, was not going to be an option.
I’m sure the gate agent thought she was being helpful, but the real possibility of getting off an airplane and go straight to a shelter was not going to work for this family.
By no means am I trying to compare my family missing a cruise to a family that lost loved ones or their homes and everything in it. I am just telling of our family’s experience in missing our first cruise.
People much less fortunate than us, lost everything, lives, family members, belongings or spent weeks, if not months in shelters.
After much negotiation, tears and a even a tantrum, (me in the bathroom stall). We would now be on a flight headed back home to Spokane, Washington.
On our way across the terminal, our family grabbed Happy Meals at McDonald’s. Normally my kids love McDonald’s, but the quality was very poor. Add another thing to gripe about.
Looking back
My boys all now grown, still talk about that meal from the Denver airport McDonald’s.
It was the worst McDonald’s they have to this day eaten.
When we finally arrived back home, I tried to explain to four young boys why we weren’t getting on the big boat like I had promised. I broke my promise.
Such a terrible Mom.
The children didn’t understand that missing a vacation was not a big deal and that many people had lost homes, property and loved ones.
Inside I was sad too. I worked long and hard planning this vacation to come home and unpack six suitcases of clean clothes.
On top of this, I knew that my own parents where in the path of the monster hurricane just outside of Mobile, Alabama.
My sadness had to be on the back burner as I Waited for phone lines to be back up and find out if they were even alive or still had a home to live in.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
After the Hurricane was over, and the path of devastation was known, Carnival tried to help out the local community by leasing three of their ships to FEMA to house relief workers and evacuees.
“We sincerely apologize to those guests whose vacations have been impacted by these voyage cancellations,” Carnival’s chief executive officer, Bob Dickinson, said in a news release. “This inconvenience … will provide desperately needed housing for thousands of individuals affected by this tragedy.”
NBC News Cruise Ships Chartered for Hurricane Refugees (9/3/2005)
Jumping through hoops
I was on the phone many times over the next few weeks trying to figure out how this cruise thing or refund was going to work out.
Would we be offered another cruise? Would our jobs allow for more time off?
Many calls between the airline, cruise line, and travel insurance companies.
Jumping through hoops got really frustrating.
Finally I got a full refund, and an offer for On Board Credit to use within a year, but you can’t refund your time off.
Since I was not able to reschedule the cruise immediately, I lost my vacation time. Instead of cruising, we purchased new living room furniture.
New furniture was nice, but a cruise would have been better. The Carnival Holiday five day Western Caribbean Cruise, was the cruise that never was and this is our story of being Hurricane Katrina Casualties.
Lessons learned
Always get travel insurance!
We have bought travel insurance every trip we go on. It is worth it to know that if any unforeseen things come up, we will be taken care of. You can’t ever get your first cruise back, but you can get a re-do!
Have you ever missed a cruise
Has weather or other circumstances ever made you miss a cruise or other trip? Do you purchase trip insurance for your trips? Let me know below!