This cruise line rerouted a Bahamas itinerary to Canada amid bad weather

Guests booked on a recent sailing with MSC Cruises got a different trip than they planned when the ship rerouted due to bad weather, changing nearly the entire itinerary.

MSC Meraviglia was originally set to visit Florida and the Bahamas during a round-trip cruise that departed from New York on Saturday. But the week-long voyage’s stops at Port Canaveral, Nassau, and the line’s private island Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve were replaced by New England and Canada.

A spokesperson for the line attributed the change to “unseasonable and rapidly worsening weather that would have made it impossible to safely reach the southern Atlantic Ocean from New York City.”

“The only alternative would have been to take the more extreme step of cancelling the cruise – and thousands of people’s vacations – outright,” they said in an emailed statement. “The complexities involved in obtaining last-minute berths for unplanned stops and provisioning the ship along its new route left a sailing to Canada and New England as the only viable option, so we gave our guests a choice between sailing to a different region or cancelling for a future cruise credit, which allows them to put the full value paid for this cruise toward another at their convenience.”

A storm brought heavy rain to Florida and other parts of the Southeast over the weekend before heading north. MSC replaced Meraviglia’s planned stops with Boston, Portland, Maine, and Saint John, New Brunswick. Other brands, including Carnival Cruise Line and Princess Cruises, also reportedly changed itineraries due to weather.

Cruise itinerary changes:Here's what travelers should know

The contracts passengers agree to when they book a cruise allow operators to alter their course as needed without compensation, though cruise lines may offer it as a goodwill gesture.

Rusty Pickett, a travel adviser and owner of Shellback Cruises, told USA TODAY in November that itinerary changes are uncommon, and usually happen due to acts of nature or “diplomatic issues.”

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at [email protected].