A Record Blizzard Just Buried These Cruise Ships in Snow
Winter Storm Hernando trapped Odyssey of the Seas and MSC Meraviglia at Northeast ports, forcing Royal Caribbean to reroute itineraries for multiple ships mid-voyage.
Winter Storm Hernando had other plans for thousands of cruisers last weekend. Two ships sat icebound in port, hundreds of passengers watched departure times slip by the hour, and the ships themselves became unwitting stars of the most surreal travel photos of the year — tropical vacation ships draped in a foot and a half of snow.
According to Royal Caribbean Blog, Odyssey of the Seas — a Quantum-class Royal Caribbean ship — sat frozen at Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey as of 2:35 p.m. EST on February 23, 2026. It had been scheduled to depart Sunday, February 22, bound for Port Canaveral, Perfect Day at CocoCay, and Nassau. Instead, passengers bound for the Bahamas woke to find their ship blanketed in snow across the Hudson River.
The Storm That Stopped Ships in Their Tracks
Winter Storm Hernando dumped over 15 inches of snow on Central Park — the city’s heaviest accumulation in more than five years. New Jersey declared a state of emergency. Blizzard warnings stretched from Delaware through southeastern New England, and over 600,000 homes and businesses lost power across the region.
For a cruise ship trying to depart a harbor in those conditions, the math was simple: “high winds and rough seas” made departure impossible. Royal Caribbean made the call before embarkation day that Odyssey would not be sailing as scheduled. Passengers who had already arrived at the port — or were en route — faced a logistical scramble.
MSC Meraviglia, scheduled to depart the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal that same Sunday on a week-long voyage to the Bahamas, faced the same problem. Passengers reported a chaotic, open-ended delay. The ship ultimately departed around 3:00 p.m. EST on Monday, February 23 — a full 24 hours late — and began sailing south toward warmer waters.
Ripple Effects Across Multiple Sailings
The disruptions weren’t limited to ships sitting in port. Royal Caribbean rerouted several ships already at sea when the storm interfered with their planned Caribbean itineraries.
Star of the Seas, sailing from Port Canaveral, had to skip its call at Perfect Day at CocoCay — Royal Caribbean’s private island in the Bahamas — due to the nor’easter affecting weather patterns along the East Coast. The ship rerouted to St. Thomas instead, arriving earlier than originally scheduled. Independence of the Seas, on a seven-night Miami cruise, similarly lost its CocoCay call and pivoted to Nassau before continuing on to San Juan and St. Thomas.
Royal Caribbean’s response in both cases was direct: “your safety is our top priority.” It’s a line that will always draw some eye-rolls from passengers who’ve lost a day at a coveted private island, but with a storm of this magnitude, the decisions were hard to argue with.
What This Means for Affected Passengers
For Odyssey of the Seas guests, losing an entire departure day means the itinerary needed to absorb the loss somehow. Depending on the ship’s revised routing, some stops may have been shortened, combined, or dropped entirely. Cruisers heading to Port Canaveral on February 24 as their first stop would have found the schedule compressed.
This is an area where cruise line communication matters enormously. Passengers who receive clear, early updates can adjust plans — notifying airport transfers, adjusting hotel bookings at home before departure, or simply mentally preparing for a modified experience. Those who hear about changes at the last minute or through rumors tend to have a much worse overall experience, regardless of what the actual itinerary ends up being.
One practical takeaway: if you’re sailing from a Northeast port in February, building buffer time into your pre-cruise travel is not optional. A Sunday departure with a Saturday arrival the night before looks like overkill — until a nor’easter rolls in and you’re suddenly glad you booked that Bayonne hotel.
The Visuals Are Something Else
Beyond the operational disruption, this storm produced images that circulate for years in cruise-fan communities. A 170,000-gross-ton ship shrouded in snow, tropical destinations printed on its hull, sitting in a harbor that looks more like a scene from an Arctic expedition than a departure terminal for the Bahamas — it is genuinely striking.
Social media lit up with photos and comments from passengers, onlookers, and cruise enthusiasts. For better or worse, these ships became the most photographed objects in the Northeast for a 48-hour stretch.
The Bigger Picture
Stories like this one serve as a reminder that cruising from Northern ports in the dead of winter carries real weather risk. Royal Caribbean, MSC, and other lines that homeport in New York and New Jersey during the winter months have contingency plans — but no plan fully insulates passengers from a bomb cyclone dropping 15-plus inches on a Sunday afternoon.
We’ll note that both ships ultimately got underway, itineraries were adjusted rather than canceled outright, and the safety-first decision-making appears to have been sound. But for thousands of passengers who planned their winter escape around a specific Sunday sailing, Winter Storm Hernando left a mark — or at least, a very memorable set of photos.
Source: Royal Caribbean Blog — February 23, 2026