A Royal Caribbean crew member recently shared what it's like to do a high dive on a cruise ship, and it looked scarier than when watching from the seats.
Crew members often share their unique day-to-day lives on social media, and this woman shocked the Internet with her daredevil antics.
Ginni van Katwijk, a Dutch cliff diver, recently shared a video to Instagram of a shocking high-dive.
She lives and works on the Oasis Class Harmony of the Seas, and has been with Royal Caribbean for 11 years.
Harmony of the Seas is currently the world’s fourth-largest cruise ship, although she held first place when she was first launched in 2015.
The ship carries over 5,000 passengers and crew members.
About 20 of these crew members are performers at the ship's AquaTheater, which is seen in the viral video.
Royal Caribbean’s Oasis Class ships feature an AquaTheater uniquely designed to combine a pool, diving boards, a high wire, and technology for a stunning show space.
Read more: Harmony of the Seas review: What this cruise ship is like in 2024
Harmony of the Seas has a sensational aerial, synchronized swimming, dancing, diving, and slackline show called “The Fine Line,” in which Katwijk performs.
The show combines talented crew members, lights, music, and acrobatics to dazzle guests in the AquaTheater.
However, Katwijk's recent performance on social media went above and beyond (literally).
Katwijk was visibly nervous before she dove off the 55 feet platform
Katwijk shared a video of her record-breaking high dive, leaping 55 feet (16.8 meters) down into the water.
She posted the video to her Instagram feed under the username @adventures_with_ginni.
In it, she shows an angle of her perspective of the dive, pointing out the pool’s features from above.
The AquaTheater’s diving tower includes two springboards and two higher platforms, reaching 32.8 feet (10 meters).
From these high platforms, a dive into the pool marks a total of 55 feet.
She marks a point in the left third of the pool where she is attempting to land—a place that looks tiny from her high vantage point.
Guests can be seen walking the deck and sitting nearby.
As her hands begin to shake with nerves, Katwijk says “Just like normal, we got this. Easy peasy."
Then, she stretches her arms high and leaps, doing a couple of flips as she dives down into the water.
Katwijk elegantly lands feet-first in the spot she pointed out earlier, with a loud splat confirming her landing.
The video also catches a round of applause and cheers from the deck as guests witness her performance.
Commenters expressed anxiety and shock, applauding her bravery
The video was posted on March 30th, 2024, and already has upwards of 40 million views.
Many commenters also jumped in to share their opinion.
“That should be illegal,” user @queendawkins commented.
@waiyi_chan echoed this perspective: “How is this allowed?”
“The landing sounds like a shotgun!” @therealmotzemog commented on the loud noise of her dive into the pool.
In addition to being shocked at Katwijk’s high dive, users also couldn’t believe that this was taking place on a cruise ship.
In addition to the shocking height of the dive, being on a cruise ship poses extra challenges due to the possibility of wind and waves.
“WHY IS THIS ON A CRUISE SHIP?” @lotsasmiles wrote.
Plenty of users expressed that they would never be able to complete a dive this high, with lots of comments reading “no thank you."
‘You’d have to pay me to do this.’
Many commenters seemed concerned that this dive would be offered as an option for guests, but Katwijk made it clear that this experience was only for trained professionals, aka the AquaTheater performers.
“Currently, guests are not allowed to swim in this pool at all—it’s just for shows and for the performers to train and warm up in,” she wrote in a previous Instagram post.
Read more: Trying out the free activities on Harmony of the Seas
The AquaTheater pools are the deepest at sea
Harmony of the Seas is no stranger to these exciting high dives.
In 2017, Cesilie Carlton, an American high-diver on the ship, posted a video on Instagram performing the 55-foot high dive from the same high platform.
Carlton's video was filmed by fellow performer Sydney Brown and showed a similar dive from the platform.
The AquaTheater on Harmony of the Seas is uniquely designed for exciting aqua shows.
Quests are not allowed to use the AquaTheater pool, as it is only used for shows and performer warm-ups.
As part of the shows, Oasis Class ships boast the deepest pools at sea. The pool’s depth can be adjusted to a depth of almost 18 feet (5.5 meters).
In a previous Instagram post about the pool, Katwijk shared that the pool has a mechanism underneath that takes up 3 feet, leaving 14 feet for divers to land in.
"YES," she wrote, "We touch the bottom every time when we come from the high dive!"
The AquaTheater is the most technologically advanced aspect of the Oasis Class
Royal Caribbean's unique AquaTheater shows may look effortless, but there's a lot of work behind the scenes to fit everything together.
The divers, stage managers, swimmers, and tech crew must all communicate clearly and trust one another to perfect their timing and performer safety.
So that performers can hear stage manager instructions at all times, there is an underwater speaker in the Aquatheater pool.
Read more: Crew member shows what it's like to sail on an empty cruise ship with no passengers
In addition to these vocal cues, there is a lights system at the diving boards that behaves like traffic lights, letting divers know when they're clear to go.
The performance looks simple at its completion, but it takes a lot of moving parts for the show to go on.
“No one just has an epiphany and wakes up and says, ‘Let's build the AquaTheater,’” said Richard Fain, former Chairman and CEO of Royal Caribbean International.
“It’s very much an iterative process and evolutionary. You learn from doing it on other ships, and each time you learn more, and you use that.”
