Earlier this week I noticed that the 5-day weather forecasts were not properly functioning. After some investigating, the third party that we were using to get the weather data began to limit their data feed to three days, which included the current day. I am not sure how you feel about this, but this is almost useless guide for planning what you will pack for an upcoming Disney cruise. A two and a half day forecast is not even helpful for a 3-Night cruise on the Disney Dream.
Honestly, I was never really happy with a the 5-day forecasts, but that is what was available at the time. There is no question that the accuracy of extended forecasts depreciate after a few days, but it still can be a valuable planning resource. The change in weather feed data was one of those cases where life gave me lemons, so I used this as motivation and made lemonade.
Today, I am pleased to announce that the weather forecasts for many (more on the way) ports of call, and detailed forecasts for each ship have been extended to 14 days! That’s right, we started with 5 days, it temporarily dropped to 2, and now has 14 days worth of weather forecasts to help decide what goes into the suitcase!
On the weather page, we have links to many ports of call; each port’s weather page includes the current weather conditions and a 14 day extended forecast.
The forecasts that I find most useful are the individual detailed ship forecasts. These forecasts combine the weather for the scheduled port of call. Links the individual ship forecast can be found below, or by click on the weather page.
The weather data is being provided free by a third party, OpenWeatherMap.org which offers detailed weather data and analytics for any city. I will not bore you with the technical details, but the service has been exceeding my expectations during my internal testing phase. Now for the important part; this data is provided for your general information only, and should not be treated as an official forecast. Please consult your local and national weather reports for your weather making decisions.
2013 Hurricane Season
Last but, not least, the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane season starts tomorrow, Saturday June 1st and there is already a 10% chance of a system forming in the Southern Gulf of Mexico. This is the remnants of the Pacific Tropical Storm Barbara. If the system intensifies it will be named Andrea. Regardless, this system doe not look like it will cause any problems for the ships as the Disney Fantasy will be sailing in the Eastern Caribbean this week. To keep tabs on this an other tropical developments we’ve updated the tropical weather page with a map to track current systems.
These are really wonderful! so glad I found your blog!!
(By the way, I noticed on the Disney Dream page that the heading says 14 day forecast, but the paragraph right under it still says 5 days. 😉 )
Thanks. It was 5 on all the ship pages.