Cruise ships cancel Japan ports

With all ports in the country closed as a result of Friday’s earthquake and the devastating tsunami, two cruise ships have been forced to cancel planned calls at Japanese ports.
Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, carrying almost 3,000 passengers on a round-the-world voyage, left Tokyo on Thursday and was due to be in Nagasaki today. It will instead head direct to Beijing in China where it will arrive on Monday.
Separate arrangements will have to be made for a small group of passengers who were on an overland shore excursion to Osaka when the earthquake struck, and who were expecting to rejoin the ship in Nagasaki. The ship should reach Shanghai on Wednesday and Hong Kong by Friday.
Azamara Quest, whose departure from Nagasaki ahead of the feared tsunami was dramatically described in a dispatch from on-the-spot reporter Arnie Weissmann, has cancelled its visit to Osaka planned for Sunday.
A company statement said: “The entire country of Japan is still assessing the extent of the damage. While initial reports suggest that Kyoto (Osaka) did not sustain major damage, we feel that the recent events and continuing aftershocks have the potential to seriously disrupt Azamara Quest’s experience and our operations in port.”
The ship is due to reach Gyeongju in South Korea on Tuesday.
Some cruise ships in Hawaii, Mexico and California had their schedules slightly disrupted as a result of the tsunami, but there have been no reports of damage or injury.
NCL’s Pride of America left Kauai, Hawaii, to ride out the tsunami’s landfall, and Crystal Serenity left Bali on Friday heading for Singapore
The Mexican port of Cabo San Lucas was closed on Friday as the western seaboard prepared for the tsunami, forcing Disney Wonder remain at sea.
A spokeswoman for the Cruise Lines International Association explained that “a ship at sea is one of the safest places to be. It is when a tsunami approaches the coast that it causes damages as the wave builds in height and causes widespread flooding.”