Large waves and heavy winds caused Royal Caribbean's 2,110-passenger Brilliance of the Seas to list heavily several times early Sunday.

Passengers, furniture, and pretty much anything not tied down went "flying back and forth" as the ship was tossed around by inclement affecting the middle east recently reports cruisecritic.com.

"Listing" is a vessel's angle of lean or tilt to one side. "List" can be caused by improperly loaded cargo or flooding on ships. On cruise ships, extreme listing is rare and most often caused by weather related events and high seas.

It all happened as Brilliance of the Seas approached Alexandria, Egypt around 2:15 a.m. causing injuries to about 30 passengers and damaging some of the public areas. Later, Alexandria closed its port because of the weather and the ship was diverted to Valletta, Malta. Brilliance of the Seas was on a 12-night sailing from Barcelona.

Royal Caribbean reports the ship has full power and is sailing as normal now with onboard programming returning within a few hours. Photos on MSNBC's Photoblog show the damage done in areas ranging from individual passenger cabins to common areas shared by all guests.

Flickr photo by Twiga269

Filed under: Egypt, Malta, Middle East