When you watch the video of Royal Caribbean's Explorer of the Seas tilting 45 degrees, it's kind of hard to watch. For the people who are actually on the cruise, it was a completely different experience.
I was lucky enough to meet a woman who had been on that transatlantic voyage. She was a very experienced sailor and we happened to be talking while in a hot tub on the first Celebrity Cruises that sailed from Port Canaveral on Celebrity Equinox.
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She shared a perspective that has largely gone unreported in the media. It's not that the event wasn't widely reported; It's just that most of the news focused on the horror of the situation, and that's not what Ruth, the woman I met, experienced at first.
She shared a story from that day that was a little different from how the event has been portrayed elsewhere. She didn't downplay it in any way, but her first emotion wasn't terror. And that was due, at least in part, to the absurdity of the circumstances surrounding the unexpected weather phenomenon.
In many ways, it's a tribute to the cruise line that your first instinct wasn't that something terrible was happening.
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Explorer of the Seas passenger shares first-hand story
As many of you know, the ship was hit by unexpected gale-force winds that caused it to list about 45 degrees. That caused all the loose items to fall off the shelves and a situation that could have caused panic.
Just the sound of breaking glass, coupled with the strange sensation that the ship was not solid beneath their feet, could have driven the passengers into hysteria. Actually, that didn't happen for several reasons.
Firstly, according to Ruth, because at the time of the event the passengers were watching a singer perform songs by Céline Dion. He was actually playing the “Titanic” song, “My Heart Will Go On,” when the calamitous weather event occurred.
Because of that unique combination of events, Ruth at first thought that maybe it was just part of the show, some elaborate special effect. He did not offer to speak on behalf of the other passengers, but said there was a kind of delayed impact before people realized something serious had happened.
The experience he described was not a moment when panic broke out, but rather a slower period when people did not know what was happening at first. There was fear and panic when they realized the ship was in bad shape, but the captain quickly intervened.
Give the captain of the Explorer of the Seas a lot of credit
Explorer of the Seas was on the first night of a transatlantic voyage from Spain to Miami. Several ships make these trips each year and it is not uncommon for the captain to limit the use of open decks or even send passengers back to their cabins.
In this case the weather was not what was expected, but the captain reacted quickly. He slowed the ship and steered it to correct the 45-degree tilt while asking passengers to return to their rooms.
His calmness in making announcements helped keep passengers calm and prevent them from panicking in a situation that is very rare.
“At this time, I must ask all guests to kindly proceed to your cabin. We will send a crew member there to vouch for you. So please stay there until you hear another announcement and we have accounted for everyone. I'm sorry for this inconvenience. These things happen from time to time, not very often. It is like an airplane that suffers turbulence and strong winds. “I'm sorry this happened,” he shared.
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In the end, one passenger was so seriously injured that the ship had to turn around and return to Spain. It is a testament to the captain and his crew that no other passengers chose to disembark in Spain and that they all stayed for their delayed two-day trip to Miami.
The passengers widely praised the captain.
“He kept us informed about the weather and all kinds of details so that you felt safe,” Sofie Dubois told 7 News Miami.
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