1998 st maarten cruise ship crash

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Cruise ship runs aground off St. Maarten

By deseret news.

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten (AP) -- A 74,000-ton cruise ship crashed into a reef off St. Maarten Tuesday. Fishermen and yachters helped ferry hundreds of passengers to safety.

"It was quite a drama this morning, but no one was hurt, and everyone is safe," said eyewitness Nicolaas Martina, who watched the rescue from the Holland House Beach Hotel overlooking Great Bay in St. Maarten, the Dutch side of the Caribbean island of St. Martin. The other side of the island is the French territory of St. Martin.The Monarch of the Sea, owned by Royal Caribbean International, ran aground near the harbor pier before dawn, said Martina, auditor of the Holland House.

It was not known how many passengers were on the cruise liner, but it is high season in the Caribbean, and the 6-year-old ship can hold 2,354 passengers, according to the company's Web site.

Martina said government officials found hotels for the stranded tourists.

News | ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE STRIKES ST. MAARTEN REEF

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More than 2,550 tourists were safely evacuated from a Caribbean cruise ship Tuesday morning after the vessel struck a reef, began taking on water and was purposely beached on St. Maarten. Fishermen and boat owners pitched in for four hours to help ferry all the passengers off the 74,000-ton Monarch of the Seas, which is owned by Royal Caribbean International.

“The fortunate thing is that no one was hurt,” Royal Caribbean spokesman Rich Steck said from a hotel on the Dutch half of the island.

“It was quite a drama this morning, but no one was hurt and everyone is safe,” said Nicolaas Martina, who witnessed the rescue from the Holland House Beach Hotel overlooking Great Bay in St. Maarten. The northern side is the French territory of St. Martin.

The 6-year-old ship ran aground near the harbor pier before dawn.

Steck said the ship, which carried 2,557 passengers and 831 crew, was on its way from St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands to the French island of Martinique when a tourist developed a heart problem and the captain diverted to St. Maarten to drop the patient off.

As the ship was leaving the island, it struck a reef and began to take on water in the forward compartments. “It wasn’t sinking or anything but we decided the best thing to do was to run the ship aground on purpose, to get it on soft sand in the harbor,” Steck said.

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Crew of cruise ship that hit reef faulted for failing to update charts

The December 1998 grounding of the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Monarch of the Seas on a coral reef off St. Maarten was the result of a series of operational errors on the part of the bridge team, a joint investigation between U.S. and Norwegian authorities recently determined. Most significantly, the investigation determined that the grounding was a direct result of the crew’s failure to update the ship’s charts to include a change in the location of a buoy marking a reef — and the subsequent reliance on this buoy as a sole means of fixing the ship’s position. The incident was so serious that it could have resulted in total loss of the ship. The report identified a number of contributing factors, including: • failure to update a chart in accordance with Notice to Mariners information, • lack of experience on the part of the second officer, • strained relations among the bridge crew, • fatigue, • a vicious bout of diarrhea that reportedly impaired the master’s ability to remain on the bridge. The 73,937-grt, 880-foot-long ship had diverted to Philipsburg, St. Maarten, in the early morning hours of Dec. 15 to disembark a passenger with a suspected heart attack (PM #39). The ship, under command of the captain, remained hove to off Great Bay as the passenger was evacuated with the assistance of the ship’s doctor and nurse, maintaining position with a bow thruster and its engines. At 0125, with the doctor and nurse back aboard, the vessel got underway for Martinique, its original destination. The master, who was reportedly in a hurry to leave the bridge on account of a severe case of diarrhea, ordered the officer of the watch (OOW) to plot a course that would allow the ship to pass to the east of Proselyte Reef, a bank of coral lying in shallow water just to the south of Great Bay, despite a lack of navigational aids on this side. (A buoy was stationed on the west side of the reef.) Such a course provided a more direct, but riskier, route back to Martinique. The OOW, the ship’s second officer, subsequently plotted a course of 160° using one of the vessel’s automatic radar plotting aids (ARPA), and reported that the course would allow the vessel to pass “three cables off and safe” to the east of the reef, the report stated. The vessel’s staff captain, considered the master’s deputy, but who was not taking part in the navigation of the vessel, was stationed at the propulsion controls. Before departing the bridge, the master ordered the helmsman to bring the vessel on the proposed course of 160° and ordered the staff captain to make turns for sea speed. Once the ship was underway, the master immediately left the bridge, leaving the second officer in command of the watch. Less than a minute later, however, the master returned to the bridge and asked if all was well. “Everything seems so quiet,” he said, asking the second officer if anything had been forgotten. Everything was fine, came the response, and the master again left the bridge. The second officer had not performed set-and-drift calculations, either manually or automatically, according to the report, despite the presence of an easterly wind and a westerly-setting current. Nor did he ground lock the ARPA or take any bearings from shore or establish a fix on the chart, visually or by GPS. Weather conditions were fair, offering good visibility in all directions. The second officer fixed the ship’s position only in relation to the Proselyte Reef buoy with the use of the ARPA, which is how he determined that the ship would pass three-tenths of a mile east of the reef. After the master departed the bridge, the second officer continued to monitor the ship’s progress by ARPA — solely as it related to the Proselyte Reef buoy. Shortly after the master left the bridge for the second time, a smoke alarm sounded. The lookout responded, found nothing amiss, and then silenced the alarm. Seconds later, the second officer fielded a phone call from the purser’s desk regarding a passenger’s complaint of machinery noise adjacent to his cabin. While still on the phone, the second officer noted that the lighted buoy had come abeam of the ship — indicating to him that it was safe to turn the ship toward its ultimate course to Martinique. After promising to dispatch a member of the crew to investigate the machinery noise, the second officer hung up the phone and ordered a course change to starboard. He expected the course change to take the vessel safely around the south side of the reef and onto a course of 190º toward Martinique. The ship struck the reef almost immediately after making the turn at 0130, approximately three minutes after departing Philipsburg, “raking” the reef at a speed of 12 knots, “although not becoming permanently stranded,” according to the report. The master returned to the bridge seconds later, according to the report, having felt the severe vibrations caused by the impact, and took over command of the bridge. He learned that water was flooding numerous tanks and compartments, and then, after the safety officer reported that pumps in certain compartments were unable to stem the ingress of water, the master ordered all watertight doors closed. In the minutes following the grounding, the master informed the ship’s agent in Miami of the situation, spoke to Royal Caribbean’s fleet captain and to Port Philipsburg officials, requesting the deployment of numerous transport vessels for the possible evacuation of the ship’s passengers. Twelve minutes after impact, the master sounded the general emergency signal — seven short blasts followed by one prolonged blast — informing passengers of the contact with the reef. He requested that they get dressed, don life jackets and report to their muster stations to prepare to abandon ship. The announcement, which was in English, was translated into Spanish, German and French. Damage-control teams, including specialists in fire, flooding and medical care, were dispersed throughout the ship by 0155, at which point the captain had already turned the vessel around with the intention of beaching the vessel on a sandbar at Great Bay, outside Philipsburg. He continued to inform the passengers of the situation and, after slowing the ship for a soft approach to the beach, ordered the stern anchor deployed at 0221. At 0233, the starboard anchor was dropped, and at 0235 the vessel grounded on a sandbar at Great Bay at a speed of 5 knots. Although damage-control teams had readied the ship’s lifeboats for launch, by 0515 all 2,557 passengers had been evacuated safely by vessels dispatched from St. Maarten. In the days following the grounding, Ft. Lauderdale-based Titan Maritime was contracted to patch and refloat the ship, and Monarch of the Seas ultimately sailed for Mobile, Ala., under its own power for dry-dock repairs. The investigation was jointly directed by the U.S. Coast Guard’s Office of Investigations & Analysis (The Coast Guard has jurisdiction to investigate foreign cruise-ship incidents because of the high volume of Americans participating in cruises.) and by the Norwegian Maritime Directorate. Royal Caribbean performed an internal investigation as well, as required by the International Maritime Organization. One of the key findings of the joint report was that the ship’s charts had not been updated in accordance with Notice to Mariners. Had the charts been current, they would have noted a recent change in the location of the Proselyte Reef lighted buoy — about 400 feet to the west. Since the second officer was using the location of this buoy alone to fix the ship’s position and to monitor progress of its course around the reef, the change in location of the buoy resulted in his bringing the ship too close to the east side of the reef. Further, the ship’s original departure position — from Great Bay — had not been fixed, either by GPS, radar bearing or visual bearings, which meant that the plotted course began at a questionable position. The report faulted the second officer for not using more than one navigational aid in his plotting. The report quoted Royal Caribbean’s own International Safety Management manual regarding the importance of using more than one navigational aid and all means necessary to establish fixes: “For the safest possible navigation, the nautical officers shall never rely on only one navigational aid for considerable time. Whenever possible, the radar and/or terrestrial navigation shall be used for fix positions and the GPS for continuous follow-ups.” The report, also citing the ISM manual, faulted the bridge crew for failing to establish a voyage plan for the deviation to St. Maarten and for the departure to Martinique around Proselyte Reef. Nor did the captain verify his officer’s departure plan — perhaps as a result of his case of diarrhea, as he reported to investigators. The report, citing the second officer’s arrival to the ship just 24 hours before the grounding — suggested that Royal Caribbean should have a break-in period for officers arriving from shore leave. Another contributing cause, according to the report, was the friction between the master and the staff captain. The staff captain admitted to investigators that he was “surprised” by the decision to sail to the east side of the reef, but he did not suggest sailing to the west — and safer — side because his suggestions in the past had been met with a “negative” response by the master. As a result, he said, he remained quiet and did not involve himself in the navigation of the vessel upon departure from Great Bay. Although the report credited the captain, bridge team and damage-control teams with responding to the emergency swiftly, efficiently and with significant skill, it quoted the safety officer’s belief that had watertight door No. 10 — separating the ship’s two main compartments — not been closed, the ship “would have been lost” in the minutes following the grounding. That this watertight door was open at the time of the grounding was a violation of the ship’s standard operating procedures, which required that the door be closed at 2300 every night. Despite the closure of this and other watertight doors, the safety officer also believed that the ship could well have been lost if the captain had not deliberately grounded the ship at Great Bay. A Coast Guard stability test concluded, however, that the ship would have stayed afloat (following closure of all watertight doors) “provided that there was no progressive flooding due to additional structural failures such as watertight subdivision boundaries.” The report also credited the ship’s double bottom with minimizing flooding after the grounding.

By Professional Mariner Staff

Monarch Seas RCL; St. Martin Island

St. Martin Island | 1998-Dec-16

Initial Notification : he Cruise Ship, Monarch of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship vessel hit a reef as it departed Sint Maarten, NA at 0130 local time on 15 December. The ship turned around and proceded back to the harbor, but was taking on water and was intentionally grounded on reportedly sand bottom. The vessel position is 18-01 N and 63-03 W in Great Bay just off Phillipsburg. All passangers were evacuated from the ship. USCG district 7.

Royal Caribbean ship was damaged

Question: Last December, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship was involved in an accident off St. Maarten that caused serious damage. I never heard an explanation of the accident, or whose fault it was. Do you have any details?

Answer: The accident occurred the night of Dec. 14-15 when the Monarch of the Seas struck Proselyte Reef less than a mile outside the entrance to Philipsburg harbor, opening a 3- by 60-foot gash in the hull. The vessel, which had sailed from San Juan, Puerto Rico, had made an unscheduled stop at St. Maarten to evacuate a passenger who had an apparent heart attack. As it was leaving, in darkness, the ship struck the shoal and began taking on water, so the crew decided to run it aground on soft sand. Reports indicated three of the Monarch's 18 watertight compartments had filled with water.

Royal Caribbean officials couldn't immediately explain the cause, because the reef is identified on all navigational charts and has a floating buoy with a light that flashes every seven seconds, as well as a radar reflector. While not ruling out human error, officials of the line praised the expertise of Tore Myrha the captain.

All 2,557 passengers were summoned to muster stations by alarms, outfitted with life jackets and taken ashore by tender boats. No one was reported hurt, and the company gave passengers refunds and a certificate for a future cruise. The ship is undergoing repairs in Mobile, Ala., and is expected to return to service at any time. The accident remains under investigation.

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Cruise ship runs aground

Social sharing.

More than 2,500 tourists had to abandon ship Tuesday when a cruise ship struck a reef in the Caribbean and started taking on water.

The ship was leaving the island of St. Maarten, when the accident occurred. Passengers woke to alarm bells and chaos.

Local fishers and boat owners pitched in to help ferry passengers off the ship to safety. It took four hours to get everyone off the 74,000-tonne Monarch of the Seas .

People were shaken by the ordeal, but noone was hurt.

The ship's owner, Royal Caribbean, has arranged to fly all the passengers home.

SHIP ACCIDENT FORCES ROYAL TO CANCEL 9 CRUISES

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Royal Caribbean International canceled nine cruises on Monarch of the Seas on Wednesday, one day after the ship struck a sandbar off St. Maarten in the Caribbean, forcing the evacuation of all 2,557 passengers.

The Miami-based cruise line also spent the day flying all remaining passengers and crew home and assessing damage to the ship’s hull, which sustained a gash 120 feet long and up to 3 feet wide. No passengers or crew members were reported injured.

“They’re still in the process of assessing the damage, determining where the ship] should be taken and deciding the best way to move the ship,” Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Gloria Jacaruso said.

The Norwegian Royal Council, which oversees Norwegian-flagged ships, will lead an investigation into why the ship hit the shoal, Jacaruso said. Monarch flies under a Norwegian flag.

The company predicted the incident’s financial impact would be 5 cents to 8 cents per share.

Analyst J. Cogan said that estimate was realistic. The impact would be spread over the fiscal quarters ending Dec. 31 and March 31, said Cogan, of NationsBanc Montgomery Securities in San Francisco.

Two travel agents said they had received no cruise cancellations — or concerned calls — since news of the grounding.

“As long as there was no physical damage to any individual, it was just a mishap,” said Harold Berns, president of Air & Sea Travel in Fort Lauderdale.

Monarch of the Seas sailed from San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Sunday and made an unscheduled stop in St. Maarten late Monday to evacuate a passenger who developed a heart problem.

As the ship was leaving the harbor, it struck the shoal and began taking on water. The crew decided to run the ship aground on soft sand. It remained there on Wednesday.

Passengers were ferried by boat to the city of Philipsburg, St. Maarten. Royal Caribbean chartered a dozen jets to fly the passengers either to Puerto Rico, or Miami. From Miami, they caught commercial flights home.

The cruise line will give a full refund and certificate for a free cruise to all affected passengers, plus people booked on the Sunday and Dec. 27 sailings. People on other canceled cruises will receive a full refund and a $500 discount on a future cruise.

Royal Caribbean has insurance policies with a $500,000 deductible for damage to the ship’s hull and a two-week deductible for business interruption.

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Grounding of Cruise Ship in the Bahamas forcing evacuation of passengers

The disaster that shook the passengers of the Costa Concordia when the ship ran aground and capsized near the Island of Giglio, Italy, while probably the most tragic in recent memory, was not the first tragedy of its kind.

In 1998, the Monarch of the Seas had an eerily similar incident, which, thankfully for the thousands of passengers on board, did not result in the loss of a single life.

On December 15, 1998, the cruise ship, Monarch of the Seas, operated by Miami based cruise company Royal Caribbean Cruises, was in the Bahamas, en route from St Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands to Martinique. The ship had purposely deviated from its intended course in order to sail into St. Marteen to disembark a sick passenger who needed immediate hospitalization.

While the vessel awaited the return of the vessel’s crew, the ship drifted freely on an easterly heading. At about 1:25 a.m., the doctor and nurse returned to the vessel. The ship’s master himself then piloted the ship to starboard from an easterly course heading, steadied the vessel up and set a departure course of 160 degrees true to pass east of a marked reef known as the Proselyte reef. This course was based largely on the master’s mariner eye as well as on the Officer of the Watch’s feedback that the Automatic Radar Plotting Aid’s calculated Closest Point of Approach to the Proselyte reef lighted buoy on the 160-degree course. The master felt that this course provided the vessel a safe passage to the east of Proselyte reef as well as would allow a safe passage astern of an outbound sailboat that was just to the south and ahead of the Monarch of the Seas in the vicinity of the Proselyte Reef lighted buoy.

Unfortunately, the course of 160 degrees was established without first sufficiently determining the initial position of the vessel. Further, no track line for the 160-degree course was laid down or marked on the navigational chart in use at the time nor was the 160-degree course part of the voyage plan from St. Maarten to Martinique. Additionally, the ship’s chart used at the time of the grounding, was not updated with respect to an updated position of the lighted buoy on proselyte Reef.

The ship’s master steered the vessel on the right path before handing over the navigational watch to the Officer of the Watch. Before leaving the bridge, the ship’s master asked “ How are we doing with clearance to buoy? ” To this the Officer of the Watch replied “ Closest point would be three cables off and safe. ”

Three minutes later, at approximately 1:30 a.m., the Monarch of the Seas raked the Proselyte Reef at an approximate speed of about 12 knots without becoming permanently stranded. Almost immediately emergency and abandon ship signals were sounded and the crew and passengers were mustered at their abandon ship stations.

To learn more about the events described above, read the Joint Report of Investigation into the Circumstances surrounding the grounding of the Monarch of the Seas.

At 2:35 a.m., the vessel was intentionally grounded on a sandbar in Great Bay, St. Maarten. The evacuation of passengers and crew began immediately and by 5:15 a.m., all 2,557 passengers were safely evacuated ashore by shore based tender vessels.

The Joint report by the United States Coast Guard and the Maritime Investigator (Osla, Norway) concluded that the primary cause of the grounding was human error by the ship’s master and his Bridge Resource Management Team. Multiple failures were assessed including: (1) Accurately determine the position of their ship in relation to a known reef area. (2) To navigate their ship in a manner which would give wide berth to such a hazard.

The investigation on the Costa Concordia disaster is still in its early stages, and yet an enormous amount of information and reliable evidence has already surfaced. It seems established that the ship deviated from its original course. Unlike the ship’s master of the Monarch of the Seas, Captain Francesco Schettino’s deviation was intentional and not necessary. Read this article to find out why Captain Schettino sailed so close to the Island of Giglio. Passengers on the Costa Concordia were not as lucky as the ones aboard the Monarch of the Seas, and yet, these two incidents have a lot in common. Both incidents occurred in the middle of the night, making it extremely difficult for passengers to orientate themselves. Monarch of the Seas evacuated 2,557 passengers in under 3 hours, when it took approximately 7 hours to evacuate 4,229 passengers and crewmembers from the Costa Concordia.

Read a chronological timeline of events of the Costa Concordia disaster

Read our previous article on Captain Francesco Schettino’s alleged responsibility in causing the cruise vessel to capsize

• Mar 4, 2021

Captain Makes Clutch Decision to Save Superyacht 'GO' in St. Maarten's Crash

By: Scott Way

Last week the brilliantly turquoise superyacht GO made headlines for crashing into St. Maarten's Yacht Club. Not once, but twice.

Naturally, internet 'experts' were quick to pounce. With a predictable lack of knowledge, many immediately labeled the crash the result of driver error. Surely no captain could crash one of the world's nicest boats into one of yachting's most famous ports. What the videos lack, like most viral phenomena, is context. The captain of GO was recently interviewed by The Daily Herald to discuss the circumstances surrounding the incident. Predictably, there was far more at play than operator error. If you haven't seen the videos, here's a few different angles of the mishap:

As for the vessel in question, the boldly turquoise GO is a 77m (252 ft) luxury motor yacht designed by H2 and built by the aptly named Turquoise Yachts . It is owned by Capri Sun mogul Hans-Peter Wild . Yes, that Capri Sun, the lovable juice in a bag with the world's most challenging straw. It is entirely computer-driven and packed with deluxe appointments including a pool, jacuzzi, elevator, gym, helipad, and steam room. She runs with a crew of 19 and has 7 cabins for up to 12 guests. It was built in Turkey and launched in 2018 with a pricetag of roughly $100 million USD.

As for the events that transpired, captain Simon Johnson was preparing to depart the lagoon via the rotating land bridge (which you can see in the upper frame of the second video). While roughly 50 metres from the bridge and holding position pending the bridge opening, an electronic error began pushing the yacht forward without steering input. The passage itself is precarious enough as GO carries a 13.5 meter (44 ft) beam and has only 50 cm (1.6 ft) of clearance on either side.

Johnson told The Herald , “With not much water between us and the bridge, I always set to align my stern and get parallel well in time for the bridge opening. We left the dock an hour before and went through all the checks. There was nothing different from the other times we’ve done this exit. I was in good shape."

“Then, when we were about 50 metres away and holding position, the yacht started moving mysteriously forward. There was nothing I seemed to be able to do; all the controls on the bridge were showing normal. I called the engine room and everything was normal down there. I found I had extremely limited control, almost limited to only the bow thruster, but with now only 50 metres between us and the bridge I had to make a decision fast."

The ability to prioritize outcomes while under duress is a valuable trait, and the sign of a good captain, and Johnson was able to calculate a remarkable list of outcomes before choosing a course of action.

“I certainly did not want to put the anchor down. That would have been disastrous. By the time the anchor hit the bottom we would have been 30 metres further in. Then we would have pinned the bow upwind, and slewed the stern towards the rocks and the road bridge.

“We have 160,000 litres of fuel on board. If I had done that, I would not only have disabled the bridge, but potentially breached the hull on the rocks beneath and could have caused an oil spill. My preferred option was to point the bow towards the yacht club dock, and beach her gently there. I had a crew member up front shouting a warning to make sure everyone was out of the way.”

After some initial investigation, it was determined Johnson had 13 roughly seconds to choose a course of action. Having made the passage at St. Maarten's 20 times previously, his knowledge of the boat and the lagoon was undoubtedly valuable.

“The fact that there were no warning alarms, no lights on board to indicate something was wrong was really scary. I know this yacht so well, yet I had 13 seconds to make a decision before hitting the bridge. The decision I made was one I would make again if faced with the same circumstances.”

While internet critics were quick to heap blame upon him, Johnson was justifiable in his criticism of the electronics responsible, calling them “ridiculously over the top” and without manual overrides. On GO in particular, there are 14 computers on the bridge with two more below decks. Insurers will now have the tall task of determining the root of the electronic fault, as well as assessing the extent of the damage to GO and the Yacht Club dock before pursuing repairs.

As for Johnson, “I’m proud that we walked away from a crash landing, and most importantly, there was no injury and the island’s arterial road bridge was not compromised,” he said.

The yacht's owner Hans-Peter Wild was also supportive, releasing a public statement in which he declared he is “extremely supportive of the captain’s decisions and performance. Personnel, economic, environmental disaster was averted for the island. I have full faith and confidence in the captain and am very grateful.”

You can see more photos of the impressive GO below:

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Vessel propeller severs foot of UberSoca Cruise passenger | THE DAILY HERALD

A still from a video circulating on social media shows the injured man lifted away from the scene.

PHILIPSBURG–The fun and excitement of the UberSoca Cruise sailing experience to St. Maarten was marred on Tuesday when the lower leg of a male passenger was severed in a boating accident.

Police spokesperson Ethelwoldus Josepha told The Daily Herald that it was his understanding that the passenger in question was either exiting or embarking a water taxi when he unexpectedly slipped in between the pier and the water taxi causing the blade from the propeller of the vessel to severely injure his leg.

Images and videos of the incident that had been circulating on social media appeared to show the lower right leg of the man severed. The videos and images show persons lifting the injured man up from the pier with his leg wrapped and later his leg tied to stem bleeding.

Josepha said the passenger was rushed to the St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) where he received medical attention. He said the passenger is alive.

UberSoca Cruise’s inaugural cruise from Puerto Rico sailed from April 9 – 14, 2023, for visits to the US Virgin Islands (USVI), St. Maarten, and St. Lucia.

Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/vessel-propeller-severs-foot-of-ubersoca-cruise-passenger

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Cruise ship-sponsored tour bus crashes in St. Martin

Thirty-six passengers from Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas got the scare of their lives when the tour bus they were on in St. Martin plunged into a ditch Thursday morning. None were seriously injured, though several were taken to a local hospital.

The cruise passengers were on a Royal Caribbean-sponsored visit to Loterie Farm for a treetop ropes course and zipline adventure when the accident occurred. Though the ship docks in Philipsburg, St. Maarten, the excursion itself is located in St. Martin. Both St. Martin and St. Maarten are located on the same island, though the first is French and the latter Dutch.

Six passengers -- all from the U.S. -- along with the bus driver, were injured, a Royal Caribbean spokeswoman told Cruise Critic. The majority of the injuries were minor, with the most serious being a broken wrist. Most of the injured sustained "bumps and bruises," the spokeswoman said. 

All the injured "were immediately transported to the local Louis Constant Fleming Hospital for treatment." Guest care team members and a ship doctor remained with the passengers during their stay at the hospital. All returned to the ship the same day. The guest care team and onboard medical team also continued to provide onboard treatment for passengers, including counseling, for those who asked for it. 

The line will not confirm whether any compensation has been offered and added that even if any compensation were offered the "details of any compensation discussions are not disclosed." 

Cruise Critic member TBtoronto was among the passengers on the bus and among those transported to the hospital. She posted about her experience on the message boards : "I was on the bus sitting front row, directly behind the driver. My twin boys were sitting front row on the passenger side ... It was the most frightening experience of our lives and one which will haunt us forever. I got seriously banged up and required stitches, as well as one of my sons. Had I not dove over to protect them and absorb their impact before we hit, they would have been much more seriously injured. How no one was killed is a miracle." 

Royal Caribbean has given no indication that it will terminate its partnership with Dutch Tours Enterprises N.V., the operator of the tour. 

"This was a traffic accident, a type of which can happen anywhere and is no reflection on the bus company," the Royal Caribbean spokeswoman told Cruise Critic. "The bus driver had to take an evasive maneuver to avoid an oncoming vehicle." 

However, TBtoronto disagreed. "This should never [have] been an endorsed excursion by the cruise line -- not for the zipline part itself -- but for the access in and out of the property." 

According to Today , a St. Maarten newspaper, the bus driver lost control of the bus as it descended the steeply inclined road that leads onto the Loterie Farm property. The driver was trying to avoid a taxi that was heading up the incline at the same time. The bus hit the taxi causing it to overturn. The driver of that taxi suffered a broken foot; his passengers escaped with minor scrapes and bruises.

Matt Stead, a Freedom of the Seas passenger who was on the bus, told Today that he believed the brakes on the bus failed. "Just after we went through the Loterie Farm gate we felt the driver hit the brakes, but no brakes and then the bus just started careening down. About half way down we hit a speed bump and everyone hit the ceiling and then the bus just continued rolling down the hill. There was a guy driving coming up the hill while we were going down so we ran into him, flipped that vehicle over and then ran straight down into the ditch. Tree branches got into the bus and many people received whip lashes from the branches. Everyone was screaming manically, we thought we were plunging to our deaths but the tree saved us." 

However, the president of the Collectivite d'Outre Mer de Saint Martin, the governmental authority for the St. Martin section of the island, told the newspaper he did not want to speculate about whether the brakes on the bus may have given out. "There was no conclusive evidence that the accident was caused by malfunctioning brakes," he said. 

Freedom of the Seas was in the midst of a seven-night Caribbean cruise that departed Port Canaveral on Sunday, July 15, and returned to the same port yesterday. 

More from Cruise Critic:

• 9 tips for staying safe on a shore tour
• Compare: 10 most popular cruise ships
• Learn more about Royal Caribbean Cruise Line

Philipsburg, St. Maarten

Port schedule.

Philipsburg, St. Maarten cruise ship port calendar shows all scheduled arrival and departure dates in a timetable format. The cruise calendar displays the ship’s estimated time of arrival including related information such as how crowded is the port, as well as the ship’s next port-of-call.

The following timetable provides valuable information and keeps track of the future cruise ship arrivals from all major cruise lines. In order to find out more about the cruise ship itineraries such as ports, dates, and arrival/departure times just follow the ship’s link.

Philipsburg, St. Maarten cruise port guide

This Caribbean paradise is actually the smallest land mass in the world divided on two parts, one French and one Dutch, roughly 60:40 or 54km² belong to the French Republic and 34 km² to Kingdom of

• Carnival Celebration 6.338 passengers 02 May 2024 - 08:00
• Icon Of The Seas 7.600 passengers 07 May 2024 - 08:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 08 May 2024 - 08:00
• Carnival Vista 4.716 passengers 08 May 2024 - 09:00
• Norwegian Sky 2.405 passengers 10 May 2024 - 08:00
• Liberty Of The Seas 4.356 passengers 13 May 2024 - 12:15
• Wonder Of The Seas 6.370 passengers 16 May 2024 - 08:00
• Norwegian Sky 2.405 passengers 19 May 2024 - 08:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 21 May 2024 - 08:00
• Liberty Of The Seas 4.356 passengers 27 May 2024 - 12:15
• Wonder Of The Seas 6.370 passengers 30 May 2024 - 08:00
• Norwegian Sky 2.405 passengers 02 Jun 2024 - 08:00
• Icon Of The Seas 7.600 passengers 04 Jun 2024 - 08:00
• Carnival Magic 4.428 passengers 05 Jun 2024 - 08:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 05 Jun 2024 - 08:00
• Carnival Vista 4.716 passengers 05 Jun 2024 - 09:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 06 Jun 2024 - 10:00
• Norwegian Sky 2.405 passengers 11 Jun 2024 - 08:00
• Wonder Of The Seas 6.370 passengers 13 Jun 2024 - 08:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 18 Jun 2024 - 08:00
• Carnival Celebration 6.338 passengers 02 May 2024 - 17:00
• Icon Of The Seas 7.600 passengers 07 May 2024 - 18:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 08 May 2024 - 17:00
• Carnival Vista 4.716 passengers 08 May 2024 - 18:00
• Norwegian Sky 2.405 passengers 10 May 2024 - 17:00
• Liberty Of The Seas 4.356 passengers 13 May 2024 - 20:00
• Wonder Of The Seas 6.370 passengers 16 May 2024 - 18:00
• Norwegian Sky 2.405 passengers 19 May 2024 - 17:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 21 May 2024 - 17:00
• Liberty Of The Seas 4.356 passengers 27 May 2024 - 20:00
• Wonder Of The Seas 6.370 passengers 30 May 2024 - 18:00
• Norwegian Sky 2.405 passengers 02 Jun 2024 - 17:00
• Icon Of The Seas 7.600 passengers 04 Jun 2024 - 18:00
• Carnival Magic 4.428 passengers 05 Jun 2024 - 17:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 05 Jun 2024 - 17:00
• Carnival Vista 4.716 passengers 05 Jun 2024 - 18:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 06 Jun 2024 - 18:00
• Norwegian Sky 2.405 passengers 11 Jun 2024 - 17:00
• Wonder Of The Seas 6.370 passengers 13 Jun 2024 - 18:00
• Rhapsody Of The Seas 2.431 passengers 18 Jun 2024 - 17:00