Cruise Maven News: Hurricane Harvey Churns Toward Texas Coast

Live updates on Hurricane Harvey with Port of Galveston link

As of Friday morning, Category 2 Hurricane Harvey continues to gain strength in its progress towards the mid-Texas coast. As the storm intensifies over the next 24 hours, the National Weather Center predicts Hurricane Harvey to become a Category 3 hurricane. This will be the first time in 12 years that a major hurricane (category 3 or stronger) makes landfall in the United States.

The 4 pm CDT Thursday outlook from the National Hurricane Center projects Harvey to come onshore near Port O’Connor, TX, south of Galveston, as a Category 3 hurricane during the predawn hours on Saturday.

Galveston is the main cruise port for Texas, with Houston being the closest major inland city. Though Galveston currently has only a 19% chance of Harvey making landfall, almost the entire Texas coastline is under a hurricane warning. Tropical storm-force winds may arrive along parts of the lower coast as early as 8 am CDT Friday, making evacuation difficult thereafter, according to the latest National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast.

Cruises from Port of Galveston

Scheduled to return to Galveston on Saturday morning are Carnival Freedom and Carnival Valor. Sunday is the day for Carnival Breeze and Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas to return to Galveston Port.

Read Next: What You Need to Know to Cruise in Hurricane Season

For those with departures this weekend, Carnival Cruise Line has weather alerts posted on its home page. As of this article, Carnival has not made any itinerary changes for its three cruise ships scheduled to depart from Galveston this weekend: Carnival Freedom and Carnival Valor on Saturday, August 26 and Carnival Breeze on Sunday, August 27.

Carnival guests scheduled to depart on cruises from Galveston this weekend are asked to sign up for text alerts by texting the following codes to CRUISE (278473):  Carnival Freedom – CCL1, Carnival Valor CCL2 and Carnival Breeze CCL3.

Carnival is monitoring Harvey’s forecasted track and will provide guests with an update by 12:00 PM (CDT) tomorrow (Friday).

Royal Caribbean’s website says it will contact passengers if there are any changes.