Is a cruise ship really subject to wave action, to the point of sea-sickness?
Absolutely. When the waves kick up you definitely feel it. On my 2019 cruise the waves kicked up on our last full day at sea. I felt the characteristic ear popping which indicated oncoming sea sickness but it never reached the point of nausea because of the ginger candy. I even had a meal during that period to check and everything was fine.
On our last cruise I ran into a guy who was popping gin gins as well. However, he must have been even more susceptible to seasickness than me since he was popping them on our water taxi to Klein Bonaire, an uninhabited island near our ship that was strictly for sunbathing and swimming.
Even though the ship is really big, the ocean is infinitely larger. Same rules apply. Also for comfort the stability is kept comfortable, which is the same frequency as sea sickness
When I was in the Navy, we had sailors aboard that at the first sway of tugboats pulling the ship away from the pier, they would start to lose it. It doesn't necessarily heavy sea states to trigger it.
I never had a problem with sea sickness; I treated it like an amusement park ride--you just had to go with the motion, not fight it.
“Is a cruise ship really subject to wave action, to the point of sea-sickness?”
Yes. In early December 2005 (I think it was 2005) we did a 15-day CA-HI-CA cruise and we had a couple of brutal days on the way over. Many passengers were ex-Navy guys headed for an event at Pearl Harbor, and quite a few of them got seasick. They said they hadn’t experienced that while in the service.
Later, we learned that three major storms had converged on where we were.
I’ve been on cruises, but the ONLY time I was truly seasick was a Holland America as soon as it started moving…..I wasn’t the only one
Something about ‘a stabilizer’ not doing its job???.
I know someone who was on a cruise that was in a hurricane. She said she really thought they were going to die.