At 10:30 p.m. on February 18, 2026, passengers aboard Costa Favolosa noticed lightning flickering on the horizon off the coast of Brazil. By 11:00 p.m., they were holding onto walls.
An extratropical cyclone with wind gusts exceeding 62 mph slammed into the 113,000-ton ship. What happened next was captured on passenger video that went viral within hours.
The Videos Tell the Story
If you’ve never seen a 113,000-ton cruise ship get thrown around by a storm, the Costa Favolosa videos are a good place to start.
In the dining rooms, plates and glasses slid across tables and shattered on the floor. Entire place settings went airborne. Chairs tipped over. In the hallways, passengers braced themselves against walls as the ship rolled dramatically from side to side.
One clip shows a passenger filming the dining room as the ship pitches hard to one side — you can hear glass breaking, plates crashing, and people screaming in the background. Another shows water sloshing out of the pool like a bathtub being tilted.
Nobody looks relaxed. Nobody is having fun. This is 3,000+ people riding out a cyclone in the South Atlantic at night.
What’s an Extratropical Cyclone?
It’s not a hurricane, but it can hit just as hard. Extratropical cyclones form when cold and warm air masses collide, creating intense low-pressure systems with strong winds and heavy seas. They’re common in the South Atlantic, especially near the Brazilian coast during summer.
The one that hit Costa Favolosa packed winds over 100 km/h (62 mph). For reference, tropical storm-force winds start at 39 mph. This was well above that threshold.
Costa Favolosa is a big ship — 113,216 gross tons, 290 meters long. But big doesn’t mean immune to nature. When you’re broadside to 62 mph gusts in open ocean, even the biggest ships roll.
Could the Ship Have Avoided This?
That’s the real question. Modern cruise ships have access to advanced weather routing systems that track storms in real time. Most of the time, the bridge team can route around severe weather or adjust speed to avoid the worst of it.
Extratropical cyclones can intensify rapidly, though, and this one may have strengthened faster than predicted. Or the ship may have been in a position where routing around it wasn’t feasible without significantly altering the itinerary.
Either way, the passengers didn’t sign up for an extreme weather survival experience. They signed up for a cruise off the coast of Brazil.
Curious about ship safety performance? Check our cruise ship rankings or look up Costa Favolosa’s report card.
The Details
- Ship: Costa Favolosa (Costa Cruises), 113,216 gross tons
- Date: February 18, 2026, approximately 10:30-11:00 p.m.
- Location: Off the coast of Brazil, South Atlantic
- Storm: Extratropical cyclone, wind gusts exceeding 100 km/h (62 mph)
- What happened: Severe rolling; plates, glasses, and furniture shifted; passengers unable to walk without bracing
- Injuries: Minor injuries reported (bruises, cuts from broken glass); no serious casualties
- Viral video: Multiple passenger clips showing dining room destruction and ship rolling
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