There are two types of people in this world: Those who love cruise ships, and those who will never step foot on one in their lifetime.
Have you noticed that no one seems to ever be on the fence about cruise ships? If someone was, they would probably be swayed to the “never getting on one of those disease harboring death traps” side after seeing these videos.
A Norwegian cruise liner with hundreds of passengers on board has gotten into a world of trouble out at sea. The smaller cruise ship sailed right into a vicious storm, and the waves they’ve been up against almost dwarf the ship their sailing on.
The ship is called the MS Maud, and it’s currently without power after a sizable wave crashed into the hull of the vessel and caused both the power and the navigation to malfunction. Thorsten Hansen, the tour operator for the Norwegian cruise, posted this video below of the waves with the caption:
“A few of my guests are not so happy. But most of them are very brave and find it very interesting.”
Speak for yourself Thorsten. That’s not exactly what you think of when you sign up for a “relaxing cruise.”
Another terrifying video showed a point of view from inside one of the ship’s suites. You usually have to pay a little extra to get the window view on a cruise, though I’m not sure you’d really want to see out if towering, violent waves were crashing up against the glass:
What a nightmare…
Those waves actually caused some of the windows on the ship’s bridge to shatter as the boat was tossed amongst the waves like a toy. Even with the broken windows, it was reported that all 266 passengers and 131 crew were all safe and accounted for.
The good news is that the MS Maud, despite not having power or navigation, seems to be through the worst of its battle at this point. A passenger aboard the cruise ship sent out a positive message saying they were getting towed towards Germany, while also explaining how scary the situation was during the worst of the storm:
“I’ll be honest, there was about 20 minutes yesterday where I thought the ship might capsize, it was rolling so heavily and we didn’t have any idea what had happened. It really hit home when they started handing out orange survival suits to everyone.”
Here’s to hoping that the ship and its passengers get back to shore safely, and I doubt anyone is going to be saying it was a “Lovely Cruise” like Jimmy Buffett (RIP) sang about on his famous Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes album:
