Storm-battered cruise ship returning to homeport

Passengers from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship exit the terminal after arriving at Cape Liberty cruise port ih New Jersey on February 10, 2016.

“We were probably in the room for 20 minutes if that and then we left”, she said.

Once the vessel docks in New Jersey, a team of inspectors from the Coast Guard Sector New York will board the vessel to inspect the extent of damages and ensure repairs are completed before the ship will be allowed to depart on its next voyage next Saturday.

The MS Anthem of the Seas was forced to return to its New Jersey port, bringing with it 4,500 rattled guests and 1,600 crew.

The super cruise ship which ran into 100-mile-per-hour winds and 30-foot waves off the coast of the southeastern United States has turned around and is headed back to its home port in Bayonne.

Passenger Scott Tomback said the ship’s master made it clear from the start that he was going to try to outrun the storm. “Everything in the restaurant slid from one side of the ship to the other, people were bracing onto walls,”she said. It was a rough situation, obviously they got thrown around a little bit with the waves and everything, but they are okay”, said Cahill”.

Gus Kompas of Queens, who was on the trip with his wife and two children, said, “I don’t know what was going on in the control room but as the ship was rocking, [the captain] held it to the point where it was good, where everything came to safety after a few hours”.

Royal Caribbean said four passengers reported minor injuries and the ship sustained some damage to its public areas and staterooms.

The company said on Twitter that guests will receive a full refund and a future cruise certificate for half of the cruise fare paid.

“We are very sorry and apologize to the guests who had to go through this”, he told The Associated Press.

“The event, exceptional as it was, identified gaps in our planning system that we are addressing”, the company said in a statement. “We also thank our captain and crew for guiding the ship safely back to better weather”.

But Florida Sen. Bill Nelson wants to go one step further and is calling for the NTSB to investigate what happened. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’sOcean Prediction Center first issued an alert Friday at 1 p.m. that predicted “developing hurricane-force winds” Sunday in the Atlantic, according to NOAA spokeswoman Susan Buchanan.

He said it could be added to the investigation of the El Faro, a cargo ship that sank previous year during Hurricane Joaquin after its captain reported engine trouble that landed it in the storm’s path en route from Florida to Puerto Rico.

“The thing about this storm was that it was forecast for days”, Nelson said Monday on the Senate floor.

“What we experienced yesterday, that was something very special”, Anthem of the Seas’ ship master Claus Andre Andersen said in a video produced by Royal Caribbean on Monday.