A damaged cruise ship is making its way back to Seattle this week.
The 848-foot-long Norwegian Sun struck ice on its passage by Hubbard Glacier near Yakutat Bay on Saturday afternoon, requiring the ship to reroute to Juneau instead of its original destination in Skagway.
The ship was tied up at a downtown dock while it underwent inspections by divers, who determined the ship had sustained damage, according to Petty Officer 1st Class Nate Littlejohn, a Coast Guard public affairs specialist.
The repairs will be made in Seattle, and “there is confidence” that the ship will be able to make it safely back to Seattle, he said. The ship was expected back in Seattle on Thursday.
The ship canceled the rest of its Southeast itinerary this week. It can accommodate up to 2,400 passengers.
“On June 25, while transiting to Hubbard Glacier, Norwegian Sun was engulfed by dense fog, limiting visibility and resulting in the ship making contact with a growler,” a Norwegian Cruise Line spokesperson reported. A growler is a small iceberg, about the size of a grand piano.
“The ship remains fully operational,” the company spokesperson reported Monday.
“The whole boat came to a complete stop from the impact. It was a scary experience,” Alicia Amador, a passenger aboard the ship, told the Juneau Empire.
Amador, along with her six family members, traveled from Phoenix to Seattle to board the Norwegian Sun for a family vacation — which had been postponed three years due to the pandemic.
She described the initial experience as hearing a “big noise,” and then the ship moving as if something had hit it. She described the iceberg as the “size of a semi-truck.” Afterward, she and the other passengers were told that the ship was being rerouted to Juneau.
The ship did not report any injuries to the Coast Guard, said Littlejohn.