The Caribbean island was hit straight on by the storm late Monday.
The good news for the cruise industry: Hurricane Maria-slammed Dominica isn’t scheduled to be visited by any major ships in the next few weeks.
The bad news: Reports of widespread devastation from the storm could mean a flurry of voyages to the Caribbean island starting in late October will be affected.
Dominica’s prime minister, Roosevelt Skerrit, already has talked of „mind-boggling“ damage to the destination. He said in a Facebook post early Tuesday that his country has „lost all what money can buy and replace.“
Maria plowed into Dominica late Monday as a fierce Category 5 hurricane. It hit with maximum sustained winds of 160 miles per hour that tore the roofs off houses.
More: Maria forces changes to Royal Caribbean, Carnival itineraries | St. Thomas, St. Martin off Royal Caribbean schedule for weeks | Grand Turk not ready for ships
Seabourn Cruise Line, Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America and Windstar Cruises all have ships scheduled to visit Dominica from late October through the end of November.
The damage to Dominica comes as several other major cruise destinations in the Caribbean still are on their knees in the wake of Hurricane Irma, which roared through the region two weeks ago with winds of up to 185 miles per hour. The storm knocked out two of the Caribbean’s biggest cruise stops, St. Thomas and St. Maarten — the Dutch side of the island of St. Martin. It also caused significant damage to the major cruise destinations of Key West, Fla.; St. John in the U. S. Virgin Islands; Barbuda; St. Barts; and Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.
In many cases, the ships that are scheduled to visit Dominica starting next month also were scheduled to visit the islands hit hardest by Irma. An Oct. 30 sailing of Seabourn’s 450-passenger Seabourn Odyssey out of Miami, for instance, is scheduled to visit the British Virgin Islands and St. Barts in addition to Dominica. With the sailing still weeks away, the line has yet to announce any change to its stops.
More: Royal Caribbean begins pulling Key West from itineraries | Irma showed up, and this cruise went to the dogs | St. Thomas, St. Martin off cruise schedules for weeks
As of Tuesday morning, none of the lines with ships scheduled to call in Dominica in the coming months had announced changes to itineraries. Royal Caribbean and Carnival both have re-routed ships this week to avoid Maria, which is threatening several more destinations found on cruise routes.
As of 8:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Maria was churning away from Dominica on a west-northwesterly course toward the U. S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 160 miles per hour.
