Allure of the Seas’ port call on Nassau, Bahamas, didn’t exactly go to plan on Wednesday, December 11, 2024.
While docked in the Nassau Cruise Port, the Oasis-class ship was struck on its port side (left side) by a yacht.
According to witnesses onboard the 6,780-guest ship, the unidentified yacht lost power and drifted into the ship’s stern – thankfully at a low speed.
“This boat apparently lost power, or something, and drifted into the back of our ship,” one current passenger shared.
Thankfully, it appears that the impact did not cause any significant damage to the mega-ship, with some onboard not even aware it happened.
“Didn’t feel a thing,” one passenger wrote on Facebook in response to a video of the incident.
“We didn’t either and my son was standing up surfing,” another current guest chimed in.
That said, the yacht wasn’t so lucky – with videos of the incident showing damage to its top portion.
“A yacht just slammed into the Allure of the Seas while in port at Nassau. Don’t know if the Allure was damaged. The yacht’s mast was broken,” a current passenger shared on X.
You can watch a video of the accident here:
The full extent of the damage to the yacht is unclear – and it’s not known if there were any injuries to the people operating the smaller craft. So far, their identities have been kept confidential.
That said, it would be pretty surprising if the yacht and its passengers made it out completely unscathed considering the massive size of Allure of the Seas.
The Royal Caribbean cruise ship weighs in at a heavy 225,282-gross tons and is 1,180 feet long. Meanwhile, the average yacht is anywhere from 20 to 45 feet long.
So far, Royal Caribbean has not issued an official statement about the allision – which is the official term for when one ship is hit by another vessel while moored.
Will the Crash Impact the Current Sailing?
Luckily, Wednesday’s allision shouldn’t have any significant impact to Allure of the Seas’ current sailing – which is a 4-night Bahamas sailing that embarked from Miami, Florida, on December 9, 2024.
The ship had already called on Perfect Day at CocoCay, which is the cruise line’s original private island destination in the Bahamas – with Nassau as its second and final stop of the sailing.
According to current guests, the only related change is the scheduled departure – which was supposed to be at 5 p.m. – was delayed by just under an hour.
“Our departure was delayed almost an hour due to this incident,” one passenger wrote on Reddit.
Presumably, that time would have been spent assessing any potential damage and communicating with the owners of the yacht about what happened and the next steps.
Regardless, a short delay like this would be easy to make up for a modern cruise ship – and shouldn’t impact the scheduled disembarkation in Miami on December 13, 2024. Cruise tracking data also shows that the ship is already back at sea, sailing at speeds of 16 knots per hour.
Read Also: From Mishaps to Maydays – Cruise Ship Accidents
While these types of collisions (or allisions) are rare, they do happen from time to time as a risk of operating in busy cruise ports.
About two years ago, another Royal Caribbean ship – Mariner of the Seas – was also hit by a cargo ship while docked in Freeport, Bahamas.
In this case, the smaller vessel lodged itself into the cruise ship – but the Voyager-class vessel only sustained minimal damage and no injuries were reported.
Looking even further back, two Carnival cruise ships collided with each other in Cozumel, Mexico, on December 20, 2019.
In this case, Carnival Glory hit Carnival Legend – and also came quite close to striking Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas as well.
The incident caused extensive damage to Carnival Glory, and damage to the bow of Carnival Legend.
