Carnival Spirit Skips Puntarenas After Hurricane Trudy Detour, Leaving Cartagena as Sole Port
If you are sailing the Carnival Spirit's 16-night Seattle-to-Mobile repositioning voyage, Puntarenas on October 17, 2026 is off, and Cartagena de Indias on Tuesday, October 20 is your only scheduled port. If you booked a Puntarenas excursion through Carnival, check your onboard account for the automatic refund. Anything arranged independently is outside what the article says Carnival refunded, so contact those providers. Watch for further onboard notices before the Panama Canal transit on Monday, October 19.
My read is that this one is mostly the weather's doing, not a Carnival choice. Captain Lorenzo Calogero said the Carnival Spirit sailed a wider route around Hurricane Trudy, and strong opposite currents then slowed the ship until Puntarenas on October 17 was out of reach within the required entry window. The ironic twist is that Puntarenas was supposed to be the cruise's first port, because Cabo San Lucas had already been dropped after the Seattle departure slipped a day. So a 16-night voyage that promised three ports and a canal transit is now Cartagena de Indias plus the Panama Canal. The losers are guests who wanted beach and rainforest time in Costa Rica. The one clear remedy in the article is that Carnival-booked excursions were refunded to onboard accounts automatically. In their shoes, I would confirm that credit on my folio, rebook nothing speculative, and treat Cartagena on October 20 as the one port worth planning properly. After that come four days in the Caribbean and Mobile.