WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A video depicts a Royal Caribbean cruise ship caught in a terrifying storm.
OUR VERDICT
False. The video contains AI-generated clips mixed with footage of other cruise ships.
AAP FACTCHECK - A video claiming to show a Royal Caribbean cruise ship recently caught in a storm is a mashup of artificial intelligence-generated clips and footage of unrelated events.
The video has racked up more than three million views since being posted to Facebook by a user whose posts have previously been debunked by AAP Factcheck.
The video shows various scenes, including passengers jumping from a capsized ship in the ocean, people bracing as furniture is tossed around a deck and giant waves crashing onto the ship.
A text overlay on the video says: "BREAKING NEWS. VIDEO SHOWS CHAOS ABOARD ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE CAUGHT IN STORM."
"The latest on that Royal Caribbean cruise heading back to New Jersey this morning after getting caught in hurricane-force winds," a voiceover says.
"That ship is expected to return here tomorrow morning so they wouldn't have to endure yet another storm."
However, that voiceover was actually taken from a 2016 report by US broadcaster ABC about a cruise ship encountering rough seas.
The first clip also shows signs of AI generation, including people managing to defy gravity by standing and balancing on the side of a half-capsized ship before sliding off into the water.
The people depicted in the clip are also appear out of proportion to the actual size of Royal Caribbean cruise ships.
Reverse image search reveals that later clips (timestamps 10 seconds and 33 seconds) match footage from a ship in rough seas in the Drake Passage between Antarctica and South America posted to Instagram and reported by Fox News earlier in 2025.
The next clip (0:11) matches footage from 2023 of water running down a passageway on the Carnival Sunshine posted on X and subsequently reported by CNN.
Another clip (0:15) matches a video of a cruise ship in a freak storm off the coast of Florida in 2023 that appeared in a report by the UK's The Daily Express.
Two other clips (0:18 and 0:20) display signs of AI generation, including people seemingly standing on a ship's deck with ease as the vessel experiences extreme tilting and giant waves hitting the side of the ship in an unnatural manner.
The next clip (0:22) matches footage aired on CNBC of a cruise ship that was stranded near Norway in 2019.
At 0:52, footage from inside a cruise ship is shown that matches the same event near Norway, this time in video published by The West Australian.
A later clip (0:29) also displays signs of AI generation, including a massive wave that engulfs the ship unnaturally as people stand without reacting on the upper decks.
Another clip later in the video (1:00) displays signs of AI generation, depicting lifeboats in the water next to a ship that's stationary despite half the vessel being angled into the air above the water.
Immediately after that clip (1:02) footage flashes that shows the logo owned by cruise company Viking - not Royal Caribbean - matching ABC reports in 2019 about the ship stranded off Norway's coast.
The video then cuts to a clip (1:04) showing people being rescued by a helicopter, which reflects branding used by the Norwegian Air Force.
An image of the same helicopter, featuring the tail marking 070 and matching the background of the Facebook footage, appears on the Norwegian Red Cross website.
The organisation says the photo depicts the evacuation of passengers from the Viking cruise ship, which also concords with footage by Norwegian news organisation Dagbladet.
After the helicopter, another clip displays signs of AI (1:05), showing a wave engulfing the upper decks of a ship. The passengers are pictured in sunlight - not consistent with stormy conditions - and don't react to being inundated.
The final clip (1:07) also appears to match the Viking ship that was stranded off the coast of Norway in 2019, as reported by CBS news (1:29).
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