by Sarah Kuta
Last updated: 11:35 AM ET, Thu March 7, 2024
Staff aboard Royal Caribbean’s newest ship, Icon of the Seas, rescued 14 people who had been stranded at sea for eight days, reports Newsweek.
The rescue took place on Sunday as the ship was sailing past Cozumel on its way to Honduras. The 8-day cruise had set sail from Miami.
"On March 3, 2024, Icon of the Seas encountered a small vessel adrift and in need of assistance," according to a statement from Royal Caribbean. "The ship's crew immediately launched a rescue operation, safely bringing 14 people onboard. The crew provided them with medical attention, and is working closely with the U.S. Coast Guard."
The cruise line did not share any other details, so it’s not clear what happened to the distressed vessel. Passengers onboard the ship told Newsweek they heard a coded alert announcement over the vessel’s loudspeaker around 3 p.m.
"From the window of the lunch buffet, we could clearly see a small boat with people, waving a large white flag or sheet," passenger Alessandra Amodio told Newsweek. "The boat turned around and we pulled up as close as we could to them and stopped, [Royal Caribbean] deployed a small zodiac-type rescue boat to investigate."
It took multiple trips in the rescue boat to bring all of the stranded individuals aboard Icon of the Seas. The whole process took about two hours.
"We don't know who they were, but the captain came back on the speaker and announced that they rescued 14 people and that they were stranded at sea for eight days," Amodio told Newsweek.
According to Amodio, the rescued individuals got off the ship when it reached Roatan, Honduras.
Cruise ship rescues like this one are relatively common. In January, for example, Carnival Jubilee saved two men in a kayak in the Gulf of Mexico. A month earlier, crew aboard Carnival Vista rescued six men near the Dominican Republic. Last August, Carnival’s ship Mardi Gras rescued a couple from a sailboat in the Bahamas and, in April, Carnival Spirit rescued 24 people near the Dominican Republic.
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