Tom Stieghorst
Let's stipulate that there's no such thing as a "normal" hurricane season. But this year's season is atypical in where most hurricanes are tracking, which by and large is away from busy cruise destinations.
After having to scramble ships and itineraries for weeks last year to react to hurricanes Irma and Maria, the cruise industry has not had much to sweat in the Caribbean, the Bahamas and Florida this year.
A visit to the National Hurricane Center's "Atlantic" page on Monday yields the message "Tropical cyclone activity is not expected in the next 48 hours." The entire Atlantic from West Africa to the U.S. east coast is one big storm-free zone.
That's atypical for mid-October.
Meanwhile, residents along the western coast of Mexico are preparing the best they can for Hurricane Willa, which as of Monday morning was a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 160 miles an hour.
In fact, it's the Pacific that has been the most active hurricane region this year. As the name Willa implies, there have been 22 named storms so far this year, tying several other years as the fifth most active Pacific season on record.
Hurricane Lane, which caused huge flooding in Hawaii and forced Norwegian Cruise Line to alter the schedule of its Pride of America ship, became the first category 5 storm in the Pacific since 2015. That was followed by Hurricane Walaka in September, also a Category 5, which also caused a minor change in the Pride's itinerary.
Now, Hurricane Willa is expected to strike the coast of Mexico Tuesday evening near Mazatlan. Already, Norwegian has changed the itinerary for the Norwegian Bliss, which instead of calling on Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas this week, will call instead on San Francisco, San Diego and Ensenada.
Holland America Line has also scrambled its 7-day Oct. 21 itinerary for the Eurodam, so that it will now visit San Francisco, Los Angeles, Catalina and Ensenada before returning to San Diego on Oct. 28.
Still, these are fairly small changes compared to the upheaval of last year's Caribbean fire drill.
The two major hurricanes in the Atlantic this year, Florence and Michael, were catastrophic for the coastal areas they hit, but they did not make landfall near major cruise ports.
If Willa hits at full strength along Mexico's Pacific coast, that could disrupt itineraries from southern California for some time. But so far, while this atypical season has caused its share of misery, it has not been miserable for the cruise lines or the destinations they serve.