After Hurricane Dorian, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian sending cruises full of supplies to Bahamas

Sep. 5--Hurricane Dorian's path of destruction over the Bahamas earlier this week is prompting the cruise lines that rely heavily on Bahamian ports to step in with ships full of aid.

Royal Caribbean International announced Tuesday that it planned to stock its ships with goods, including generators, water, cleaning supplies, sheets and towels, for delivery to the Bahamas.

Empress of the Seas, which departed Miami Wednesday on a hurricane-shortened voyage, will be the first to make a drop-off. The ship is scheduled to anchor off the coast of Grand Bahamas Island Thursday with 10,000 meals, 10,000 bottles of water, generators, medical supplies and other aid items before taking cruisers to a planned stop in Nassau.

Cruisers who boarded the ship got a letter in their staterooms detailing the change of plans and asking passengers to sign a card that the line is also dropping off for people in the Bahamas.

Following prior storms, Royal has used ships on rerouted or cancelled sailings to carry aid to the Caribbean. After Hurricane Maria in 2017, the cruise line used its vessels to carry thousands of Puerto Rican hurricane victims and evacuees from St. Croix and St. Thomas to South Florida, as well as 900,000 cases of supplies to the battered islands.

Royal Caribbean is also donating $1 million to disaster relief and collaborating with the Bahamian government, non-profit the Pan American Development Foundation and Bahamian charities to distribute donations. The company will match every donation to the development foundation, up to $500,000, for the Bahamas.

Royal, like other major cruise lines, has a private island in the Bahamas and hundreds of employees who work at its destination ports in Freeport and Nassau.

Norwegian Cruise Line's Norwegian Breakaway plans to head out Thursday from PortMiami with hurricane relief supplies donated by the cruise line, its employees, the city of Miami, Baptist Health South Florida and several Miami-based organizations. The supplies will be delivered to Nassau, Great Harbour Cay and the company's private island, Great Stirrup Cay.

Parent company Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings is donating "a minimum" of $1 million to short-term hurricane relief and will match hurricane donations dollar-for-dollar through its hurricane relief campaign, Hope Starts Here.

More help is also on the way.

The Walt Disney Company, parent company to Disney Cruise Line, has also pledged to donate $1 million in cash and in-kind support to the Bahamas. The company will send donations to non-profit relief agencies undertaking relief efforts and providing supplies to residents in affected regions.

According to photos from passengers, the Disney Dream anchored off Castaway Cay Wednesday, the company's private island located about 45 miles from where Hurricane Dorian made landfall. Passengers didn't get off -- the line was just delivering supplies to the island and to its crew members who rode out the storm in a hurricane-grade shelter on Castaway.

Carnival Corporation, which owns nine cruise lines including Carnival Cruise Line, said Wednesday it is also pledging $1 million to hurricane relief efforts. Carnival Corp. Chairman Micky Arison is pledging another $1 million through the Micky and Madeleine Arison Family Foundation.

The company is also covering the shipping costs for partner Tropical Shipping, which will collect donations to Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties and transport them to the Bahamas. Carnival, too, will be sending supplies and food through Tropical Shipping and in partnership with the Bahamas National Emergency Management Agency.

Carnival Corporation CEO, Arnold Donald, said the company looks "forward to supporting [Bahamian's] forthcoming hard work to rebuild, recover and again welcome tourists and cruise guests with open arms to their beautiful country."

Tourism is the lifeblood of Caribbean destinations and, in the past, the return of tourism has been critical to rebuilding efforts. To that end, Donald said Carnival remains committed, despite the storm, to its new cruise port development on Grand Bahama Island and Half Moon Cay, the company's private island, Donald said.

Carnival Cruise Line expects to return to Nassau and Freeport as soon as possible, cruise line president Christine Duffy said in a statement.

"We have been in close communication with government officials throughout the weekend and stand ready to provide humanitarian and economic assistance," Duffy said. "Our focus will be on the priorities as established by government and emergency relief officials."

Contact the reporter at cherrera@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5660; Twitter @ChabeliH

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