Shocking FAKE Cruise Videos Are Fooling Millions – Are You Next?

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It’s the stuff of nightmares: cruise ships sinking, crashing, exploding and even going over waterfalls. But here’s the real shocker – most of these viral cruise disaster videos are 100% FAKE.

And people are falling for them.

cruise ship sinking

The Rise of Fake Cruise Disasters

Over the past year, AI video generators have levelled up. What once looked like bad CGI now looks terrifyingly real.

Social media is flooded with videos of cruise ships caught in deadly accidents – but the vast majority never actually happened.

Here are just a few you’ve probably seen recently:

1. ‘Cruise ship sinking caught on camera’

This fake video by ‘AI artist’ Ali Aboutine has been viewed by over 8 million people on Instagram alone. And while there are comments warning people that’s it’s AI generated, there are also a lot of people who assume it’s real as these remarks demonstrate…

2. ‘Massive cruise ship making an epic beach approach’

This video of a cruise ship approaching a beach where people are swimming has been viewed by 11 million people on Instagram.

And it’s not just Instagram where these AI videos are taking over, they’re on every social media platform including Facebook, Tiktok, X and also on YouTube.

I found a YouTube channel called ‘Cruise Disaster FX‘, which has made over 400 of these videos, with the following video getting over 22 million views…

3. ‘Cruise ship loses control and collides’

It’s worrying that these AI videos are racking up millions of views. Meanwhile, genuine cruise videos often get just a tiny fraction of the attention.

While some of these videos are very easy to spot as fake, the newest technology that has only become available in the last few weeks has meant that the latest videos are much more realistic looking.

That means that in many cases, viewers don’t realise they’re watching pure fiction.

The Most Popular Fake Scenarios

AI creators are getting more and more creative (and disturbing) with the disasters they dream up.

While many reputable YouTubers are using AI to speed up processes such as coming up with title ideas or writing descriptions, others are letting AI create the whole video.

These AI videos don’t offer helpful cruise tips or inspiration, instead, they aim solely to maximise views (and therefore revenue).

The way they do that is simple – maximise the shock factor.

Here’s what’s dominating feeds right now (so you know what to be aware of)…

1. Ship-on-ship collisions

It’s true that cruise ships occasionally crash into piers, small boats and even each other. But when they do, the ships are moving extremely slowly and any damage is relatively small.

Cruise ships never sail at the speed shown in the video, and they also never cross paths like that.

Suggested read: How Fast Do Cruise Ships Go?

2. Ship Sinkings

The angle of this video makes it look like it was taken on a phone from a person in the water, and I think that makes it look more real. It’s definitely not though.

Cruise ship sinkings are incredibly rare. If you’d like to know more about how many cruise ships have sunk and what happened in each case, I have a full list of those for you…

Suggested read: Every Cruise Ship Sinking Since Titanic in 1912

3. Beaching onto land

Cruise ships are often deliberately beached at shipbreaking yards so that they can be dismantled and recycled. However, when this happens there will be no people on the beach and it happens in a much more slow and controlled way than these AI videos will show you.

Suggested read: World’s Oldest Cruise Ship Sold for Recycling After Decades at Sea

4. Massive whirlpools pulling ships under

Big holes in the ocean like this just don’t exist in real life. Yes, there are small natural whirlpools and these can be dangerous for small boats, but they are no threat at all to cruise ships. Massive, ship-swallowing holes in the ocean just don’t exist.

5. Dumping waste into the ocean

The are a lot of fake videos of cruise ships spilling brown sludge into the ocean. Of course, ships that have thousands of people onboard generate a lot of waste. However, there are strict laws that govern how that’s managed. And it certainly doesn’t look like it does in the videos.

Suggested read: What Cruise Ships Really Do With Sewage

6. Crashing into bridges

Cruise ships are carefully routed to avoid bridges they can’t clear. Port pilots are experts in the ports where ships dock and there’s no way that a video like the one above could happen in real life.

A few incidents of ships hitting bridges have occurred, but these have involved smaller cruise ships or river cruise vessels rather than the huge ocean liners.

Suggested read: 8 Most Impressive Bridges To Sail Under On A Cruise

7. Sailing over waterfalls

Large cruise ships like the Carnival ship in the video above sail on the ocean, not on rivers and nowhere near waterfalls. This fictional video is one of the easier fakes to spot. But that doesn’t stop everyone from believing it’s real.

8. Themed Cruise Ships

These ones, I don’t mind too much. As long as it’s explicitly communicated that these are just design ideas, then I think that this can be a good use of AI.

It can be cool to see how a Hogwarts Castle shaped cruise ship might look and these videos are much more engaging than drawings.

The Real Danger: When Fake Becomes Believable


Most of these AI vidoes are not just a bit of harmless entertainment. Some viewers genuinely panic when they see these videos, believing that the disasters are real.

Cruise lines can suffer reputational damage as false stories spread and people start to believe that cruises are dangerous.

We’ve probably all met someone who’s afraid to take a cruise over fears of the ship sinking, and videos like this only make that worse for them.

Suggested read: 8 Real Safety Threats On Cruises

Convincing fakes are steadily eroding public trust in online content. If people can no longer believe what they see, it becomes harder to separate fact from fiction – not just for cruise videos, but for everything we consume online.

Woman using NCL cruise wifi

We Can’t Always Tell What’s Real

AI-generated videos have become frighteningly good. These tools can now replicate water movement, reflections, realistic crowd reactions, emergency lighting and fine visual details with shocking accuracy. What once looked obviously fake now appears entirely believable.

At first, this type of content was known as ‘AI slop’. But already, that term seems outdated. These videos are far from sloppy. In 2025, they can be of very high quality, rivaling those produced by Hollywood studios.

Social media algorithms reward the most shocking, viral content, pushing it to millions of viewers in hours.

Many people share these clips before checking if they’re real. The logic becomes: “It must be real – everyone’s watching it!”

How to Spot Fake Cruise Videos

While many AI fakes are scarily good, some still give themselves away. Look out for:

  • Over-the-top disaster scenarios
  • Weirdly smooth or robotic crowd movements
  • Odd lighting or reflections
  • Unrealistic ship designs or proportions

But be warned: some AI videos are now undetectable.

Consider the source of the video you’re watching. That’s not always straightforward though, as brands like LADbible which have 36 million followers on Facebook, are reposting AI videos like this with alarming regularity.

Look for a ‘made with AI’ label. Creators are supposed to declare when videos are AI-generated. Although in reality, many don’t.

The Bottom Line

AI-generated cruise disaster videos are only going to get more realistic. While they might grab attention, they also fuel fear, spread misinformation and hurt the cruise industry.

Now’s the time to be more sceptical than ever, and to follow real creators whose content you can trust.

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Cruise Mummy

Jenni Fielding is the founder of Cruise Mummy. She has worked in the cruise industry since 2015 and has taken over 30 cruises. Now, she helps over 1 million people per month to plan their perfect cruise holidays.

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