- Sen. Bill Nelson called for investigation into a Royal Caribbean cruise after it sailed into a predicted storm
- The Anthem of the Seas ship said winds were more extreme than expected despite knowing about them in advance
- A meteorologist said what the cruise did was ‘no different than purposely sailing into a category one hurricane’
- The storm forced 4,529 passengers and 1,616 crew on board to be locked down in their cabins for hours
- Yesterday Royal Caribbean announced it would cancel the rest of the trip and head back to New Jersey
Royal Caribbean could be in hot water after it knowingly let one of its largest cruise ships sail into a storm with category one hurricane-like strength, which forced passengers into more than ten hours of lock down.
Florida Senator Bill Nelson asked why the ship would continue right into the path of the ferocious storm that had been predicted at least four days on February 3, before the cruise encountered it.
Senator Nelson called for the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate the Anthem of the Seas voyage, which fought through waves as high as 30 feet and winds of approximately 150mph.
‘The thing about this storm was that it was forecast for days.
‘So why in the world would a cruise ship with thousands of passengers go sailing right into it?’ Nelson said on the Senate floor on Monday.
Royal Caribbean said in a statement the ship experienced ‘extreme wind and sea conditions’ that were not expected.
Captain Claus Andre Anderson and cruise director Abe Hughes posted a video to YouTube yesterday saying the storm was much more intense than originally predicted.
‘I have never seen a low-pressure (storm) that was not forecast anything near like what we experienced.
‘It developed so quickly. And that’s the thing, it just became so intensified in eight or nine hours. It goes from being nothing to a full-blown storm,’ Captain Anderson said in the video.
Ryan Maue, a digital meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics, told NJ.com he couldn’t believe that was true.
‘The storm was well forecast by many different weather models from every agency.
‘This situation is no different in practice to purposely sailing a vessel into the path of a rapidly developing Category one or two hurricane.
Cruises are the worst , and this is just another page in the book why. First you are trapped at sea with hopefully a competent captain and crew. Secondly you are surrounded by thousands of strangers, most them being senior citizens which sounds awful. Heaven forbid if one those people get sick and spread a virus throughout the ship which. Thirdly a cruise ship is basically a hotel and who wants to be stuck in a hotel their whole vacation where the view is the ocean and maybe some wildlife if you’re lucky.
David Foster Wallace put it beautifully when he said “There’s something about a mass-market luxury cruise,” he writes, “that’s unbearably sad. Like most unbearably sad things it seems incredibly elusive and complex in its causes yet simple in its effect: On board the Nadir (especially at night when all the ship’s structured fun and reassurances and gaieties ceased) I felt despair.” Despair, thats exactly what cruise ships evoke in me and many others.
If you don’t believe me just take a look at CruiseShipDeaths and Carnival cruise line’s guest review page . This could of been much worse for Royal Caribbean , all and all only some broken glass to be swept , tables flipped back over so it wasn’t that bad. But look how close it was to being horrific, seriously cruises suck. You will probably die if you go on one, and get diarrhea. Or at least one of those.
Speaking of diarrhea do you remember the Carnival cruise that lost power, caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico and had to be towed back to port over 4 days. It was dubbed the ‘Poop Cruise‘ One of the Passengers said “It was a horrible experience,” testified Michelle Key, 48, who went on the cruise with her mother, Fleda Key, 68. “I walked through water and feces and urine, no telling what else,” she testified. “We would slip and slide through greasy, gross, slippery muck,” she said, adding “it was very difficult” for her mother. Fleda Key described having terrible diarrhea on numerous occasions and having difficulty finding any toilets that were not overflowing. Christ thats terrible and they had to eat onion sandwiches on top of that. So don’t go on cruise or you’re gonna have a bad time. The only way to do a cruise is if you get a Diddy yacht so its just you and your crew other than that no thanks I’ll stick on dry land.
PS.
This how I imagined the first guest disembarking from the Poop Cruise
foodie's blog 