Two cruise ships collided while in a port in Vancouver near Canada Place, surprising passengers early on the morning of May 4.
“We felt this jolt and I saw out the window something splash into the water,” passenger Susan Carrusca told Vancouver Sun.
Carrusca had traveled from San Diego to Vancouver and was having breakfast with her mother and friends when the collision happened. “I’m guessing it was part of the rail,” she said.
She mentioned that they could see the ship “swinging” and then she heard the ship’s staff yelling, “They hit us.”
No injuries were reported from the incident and the disembarkation on both the ships went ahead as planned, according to a statement by Holland America.
“Damage to Oosterdam is minimal. Six aft stateroom verandahs on Nieuw Amsterdam require repairs, which are underway,” it said said.
Carrusca’s husband, Ken, posted about the collision on Twitter. “Somebody isn’t having a good day,” he wrote.
Another Twitter user, Denise, was also onboard.
She wrote: “I was on the Oosterdam as well and our room was in the aft section of the ship, so we definitely felt and heard it. My husband jokingly said, ‘what did we hit’. Then I stepped out onto the veranda and the Port Authority was there and then I knew that something was up.”
She said in another message on Twitter that “it was a parallel parking job gone wrong!”
Holland America mentioned that all the required repairs are above the waterline and that the ships are safe to carry on with their journeys.
The Nieuw Amsterdam is expected to leave for a roundtrip seven-day Alaska cruise on Saturday and the Oosterdam will sail overnight to Seattle from where it will start a seven-day roundtrip to Alaska on Sunday.
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