Tropical Storm Chantal, the third named storm of the 2013 Hurricane Season, is already wreaking havoc a the storm forced two Carnival cruise ships to change their itineraries.
According to Carnival Cruise Lines, the 2,974-passenger Carnival Liberty was forced to skip a stop in St. Thomas on Tuesday as the storm was approaching. Instead, the ship went straight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, which was scheduled for Wednesday, USA Today reports.
The ship, which left from Miami on Saturday, is on a seven-night Eastern Caribbean voyage. It will now visit Grand Turk on Wednesday, which was originally scheduled for Thursday and will add a stop to Nassau, Bahamas on Friday.
The Carnival Liberty wasn't the only ship that was impacted. The 2,758-passenger Carnival Victory also had to alter its schedule. The ship skipped a day at sea and made a stop in Nassau, Bahamas instead. It wasn't supposed to stop in Nassau until Friday. The ship is also switching around the dates for stops in Grand Turk and Half Moon Cay, Bahamas on Wednesday and
Thursday.
The Carnival Victory, also based out of Miami, is on a five-night Bahamas cruise. It left Florida on Monday.
Tropical Storm Chantal is making its way towards the east coast of the United States. As of 2:00 p.m. AST, the storm was 335 miles southeast of San Juan and was moving west-northwest at 29 miles per hour. Still as a tropical storm, Chantal had maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour.
According to the National Hurricane Center, the storm is expected to gain strength over the next days as it heads towards the Dominican Republic. Meteorologists believe that it will weaken as it interacts with the mountains of Hispaniola and Cuba and will eventually turn into a tropical depression as it heads over the Bahamas on Friday.
It is not rare for cruise lines to alter their itineraries for a trip to avoid a storm, but cancellations are not common.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
