Heavy fog that lasted for days at the port of Shanghai has forced several ships to cancel their voyages including the cruise ship Norwegian Joy. According to the local media, after passengers have embarked on March 27 onboard the Norwegian Cruise Line ship, specially dedicated to the Chinese market, they were informed that the voyage is canceled. Following this announcement, hundreds of passengers took to the ship’s guest relations desk to protest. Guests were demanding full reimbursement of the voyage and flight expenses. While most passengers remained calm and rational, some passengers were over-excited during the process of rights protection. They sang China’s national anthem and expressed their revolt over the cancelation. Chinese tourists frequently report that they will collectively sing the national anthem when they are dissatisfied with the service. There was also some confrontation upon which shipboard security was called in to calm down the incident. Here is a video of the incident.

The cancellation of Norwegian Joy voyage was due to the heavy fog that was characterized as "meteorological disaster." In response to such extreme weather, Shanghai Maritime Administration imposed traffic control on the waterway for two consecutive days.

Norwegian Joy is a 160,000-ton-class ship which under the visibility of less than 100 meters, it is not safe to get out of a narrow channel. The degree of accident risk is just to high for this maneuver and nothing is more important than safety for the ship and passengers and crew.