I Took a Cruise that Sailed Through a Storm: Here’s What Happened…
I’ve just returned from a cruise that was like no other I’ve ever taken. I booked this cruise to get a few nights of what I thought was going to be winter sun, but it very quickly turned into something really quite different. Infact, we ended up sailing through a storm, and we had rough seas on EVERY night of the cruise, which is something I’ve never experienced before. I’ve previously experienced one or two nights of bad weather, but it’s never really gone much more than that.
After I arrived home, I posted a video on social media of the water in one of the swimming pools moving around, and it went completely viral. I received so many comments and questions about this cruise, and so I thought that some might like to hear more about this cruise, and more generally what it’s like to cruise on a ship during rough seas. If you’d prefer to get this information in video form, then here’s the YouTube video that I created to tell you about this cruise.
This cruise was in early January and it was sailing in Europe, and so I knew that the weather was going to be a bit of a gamble. Sometimes, European weather in January can be lovely and warm, but it’s generally incredibly unpredictable at that time of year. Nonetheless, I kept my fingers crossed that the sunshine would pull through, and we’d have a few days of lovely weather to kick start the new year. In hindsight, this does sound quite naive…
The ship I chose to cruise on was MSC Splendida, which is a Fantastia Class cruise ship operated by MSC Cruises. The other ships in this class are MSC Fantasia, MSC Divina and MSC Preziosa, the latter of which I spent a week on last year, so I already knew that I was going to like the ship.
MSC Splendida, the cruise ship that I took this cruise on.
The cruise itself was a relatively short one - it departed Palermo in Sicily on Day 1, we were then due to spend Day 2 docked at a port in Tunisia, before then spending Day 3 ‘at sea’, as we travelled to our final port. On Day 4, we’d wake up in Barcelona, and that’s where I’d disembark the ship to head home.
One of the reasons I booked this cruise was that it was an absolute bargain - the ship would be going to ‘Dry Dock’ immediately after this cruise, which is when they take a ship ‘out of action’ to do lots of maintenance on it. I’m assuming this is probably why it was so cheap - the 3 night cruise was presumably sold just to fill any empty cabins for a few nights until the ship got back to Barcelona to disembark all of the passengers who had been onboard for a full 7-night cruise.
The other reason I booked this cruise is that I’ve wanted to visit Tunisia for some time. It’s a country that I’ve found interesting for a number of reasons, and I’ve noticed that more cruise ships have started to call there recently. For me, it makes so much sense to visit somewhere new by cruise, because I can then sample the place, and make a decision as to wether or not I’d like to one day return for a longer visit.
I flew to Italy the day before the cruise, and was absolutely delighted to arrive to temperatures of around 17C (or 63F), which wasn’t hot, but remember it was January and therefore winter. It felt so nice to leave the freezing cold weather in the U.K. behind and just feel the warmth of the sun on my skin for a few hours that first day. I arrived at my hotel, and they upgraded my booking from a small single room to a premium balcony room, but little did I know, the weather and my good fortune was going to change the next morning…
I arrived to a room upgrade - here’s my new room. Great for a one-night stay, isn’t it?!
Yes, my room even had it’s own balcony that looked out to sea!
While we’re on the topic of the hotel, if you ever find yourself looking for somewhere to stay in Palermo, Sicily, I’d really recommend NH Palermo. This hotel was absolutely fantastic, had great facilities, and the rooms were spotlessly clean. If you’re travelling there to cruise, be sure to consider booking a room at the front of the building, as you can then sit on your balcony and watch the ships arriving and leaving!
I woke up at the hotel to find that it was pouring down with rain. I haven’t actually seen rain as heavy as this in Italy before, so I ended up using a taxi to get along to the cruise ship. When I arrived at the cruise port, it did dry up, which allowed me to get inside before it potentially started again.
Embarkation was a breeze, and before I knew it, I was in my cabin, which was a Premium Balcony Cabin on Deck 9 of the ship. I’ll tell you more about my cabin, and offer you a full review of the cruise, over on YouTube in due course. If you’d like to watch my cabin tour to get a feel for where I called ‘home’ on this cruise, you’ll find the video below!
So, let’s talk about when this cruise took a bit of a turn…
Shortly after sailing away from Palermo, my cabin attendant knocked the cabin door with a letter. The title of the letter was ‘IMPORTANT: ROUGH WEATHER CONDITIONS AHEAD’. Now, before I explain any more about the letter, I’ve never received a letter like this on any cruise before. I’ve heard verbal announcements from Captains that the seas are going to be rough overnight, but never had it in writing like this.
I assumed that the reason for this was nothing serious, and it was probably because MSC Cruises speak lots of different languages on their ships. I thought they were probably just issuing letters to cabins to make sure that everybody heard what was going on in their own language.
On an MSC cruise, you’ll find lots of different nationalities onboard. You’re more likely to find more British passengers on their ships leaving from British ports, for example Southampton, and you’ll be more likely to find American passengers on their US based ships, for example those sailing from Miami. As this cruise was around the Mediterranean, and the ship had been covering ports mostly across Spain, France and Italy before I got on, there were quite a few different languages being spoken onboard.
Here’s the letter that every cabin received shortly after sailing away from Palermo…
This letter was delivered to my cabin by my cabin attendant.
After reading this, I had a strong gut feeling that we probably wouldn’t be calling into our Tunisian port tomorrow, but I remained optimistic…
I really liked the fact that the cruise line had sent this letter out to the cabins, as one thing you need to make sure doesn’t happen on a cruise ship is the rumour mill starts spinning, as you then have thousands of people all talking about what they think is happening, and a situation can often grow arms and legs…
Our first evening onboard was totally fine during dinner service - it didn’t feel any different to any other cruise, and the conditions outside seemed completely normal. The show went ahead as expected, the Captain and Senior Officers made an appearance in the theatre as expected - everything was going completely to plan.
The Senior team all made an appearance as planned in the main theatre on the first night of our cruise.
At around 10pm, things started to really pick up, and it was clear that we’d hit the section of rough seas that the letter had warned us about earlier. One of the easiest ways to see the movement on a ship is by looking at the onboard swimming pools. MSC Splendida has 3 main pools: one inside with a retractable roof over it, one outside on a typical cruise ship pool deck, and one at the very back of the ship.
There’s also a small pool within the private suite-only Yacht Club facility, but that’s very small in comparison to the others.
During rough seas, the water in cruise ship swimming pools can and will move around. It’ll come out the top of the pool, but won’t typically cause any issues because most pools at sea have what I’d call a ‘splash zone’ around them. This is a section of the pool that essentially allows water to flow freely around and then drop back into the pool.
In other words, don’t worry if you see water in a cruise ship swimming pool swaying around a lot when you’re on a cruise - it’s usually designed to do exactly that!
Cruise ship swimming pools are designed with a ‘spill over’ section, which allows the water to leave the swimming pool, and then re-enter it.
Here’s the same pool from a different angle, which should hopefully help you to see the ‘splash zone’.
Not only is this type of pool useful for bad weather, but it’s also useful in good weather to give passengers the ability to dip their feet in some water without having to go all the way across to the pool section itself. Picture yourself here on a sunny day, drink in hand, enjoying the waves spilling out of the swimming pool, as you sit along the side.
In rough seas, swimming pools on cruise ships are usually emptied, for a few reasons. One of the most important reasons is probably the stability of the ship. Think about it - all of this water sloshing around at the very top of the ship could impact the overall stability, so if you can minimise that, you’re probably going to. Now - to be clear - this water moving around probably isn’t going to cause a serious incident if it’s not drained, but the passenger experience will often be better if these pools are either emptied, or the amount of water in them is reduced. For that reason alone, most cruise lines will make the decision to empty the pools as soon as rougher weather is forecast. This also explains why you can sometimes find cruise ship pools half filled during rough weather!
It’s worth mentioning here that - just because a cruise ship swimming pool is empty - doesn’t mean that there’s going to be bad weather! Throughout any cruise, the crew will probably empty the pools at various points to keep the water clean, and to clear the pool structure itself. Infact, it’s fairly common to see an empty swimming pool at least once during your cruise, especially if you’re up there in the evenings…
While we’re talking about swimming pools. Can we address the point of the nets that suspend over the pool? When I post videos of the pool water moving around online, I get so many comments asking about these nets. Some people talk about the fact the nets aren’t doing a very good job of keeping the water in the pool, while others say they think it’s a great hammock idea…
Cruise ships swimming pools have nets stretched over them to signal to passengers that the pool is closed, and to help prevent any accidents.
You’ll find nets over a cruise ship swimming pool are a way to signal to cruisers that the pool is closed. In short, the nets stop passengers from getting into the pool, regardless of whether it’s full of water or completely empty. Either of these scenarios could result in a serious and tragic accident onboard, and so these nets are used as a preventative and protective approach.
To be honest, the onboard experience throughout this cruise wasn’t really different at all to any of the other MSC Cruises I’ve taken in the past even in the rough seas, which was great. The ship handled the conditions so, so well.
When I went to bed, I struggled to sleep, and that’s when I realised I’d made my first big mistake of this cruise. When you book a cruise, you have the option to either allow the cruise line to allocate you a cabin (this means that you’ll usually book what’s called a ‘guaranteed cabin’), or you can pay a little extra to choose the exact cabin you’d like to cruise in. Personally, I almost always allow the cruise line to allocate my cabin, as it doesn’t matter too much to me where I end up - as long as I’ve got my own cabin on the ship…!
I was allocated a cabin at the very front of the ship. This is where you feel most motion onboard. That said, I do think that the weather outside would’ve meant that you’d be feeling motion during this cruise regardless of where your cabin was located - I’d just be feeling more right at the front of the ship…
Top tip - try to book a mid-ship cabin if you’re keen to minimise movement!
The next morning, we woke up to an announcement from the Captain.
“I regret to inform you the weather conditions have not allowed us to enter port this morning. The prevailing strong winds and large swells could impact our ability to safely manoeuvre in and out of the port. In the interest of your safety and wellbeing, we have no option but to cancel today’s call at La Goulette.”
To be completely honest, I did see this one coming, because the wind was blowing so hard outside the cabin all through the night - I’d have been amazed if a ship the size of Splendida would have been able to safely get into port. I could hear the wind so clearly through my fully closed and locked balcony doors…!
In the event of a cruise line cancelling a port call, you’ll usually automatically receive refunds for any excursions that you’d booked ashore for that day if you booked your tour directly with them. This one’s important - I’m a big fan of third party sites, but not all of them will offer you refunds in this example. If you’re using a third party, always check their cancellation terms to be on the safe side. This is more of a concern if you’re cruising over Winter, like I was in this example, as port cancellations can be more likely during the ‘off season’.
Since returning home, I’ve submitted a claim to my travel insurance company for missing this cruise port. When I started cruising, I didn’t realise that lots of insurance policies will pay out in the event of a missed port. I always recommend checking the small print of your insurance paperwork before you book - check if ‘missed port cover’ is included, as I should get £100 back for missing this port! If there are quite a few of you on the cruise, your refund amount could soon build up!
Always remember to check your travel insurance for ‘missed port cover’. If it’s included, you’ll be entitled to make a claim if your cruise ship misses any ports!
A few hours after this announcement, we were then told that we would be spending the day ‘at sea’, and would call at Palma de Mallorca tomorrow afternoon instead. I love Palma, so I was quite happy with this change, although there was a loud cheer onboard and I wondered how genuine it was, or if lots of the Spanish cruisers onboard were maybe already well acquainted with that island…
Throughout this day, the conditions remained pretty rough for most of the day, but they were a lot more calm than through the night. All of the lower decks were closed on the ship, which is fairly common practice for sailing in rougher seas or in areas of high wind. The top decks of the ship were still open, although there weren’t many people out there for obvious reasons.
We had a beautiful sunset at the end of this day ‘at sea’, but there were very few people outside to take it in!
The onboard swimming pools had now been emptied, which always feels weird to see during the day. Obviously, this meant that they were closed to passengers, but I’m sure there were some people onboard who wished they could’ve got in when it was all sloshing around like last night…!
It’s only when you see these pools empty that you get a real appreciation of how much water they must be able to hold when they’re full - these are deep pools!
The crew emptied the swimming pools on the second day - it’s fair to say nobody would’ve been out swimming in these conditions!
Outer deck and pool closures can often put a lot of stress on the inside of the ship, and it can be so difficult on some ships to find somewhere to sit, for example. However, this wasn’t an issue on here at all. We were told that the ship was sailing at full capacity, but that either wasn’t the case, or lots of people must have been in their cabins this day, because the ship felt so quiet. Almost every venue I’d go in to, I’d be able to sit down to relax - something that can’t be said for all of the cruise ships out there, unfortunately!
Here’s one of the public venues onboard - isn’t it amazing how quiet this is when you consider the fact it’s 5pm on a day ‘at sea’?!
I didn’t feel at all ‘seasick’ during this cruise, which I was delighted about. When seasickness hits me, it can REALLY hit me to the point where I just need to lie down and nap. I tend to spend a lot of time in my cabin if I’m ever affected by the motion of the ship, largely due to the fact I just feel a bit lethargic and don’t really want to be sociable out around the ship.
I always travel with motion sickness medication, and I always try to have a green apple to hand, but I didn’t need either during this cruise. Avoiding greasy and fatty foods are also said to help if you’re feeling rough, but I didn’t alter what I was eating during this cruise because I felt pretty much fine. I’ve put a video together on YouTube that covers the topic of how to prevent and cure seasickness on a cruise. If you’d like to watch that, the link’s below!
On both the second and third nights of this cruise, the weather picked up again to what it was like (if not worse) on the first night. When I woke up in Barcelona on the final morning, I couldn’t believe my balcony doorway - it was absolutely caked in salt. I guess this is the effect of opening the door to check the conditions outside while the ocean was spraying upwards - there was so much salt!
Although the conditions throughout this cruise were ROUGH, I do have to say that MSC Cruises handled everything SO well. As passengers, we were all kept so well informed of what was happening. The ship coped really well with the rough seas - I’ve been on other ships that can feel as though they’re really ‘rolling around’, but not this one.
Since arriving home, I’ve been contacted by lots of people since posting my now viral video of the stormy weather, with multiple agencies wanting to build a story about this situation. The honest answer is that everything was under complete control, and at no point did anything feel unsafe or frightening at all. It was clear that MSC Cruises are used to dealing with adverse weather, and they really did everything that they could to help passengers to feel as comfortable as possible.
In the future, I’d be more than confident sailing on an MSC Cruises ship in rough weather - these ships and crews are absolute experts at navigating all sorts of conditions.
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MSC Splendida, docked in Palma de Mallorca during my short cruise.