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COZUMEL, Mexico – A Utah family was among those on board when two Carnival cruise ships collided at the port of Cozumel, Mexico, and left six people injured, according to the company.
“Oh yeah, everything will be fine. I’ve done a ton of cruises. Nothing ever happens,” Maddie Morris remembered saying to her family after convincing them that a cruise ship was the way to go this Christmas.
For the first several days, everything went right other than some rain. Then, after docking at their last stop at the port of Cozumel, Maddie’s sister Makenna was on the deck taking pictures when she saw another ship inching dangerously close to them.
“But I’m thinking, ‘oh it’s fine, you know, they’re professionals. They know what to do,’” Makenna said. “All of a sudden, I hear people on the Royal Caribbean screaming and yelling and I hear this loud bang and just scraping noise.”
It took a moment for Makenna to realize what happened.
“Oh my gosh. They just hit us,” she said.
Carnival Cruise Line officials said the Carnival Glory was maneuvering to dock when it hit the bow of the Legend ship. The bow tore into its dining room, ultimately leaving six people with minor injuries.
“You could see right into their ship,” Maddie said. “It was a huge hole.”
Carnival Glory continued its path, getting uncomfortably close to a Royal Caribbean ship nearby.
“I was just in shock. I was like, I can’t believe this just happened,” Makenna said. “Did they really just hit us?”
It’s not exactly the trip the Morris family expected but they haven’t let the scare get in the way of their vacation.
“We are a family who deals with scary times with humor,” Maddie said. “We said that now we need to go home and create a T-shirt that says, ‘We survived the shipwreck of 2019.’”
Their cruise wraps up on Sunday in Florida and the Morris family will be back home in Centerville in time for Christmas.
