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Cruise ships shift course to avoid Hurricane Jimena in Baja California, Mexico

At least four cruise ships sailing out of Southern California are making last-minute itinerary changes to avoid powerful Hurricane Jimena, which today, Aug. 31, is heading toward Baja California, a resort-studded peninsula in Mexico. Although Jimena’s course is unpredictable, landfall could occur by Tuesday, forecasters said.

In Cabo San Lucas, part of the area under a hurricane warning, workers this afternoon nailed sheets of plywood to storefront windows in the marina, and hotels and restaurants cleared away umbrellas, chairs and other outdoor furniture, the Associated Press reported. Jimena has been classified as a Category 4 hurricane.

Among the ships being rerouted:

Carnival Elation, which left San Diego on Aug. 29 for a five-day cruise, will call on California’s Santa Catalina Island and Ensenada, Mexico, rather than Cabo San Lucas.

Carnival Splendor, which left Long Beach on Aug. 30 for a seven-day cruise, will skip calls on Mexico’s Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan, and add calls on Santa Catalina and Ensenada. It is still scheduled to call on Cabo San Lucas on Sept. 4.

Royal Caribbean’s Mariner of the Seas, which left Los Angeles on Aug. 30 for a week-long cruise, will reverse the order of its port calls. Under the new plan, it will call first on Puerto Vallarta and last on Cabo San Lucas.

Carnival Paradise, which left Long Beach today for a four-day cruise, will spend an extra day at sea before calling on Santa Catalina, and delay its Ensenada call by one day.

Plans can change daily or hourly, so contact your cruise line; their websites are not always updated. A consumer information website, CruiseCritic, has done a good job of providing updates on the itinerary changes.

— Jane Engle, assistant Los Angeles Times Travel editor

Photo: Tourists stroll the beach Monday under stormy skies in Cabo San Lucas at the tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula. Credit: Guillermo Arias/Associated Press

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 31, 2009 at 5:42 pm by Jane Engle and is filed under Baja California, Cabo San Lucas, California, Catalina Island, Central America, Global, Islands & Beaches, Last Minute, Latin America & Caribbean, Los Angeles, Mexico, News, Tips & Advice, Puerto Vallarta. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.