Passengers aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas got considerably more ocean than they probably paid for this weekend.
Footage posted by the Royal Caribbean fan account Loyal to Royal shows the enormous cruise ship muscling through seriously rough Atlantic seas as it headed north from the Bahamas toward Cape Liberty, New Jersey. From onboard, the horizon rises and disappears behind walls of gray water while whitewater explodes away from the bow.
Oasis had two scheduled sea days Friday and Saturday before its Sunday arrival in New Jersey — putting it directly into the worsening nor’easter.
Check out the footage, linked here, and below.
And those waves are no optical illusion. The National Weather Service issued storm warnings for waters off New York and New Jersey, forecasting northeast winds up to 60 mph and seas of 14 to 19 feet, occasionally reaching 24 feet.
NOAA notes those figures represent significant wave height — the average of the highest one-third of waves — and that individual waves can be more than twice as high. Based on the footage and official marine forecasts, waves in the 20-foot range, with occasional larger sets, are entirely plausible, although the video alone can’t provide an exact measurement.
Translation for passengers: bring the Dramamine.
Related: Watch: Hurricane Polo Sends Gigantic Waves to Cabo San Lucas Arch
The storm has been anything but funny on land. NOAA called it a powerful nor’easter producing “damaging wind gusts and dangerous coastal flooding.” Roughly 100,000 customers across the Northeast had lost power by Saturday, while flooding inundated communities from the Carolinas northward. In New York City, a man was killed by a falling tree.
Farther south, North Carolina’s Outer Banks have been hammered by overwash and erosion. N.C. Highway 12 was closed at Pea Island after sections were undermined, cutting road access to Hatteras Island.
NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center described the storm as a “long duration event” that would be “highly impactful to the mariner.”
For the thousands aboard Oasis of the Seas, that translates less scientifically:
Hold onto something — and maybe skip the buffet.
Related: Watch: 18-Foot Waves Thrash East Coast During Rare Nor’easter
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