Random Bits of Weirdness for the week of June 15

Cruise ship surrealism seems to be making waves this week, the most notable incident of course being the gustnado that tore one ship from its moorings and nearly resulted in a collision with another ship.

Juneau residents got what for many was probably their first lesson about gustnados from a Facebook post Thursday by the National Weather Service Juneau. The post notes "Tornadoes are defined as a rotating column of air that connects a low cloud with the ground. While a gustnado can look like a tornado, and can even cause damage, it has no upper connection to a cloud."

Plenty of videos — some with scary "DISASTER" cyrons — of the storm and ship mishap circulated on legacy, fringe and social media. But it wasn’t the only viral video moment at the downtown cruise dock during the past week.

"A woman caused quite the stir in Juneau, Alaska, after leaping off the cruise pier near Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas," the website Come Cruise With Me reported. "The unidentified woman — dressed pretty casually here — sprinted and jumped into the cold harbor water as she was captured on video, and shared widely on TikTok."

The stunt caused plenty of commotion at the pier and "drew quite a bit of criticism online as the TikTok video amassed views," according to the website. It also noted, "as we saw with a recent Carnival cruise TikTok scam video, it’s very possible that if the woman who performed the stunt was a cruise passenger and identified by her cruise line, she may now be banned from sailing with the cruise line in the future."

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While the woman jumping from the pier obviously was cool about the coldness of Juneau even in June, that’s not the case of somebody complaining cruise lines should do a better job warning people what the weather here will be like.

“I spoke with a good friend yesterday who just returned from an Alaskan cruise on the Spirit and he told me they had rain and sleet and freezing temperatures. There was no prior information from Carnival about the weather,” a person taking a trip soon declared to a Carnival Cruise Line executive, according to the blog Cruise Hive. “They did not proper warm clothes so they had to spend money to by fleeces from the ship shops. Temps were in the 50s.”

“We are going to be in Alaska on Luminosa [in July],” the guest continued. “Will Carnival send us the projected weather? … We have limited packing space. It would be nice to be informed so we could pack properly.” The cruise executive responded to the complaint by, among other things, suggesting the guest "ask Uncle Google for a forecast."

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.