TAMPA - For storm-wary ticketholders booked on Thursday's cruise, Carnival Cruise Lines offered this choice: You can jump ship, but your money stays.
"I'm extremely worried about the situation," said Lori Northrup, waiting at Tampa's port to board Carnival's 70,367-ton ship Sensation for a four-day cruise to Cozumel.
All morning long, the 42-year-old Indian Rocks woman said she called her travel agent and the cruise line to try to get her tickets exchanged for another date. She and her husband paid $1,300 for them.
No exchanges, she was told.
After two years without a vacation, she was looking forward to some swimming and snorkeling during the cruise. Instead, she said she'll be worrying about the proximity of Hurricane Charley, and about her pets back home.
"I doubt we'll have a very good time, because of anxiety," Northrup said.
Other passengers were more sanguine. Michelle Koch, a 28-year-old Orlando woman, clutched a copy of The DaVinci Code under her arm. She planned to catch a massage and some sun, read her book and think nothing of hurricanes.
"We know they don't want to sink a 2,000-person ship," said Koch, a Verizon employee. "So you have to trust the captain's going to make the right call."
Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said that the cruise line would not put passengers in harm's way and that there was plenty of time for Sensation to get out of Charley's way. Since the ship was leaving on schedule Thursday, she said, ticketholders who opted not to go would get no refund.
Asked if he was worried about the storm, passenger William Taylor, a 73-year-old Army vet, smiled and shook his head. The New Port Richey man recalled surviving a massive storm that struck his military ship in the Pacific in 1953. He was on the way to the war in Korea.
The ship rolled up and down for a week, Taylor said. "It sounded like that ship was going to come apart," he said. "People were throwing up all up and down the halls and decks. That's what you call rough."
Having lived through that, he said, Charley bore no menace.
Said his friend, 47-year-old Angelo Montoyo of New Port Richey: "One way to look at it, we're evacuating to Mexico."
Times staff writer Steve Huettel contributed to this report. Christopher Goffard can be reached at 813 226-3337 or goffard@sptimes.com
National Hurricane Center
