Tropical Storm Isaac, 9th Storm of 2012 Hurricane Season, Changes ...

Travelers Today

Updated: Aug 23, 2012 01:02 PM EDT

Tropical Storm Isaac, the 9^th storm of the 2012 Hurricane Season, isn't even a hurricane yet, but it is already causing cruise ships to change their itineraries.

Isaac is a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph. As of Thursday morning, Isaax was 225 miles south-southeast of Puerto Rico and it is moving west at 13 mph.

As Isaac approached Puerto Rico, the southern and eastern parts of the island are already seeing flooding and heavy rains will continue as the storm is moving slower.

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Tropical Storm Isaac is expected to become a Category 1 hurricane by Friday as it approaches the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It will then head towards Cuba and weaken a bit and then possibly reach Florida by Monday.

The Dominican Republic has a hurricane warning for its south coast from and Puerto Rico has Tropical Storm warnings set for more than a dozen islands including St. Maarten, Puerto Rico and St. Thomas.

Cruise ships are starting to be affected by Isaac.

The 2,974-passenger Carnival Valor sailed out of Miami on Saturday. This ship was set to make a stop in Curacao on Thursday, but the ship will skip this port to stay ahead of the storm. Instead, it will visit Nassau in the Bahamas on Friday.

Royal Caribbean's 5,400-passenger Allure of the Seas, is also seeing some changes. The world's largest cruise ship, which set sail from Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, will head to the Western Caribbean instead of the originally planned Eastern Caribbean. It will stop at Falmouth, Jamaica and Cozumel, Mexico instead of St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

Norwegian Cruise Line released a statement saying that no changes have been made: "At Norwegian Cruise Line, the safety and security of our guests and crew is of the utmost importance. Therefore, the company is closely monitoring the path of Tropical Storm Isaac. Currently, all of our ships are sailing as scheduled."

It is rare for a cruise to be cancelled due to a storm, but some cruise ships may have to make an unplanned stop at a different port or have an unscheduled sea day to avoid a storm.

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Source: http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/2805/20120823/tropical-storm-isaac-9th-storm-of-2012-hurricane-season-changes-cruise-ship-itineraries-royal-caribbean-allure-of-the-seas-carnival-valor-puerto-rico-dominican-republic-national-hurricane-center.htm

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