A 4000-passenger Royal Caribbean ship was stopped from entering Lyttelton Harbour (New Zealand) after a night of heavy winds.
The largest cruise ship to ever visit Port Lyttelton - Ovation of the Seas, was sceduled to berth at the new cruise wharf Wednesday morning, November 2.
Facing hard conditions off the headlands overnight the vessel turned north to sail up the country and on to Wellington, where she was expected to arrive Thursday morning.
A spokesperson for the Lyttelton Port Company said the Ovation OTS had been unable to berth "due to strong north-west winds in the forecast for the day."
The ship made the decision not to call just after 7 am. Passengers were due to disembark at 9:30 am.
The call at Lyttelton was part of an 11-day New Zealand Cruise roundtrip from Sydney (NSW Australia).
On arrival in NZ last week Ovation OTS confirmed she was sailing with 100+ confirmed cases of COVID aboard. Royal Caribbean said in a statement that the positive cases had to isolate in their quarters for 5 days with daily antigen tests.
For more Ovation of the Seas incidents and accidents see the ship's CruiseMinus page.