Cruise ship company is rescuing its employees from Irma—on a cruise ship

This cruise is heading to calmer waters.
 By 
Sasha Lekach
 on 
Cruise ship company is rescuing its employees from Irma—on a cruise ship
Cruise ships were trying to GTFO of Miami before Hurricane Irma arrives. Credit: ERIK S. LESSER/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

The high seas are not where anyone wants to be as Hurricane Irma rips through the Caribbean and southern Atlantic.

To evacuate employees usually stationed aboard ships now in hurricane-churned waters, Royal Caribbean is using its most valuable resource: its own gigantic cruise boat.

Royal Caribbean is taking the 2,500-passenger Enchantment of the Seas mega-boat to calmer waters with the cruise company's employees and families onboard.

The boat was supposed to set out on a trip this weekend, but it was canceled because of the storm, a company spokesperson told CNNMoney.

Hurricane Irma has prompted three cruise cancelations to Cuba and the Bahamas. Royal Caribbean wrote about giving full refunds for trips on their website, "We are very sorry for the impact this storm has had on your vacation and please know that we made the decision with the safety and comfort of our guests and crew in mind."

Other cruise lines are canceling trips and staying away from Florida ports. Carnival Cruise Line canceled four trips and are giving cruise credits to passengers who couldn't get to their Florida ports because of canceled flights and other travel problems.

Disney Cruise Line also canceled two trips set for the coming days.

Norwegian Cruise Line found themselves in a pinch after dropping off cruise passengers in Miami just as the city was packing up to beat the storm. Luckily one of their ships was able to depart Thursday and passengers could stay onboard if they couldn't get safely out of Miami. About 4,000 cruise-goers were on one ship that made it out of the area Thursday evening, according to the Miami Herald.

Irma is ruining vacations and whole lot more as the storm pummels the Caribbean and heads toward the Florida coast.

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Sasha Lekach

Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.

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