When you see the video of Royal Caribbean’s Explorer of the Seas tilting up by 45 degrees, it’s a difficult thing to watch. For people who are actually on the cruise ship, it was an entirely different experience.
I was lucky enough to meet a woman who had been on that transatlantic voyage. She was a very seasoned cruiser, and we happened to be talking while in a hot tub on the first Celebrity Cruises sailing from Port Canaveral on Celebrity Equinox.
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She shared a perspective that has largely not been reported in the media. It’s not that the event wasn’t widely reported on; it’s just that most of the news reporting focused on the terror of the situation, and that’s not what Ruth, the woman I met, experienced at first.
She shared a story of that day that was a little bit different from how the event has been portrayed elsewhere. She did not downplay it in any way, but her first emotion was not terror. And that was at least partially due to the absurdity of the circumstances around the unexpected weather event.
In many ways, it’s a tribute to the cruise line that her first instinct was not that something terrible was happening.
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Explorer of the Seas passenger shares a first-hand tale
As many of you know, the ship was hit by unexpected hurricane-force winds that caused it to tilt about 45 degrees. That led to every unattached item falling off shelves and a situation that could’ve led to panic.
Just the sound of glass breaking, along with the eerie feeling of the ship not being solid under their feet, might have led passengers to hysteria. In reality, that did not happen for a number of reasons.
First, according to Ruth, because at the time of the event, passengers were watching a singer perform Céline Dion songs. She was actually playing the song from “Titanic,” “My Heart Will Go On,” when the calamitous weather event struck.
Because of that unique combination of events, Ruth at first thought that maybe it was just part of the show, some elaborate special effect. She did not offer to speak for other passengers, but she said that there was a sort of delayed impact before people realized that something serious had happened.
The experience she described was not a moment where panic exploded but a slower period where people did not know what was happening at first. There was fear and panic once they realized that the ship was awry, but the captain stepped in quickly.
Give the Explorer of the Seas captain a lot of credit
Explorer of the Seas was on the first night of a transatlantic trip from Spain to Miami. Multiple ships make these journeys each year, and it's not uncommon for the captain to limit the use of outdoor decks or even send passengers back to their cabins.
In this case, the weather was not expected, but the captain reacted quickly. He slowed the ship down and steered it to correct the 45-degree lilt while also asking passengers to go back to their rooms.
His calm in making announcements helped keep passengers calm and from outright panicking in an situation that's very rare.
“At this time, I have to ask all guests to kindly proceed to your cabin. We will send a crewmember there to account for you. So, kindly remain there until you hear another announcement, and we have accounted for everybody. I’m sorry for this inconvenience. These things happen every now and then, not very often. It’s like an airplane hitting turbulence and high winds. I’m sorry that this happened," he shared.
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Ultimately, one passenger was injured badly enough that the ship had to turn around and head back to Spain. It's a testament to the captain and his crew that no other passengers chose to disembark in Spain, and they all stayed on for their two-day delayed trip to Miami.
Passengers widely praised the captain.
“He kept us posted on weather and all kind of details so you felt secure,” Sofie Dubois told 7 News Miami.
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