Disney Cruise Line Shortening Current Sailings and Canceling Three Upcoming Cruises Ahead of Hurricane Irma

eThis evening, Disney Cruise Line made the easy, albeit potentially disappointing to some, decision to cancel the Disney Dream’s Friday September 8, 2017 3-Night Bahamian and Monday September 11, 2017 4-Night Bahamian cruises as well as the Disney Fantasy’s Saturday September 9, 2017 7-Night Eastern Caribbean voyage. The decision was made as Hurricane Irma is expected to impact the Caribbean and the Bahamas over the course of the next week.

Hurricane Irma NHC 20170905 8PM 5 Day Cone

Additionally, the current sailings aboard the Disney Fantasy and the Disney Dream are returning to Port Canaveral early. The Disney Dream will skip tomorrow’s call in Nassau and return to Port Canaveral on Thursday. The Disney Fantasy which left Grand Cayman today will steam home and join the Dream in Port Canaveral on Thursday at approximately 2 PM.

The classic ships will not be impacted by Hurricane Irma. The Disney Magic is currently in Europe and the Disney Wonder is in Alaska.

Disney Cruise Line is compensating guests affected by the cancellations and shortened sailings.

Below is Disney Cruise Line’s Official Tropical Weather notice that was dated September 5, 2017 7:30pm.

Based on the projected path of Hurricane Irma, including its expected impact on the Caribbean and Bahamas, Disney Cruise Line is making the following adjustments to itineraries:

Disney Fantasy
The September 2 cruise of the Disney Fantasy is currently sailing a modified Western Caribbean itinerary and is expected to return to Port Canaveral two days earlier than planned on Thursday, September 7. Guests on this sailing will be refunded two nights of their voyage fare and provided a 25 percent discount on a future cruise, which may be booked by calling 1-855-347-2784 or 407-566-7054 from September 18, 2017, through October 18, 2017.

The September 9 sailing of the Disney Fantasy is cancelled. Refunds will automatically be processed back to the original form of payment used for the cruise booking. Guests are invited to book a future cruise at a 25 percent discount by calling us at 1-855-347-2784 or 407-566-7054 from September 18, 2017, through October 18, 2017.

While we always strive to deliver magical cruise vacations, nothing is more important to us than providing a safe experience for our guests and crew. We will continue to closely monitor Hurricane Irma and provide updates as necessary.

Disney Dream
The September 4 cruise of the Disney Dream is sailing a modified Bahamian cruise itinerary and will return to Port Canaveral one day earlier than planned on Thursday, September 7. Guests on this sailing will be refunded one night of their voyage fare and provided a 25 percent discount on a future cruise, which may be booked by calling 1-855-347-2784 or 407-566-7054 from September 18, 2017, through October 18, 2017.

The September 8 and September 11 sailings of the Disney Dream are cancelled. Refunds will automatically be processed back to the original form of payment used for the cruise booking.  Guests are invited to book a future cruise at a 25 percent discount by calling us at 1-855-347-2784 or 407-566-7054 from September 18, 2017, through October 18, 2017.

While we always strive to deliver magical cruise vacations, nothing is more important to us than providing a safe experience for our guests and crew. We will continue to closely monitor Hurricane Irma and provide updates as necessary.

Passengers aboard the Disney Dream were informed the current sailing will be cancelling the stop in Nassau on Wednesday and returning to Port Canaveral on Thursday September 7th.

As you can see the decision was just made as the Disney Dream changed course earlier this evening.

The itineraries on the website have been updated to reflect the changes to the current Dream & Fantasy sailings. Additionally, the following two sailings have been added to track the ships during their combined 17-nights waiting out the storm without passengers.

As of now, the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy are still scheduled to resume service on the following dates.

On Wednesday just before noon, the passengers aboard the Disney Dream were informed the ship would be returning to Castaway Cay to evacuate the island crew.

If there are any additional changes or alterations to itineraries we will post those in a new article. The Eastern Caribbean ports of call are being hammered by Irma and only time will tell if San Juan, St. Maarten, St. Thomas (St. John) and Tortola will be able to accept cruise ships and passengers based on Irma’s impacts. The Fantasy is not scheduled to return to the Eastern Caribbean until the last full week in September.

UPDATE: September 15, 2017 – Booking Window Expanded and Deposit Reduced for Guests booked on Canceled Irma Cruises

Emails were sent to guests and travel agents to let everyone previously booked on the canceled sailings know that DCL is extending the rebooking window and reducing the deposit.

DCL Guest Email Canceled Cruise Booking Extended Reduced Deposit DCL TA Email Canceled Cruise Booking Extended Reduced Deposit.jpg

60 Replies to “Disney Cruise Line Shortening Current Sailings and Canceling Three Upcoming Cruises Ahead of Hurricane Irma”

    1. Denny C

      Carnival, Royal and Norwegian have also cancelled sailings for 9/8 and 9/9 out of Port Canaveral and Miami. The MSC Divina is returning to Miami on 9/9 and I suspect that their next sailing will be cancelled as well.

      Reply
  1. Ron Kaczmarek

    Now, will both the Dream and the Fantasy just stay in Port and weather the storm or will Disney take them out in the ocean and park them away from Irma?

    Reply
    1. Scott Sanders Post author

      The ships will be safer at sea where they can sail around the weather. Staying in port would potentially leave the ship trapped or not enough time to get away from the system.

      Reply
        1. Scott Sanders Post author

          I do not expect any future cancelations unless there is severe damage to Port Canaveral. Based on the reports coming out of the Eastern Caribbean, I would not be surprised to see itinerary changes, but it is too early to speculate.

          Reply
            1. Scott Sanders Post author

              Any itinerary changes will be posted on DCL’s website and passengers booked on the sailings will typically receive an email from Disney. Whenever we learn of changes we post them on our site and share on our social media channels.

              Reply
  2. Anat Gur

    where is the September 4 cruise of the Disney Dream now ? and when exactly they will return to Port Canaveral tomorrow ?

    Reply
  3. Hannah

    That is just plain scary. I hope all will remain safe and all travelers returning early can reschedule a way out of there.

    Reply
  4. Katie

    Crossing my fingers that the Fantasy Sept. 23-30 cruise isn’t cancelled, although, it won’t be *much* of a cruise if Tortola, St. Thomas, and Castaway Cay get wiped out by Irma and Jose!

    Reply
    1. Paige

      It’s docking at 2pm today. You can see cruise ship locations by clicking the button on the top of page on left side. Scroll down to you see current location s.

      Reply
  5. Rosaline

    I’m on the 9/23 sailing. I think it’s safe to say we will not be going to Tortola or St. Thomas. I can’t believe the devistation these islands have suffered. St. Maarten, my favorite port, as well. 🙁

    Reply
  6. Matthew

    The Fantasy is pulling in now. I see from the port webcam that AquaDuck is running. I wonder when they will be kicking people off the ship.

    Reply
  7. Maria

    I have a cruised scheduled in March 2018, however with all the devastation to the islands I don’t know if it will be take place with Disney Magic porting from Miami and going to castaway, Nassau and back to Miami as well. There was so much destruction, might you be able to provide insight as to it being fine by then?

    Reply
  8. Carol Hunter

    We are sailing on the Fantasy to tortola on October 21st. As Tortola has been completely wiped out (ariel video on BBC news UK) is it likely that the Fantasy will dock there?

    Reply
  9. MamaB

    We were on the dream that was brought back a day early. I hate to say it as we LOVE LOVE LOVE Disney but the cruise was a total flop. Very difficult to get information from crew members and when announcements were made it was chaos. Our “relaxing” “fun” cruise was spent trying to find hotel rooms, with NO help from cruisline even though we were staying at a Disney property orginally after cruise. Many, many events were cancelled. Added stress deciding whether to go home to panhandle where Storm might hit or stay in Orlando where it might hit. Gas shortages and traffic mayhem added to our “relaxing” vacation. We did have one nice day in Castaway though….. even with the refund of one day from DCL, it was an expensive crappy vacation. Doubt I’ll cruise in hurricane season again……just not what I expected of Disney. They usually have there i’s dotted and t’s crossed.

    Reply
  10. Lauren Coolbaugh

    We are still waiting on refund from 9/9/17 sail on Fantasy that did not set sail. We were told 5-10 days for refund from when cruise was canceled. It’s been 7 business days and no sign of refund. We haven’t decided if we will rebook, and we are concern about the islands, recovery. Any thoughts?

    Reply
    1. Scott Sanders Post author

      Please keep in mind that many office here in Central Florida have been closed leading up and following Irma. I am not trying to make an excuse for DCL on this, but wanted to point this out. Driving around this week I noticed DCL’s parking lots were not full like they are on a typical workday. There are parts of Central Florida that are still without power and water. Schools have been off the entire week. While Disney may be a gigantic company, they still depend on people who are dealing with the aftermath.

      Reply
      1. Lauren Coolbaugh

        Good point Scott, a reality check… The refund was put in account but still needs to clear approximately 1-3 days. I hope this helps others.

        Reply
  11. Jessica

    I am in the same boat. They cancelled the Sept 8th sailing of the Dream and are offering a discount on a future cruise starting September 18th, but as of 9/15 I am still waiting on a refund.

    Reply
  12. Lana

    I saw a couple of emails stating that the discount is being extended through 12/18/2017 instead of 10/18/2017. They also mentioned a smaller deposit requirement. Have you heard anything about this? I haven’t received the email so I’m not sure if it only went to people who complained.

    Reply
  13. John curlew

    Living in Florida I can appreciate the delay in processing refunds but last I checked Disney was still able to send out their disappointing offer on booking a discounted cruise, extending to December isn’t much when many business won’t confirm when you can have vacation until after the first of the year. And what if you can’t reasonably take a cruise in 2018, it’s not costing them anything extra to allow you to cruise in 2019. With regards to the 25% it’s a lousy offer unless you book in a comparably priced period.

    Reply
    1. John curlew

      The real point of my comment was that if they are capable of sending emails regarding the offer why can’t they send emails on the refund status?

      Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.