Written by Chillie Falls, Alaska Travel Desk and Nate Vallier, June 7, 2025
From Skylar Wolpert, Cruise Hive, Crown Princess Experiences Severe Sea Conditions, Forced to Turn Around. On June 6, 2025, just a week into a 113-day world cruise, Crown Princess experienced some less-than-ideal weather off the southern coast of Australia.
While en route from Sydney to Adelaide, the ship was already encountering rough seas when sailing near the border of Victoria and South Australia.
Unexpectedly, the wind shifted from 45 knots on one side of the ship to 50 knots on the other, causing it to list 7°.
Captain Christopher Lye shared an announcement on the public PA system to all guests onboard shortly after the tilting had concluded.
“Apologies for the inconvenience, it is Captain speaking from the bridge,” Lye said. “As you may have felt, we encountered a strong change and sudden shift of the wind.”
He went on to share that the increasing wind on one side of the ship was the reason it began to list.
“We listed approximately 6° to 7°, which is not unusual,” explained Lye, who has been working on ships for over 46 years.
“We are now turning the ship around to make sure we are ok with our sailing onboard,” the Captain noted at the end of the announcement.
The turn was executed off the coast of Nora Creina, Australia — and the ship resumed sailing towards Adelaide shortly after, where it will arrive on June 7, 2025.
Unfortunately, even though the tilt was not more than 7°, it did its fair share of damage and caused multiple onboard cancellations.
As a result of the tilting on June 6, 2025, in the onboard shops, purses and other items, such as bottles, were thrown to the floor, and several glass displays shattered as well.
Then Nate commented on the storm during his interview for AccessAdventure.net: