Carnival cruise ship collides with iceberg

The Carnival Spirit cruise ship, photographed here sailing Alaska, recently collided with an iceberg near the city of Juneau. (Carnival Cruise Line via CNN Newsource)

The words “Titanic moment” are possibly the last thing you want to hear on a boat – but that was the phrase used by one passenger on board the Carnival Spirit cruise ship last week, after the vessel unexpectedly struck an iceberg.

No one was hurt on board and the ship was undamaged by the incident, which a Carnival Cruise Line spokesperson described as the vessel hitting “an errant piece of drifting ice.”

Carnival Spirit was sailing in Tracy Arm Fjord, Alaska, a waterway south of the city of Juneau known for its spectacular beauty – and pieces of floating ice.

Videos of the incident circulated on social media in the aftermath, as multiple passengers filmed the moment the ship collided with the iceberg.

Cassandra Goskie posted a video on TikTok in which a voice is heard saying: “If we die it was damn well worth it, it’s a Titanic moment,” just before the vessel struck the piece of ice.

Meanwhile passenger Saurabh Singhal described the vessel coming to a halt “for hours to assess damages” in a Facebook post.

“An assessment determined no damage to the ship’s hull and the vessel continued on its cruise and there has been no impact to operations,” the Carnival spokesperson told CNN Travel.

The Carnival Spirit finished its seven-day Alaska cruise on Tuesday without interruption, returning to Seattle, Washington. The vessel has since embarked on another round trip to Alaska, this time for 14 days.

In 2022, Norwegian Cruise Line vessel Norwegian Sun hit a piece of an iceberg while sailing in Alaska, sustaining damage to its starboard bow. There were no injuries.

Alaska is a popular cruise destination, but there’s reportedly been pushback in recent years from locals concerned about over congested waterways in the region.

Alaska’s waters are also known as some of the most challenging for cruise ships to navigate.

“That ice is hard and can damage the hull or propellers,” Captain John Herring, a marine pilot in southeast Alaska who boards ships in the region to help ensure safe passage, told CNN Travel in 2022.  “Strong winds and currents make navigating icy waters even harder.”

Despite these difficult conditions, “we very rarely – if ever – see any issues related to sailings in icy waters,” said cruise expert Chris Gray Faust, executive editor of Cruise Critic, a review site and online cruise community.

“Today’s cruise ships are specifically built to sail a number of different waters,” Gray Faust told CNN Travel. “Those that sail in Alaska are not only able to withstand icy waters, they have experienced captains who are familiar with the landscape, which is why the incident being reported caused no issue to the ship or the sailing.”