This is a new and beautiful boat, carries two submersibles as well. We wanted to take this through all the Great Lakes this year but did a NY to Quebec City cruise instead. Hope to do it next year. I personally like the top or near top deck cabins for viewing. Just bad bad luck for this poor soul. And it all started it seems from the zodiac hitting a bad wave or maybe ice earlier and injuring a passenger during an expedition. The video says they had turned back because a woman needed surgery on her leg that was injured in the Zodiac.
'Unbelievable': Springettsbury woman describes deadly rogue wave hitting cruise ship
“All of a sudden, there was this horrendous noise. I can’t even describe the noise,” Just said. “It was so loud, it was unbelievable. I felt the ship go down a little bit and come back up a little bit — not much — and rolled a little bit to the side — but not much — and that was the end of it.”
The two weren’t sure what happened at the time. They thought perhaps the ship had hit either an iceberg or a whale.
The incident left one American passenger, 62-year-old Sheri Zhu, dead and four others injured. Zhu was struck by broken glass when the wave broke cabin windows on the ship. The Viking Polaris, a vessel that has luxury facilities and was built in 2022, has capacity for 378 passengers and 256 crew members.
Hit by two waves: It wasn’t until the next morning that they learned about the rogue wave.
They were told there were actually two waves that hit the ship, one was estimated at around 40 feet high and the second was between 70 and 85 feet high, Just said.
It wasn’t until two days later that they found out a person had died as a result of the wave hitting the ship. Crew members told them 19 cabins were damaged by the wave’s impact, Just said.
Shortly after that, they were told the rest of the Antarctic cruise was cancelled and all the passengers were going home.
“Viking did absolutely everything to keep us safe," Just said. "They were pretty good at keeping us informed about what was going on. They made arrangements for all of us to go back to Buenos Aires and stay in hotels.”
Check out the boat here:
Viking Polaris
Welcome to our Viking Expedition ship 360