Hermine rocks Royal Caribbean cruise ship near Bermuda

MIAMI, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- A Royal Caribbean cruise ship found itself heading straight into tropical storm Hermine over the weekend.

Shortly after the ship departed from Bayonne, N.J., on Sunday afternoon, bound for Bermuda, the storm conditions conditions began.

The crew had changed course before departure in an effort to avoid Hermine.

"Our plan was to stay 240 nautical miles away from the storm," Owen Torres, spokesperson for Royal Caribbean, told Mashable.

But the forecast changed, and the ship wound up in front of the storm, where winds are strongest.

On Sunday night, the storm was 495 miles northeast of the eastern trip of Long Island with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The ship arrived on time in Bermuda on Tuesday morning despite the rough conditions.

Passenger Robert McHugh recorded video of the waves hitting the ship Sunday.

His brother-in-law Derek Biederman said in the restaurant, dishes "were going all over the place."

But Biederman said it was "exciting" and that he was "having a good time."

In February, the ship was damaged when it sailed into hurricane-force winds winds exceeding 100 mph off Cape Hatteras, N.C., while sailing from the New York area to Port Canaveral, Fla. The ship turned around and headed back to its original port instead of going to the Bahamas as part of the seven-day cruise.

Hermine is churning in the Atlantic Ocean. It was 95 miles south of the eastern trip of Long Island and was moving 6 mph westward with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph, the National Hurricane Center posted on Tuesday morning.

A tropical storm warning remained in effect Tuesday morning from New York's Long Island to Massachusetts.

The center warns it could continue to impact areas from New York to southern New England with waves, coastal flooding and beach erosion.

The storm claimed two lives after it made landfall in Florida. It then went through south Georgia and the Carolinas, and moved up the East Coast.

Anthem of the seas recording gusts of 90 knot winds. Good times on #croastascruising2wed. pic.twitter.com/3PCKBNVhDl
— Robert McHugh (@Robert_J_McHugh) September 4, 2016