{"id":300856,"date":"2026-06-09T02:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T02:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/300856\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T02:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T02:52:09","slug":"tallahassee-man-describes-how-earthquake-felt-on-cruise-ship-near-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/300856\/","title":{"rendered":"Tallahassee man describes how earthquake felt on cruise ship near Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; A Tallahassee man on a cruise ship near Cuba experienced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/06\/08\/earthquake-off-coast-cuba-felt-tallahassee\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/06\/08\/earthquake-off-coast-cuba-felt-tallahassee\/\">an earthquake Monday<\/a> that shook the vessel for about 20 seconds, causing items to fall and passengers to grab onto nearby objects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Joe Millender was napping aboard the Margaritaville Islander when the shaking woke him around 2 p.m. The ship was traveling to Cozumel when the earthquake struck.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThe ship started shaking and things falling off the shelves and people kind of grabbing hold of things trying to hold on,\u201d Millender said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Millender said passengers initially thought the ship had run aground or hit something with a propeller. The captain announced after the shaking stopped, informing passengers that an earthquake had occurred almost directly underneath their ship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The ship\u2019s location was within 20 to 25 miles of the earthquake\u2019s epicenter, according to Millender.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Millender, who grew up in Carrabelle and has been on boats most of his life, said he had never experienced anything like it. He explained to WCTV that he had been on more than 45 cruises.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI can only assume that it felt like you were on land in a building,\u201d Millender said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Millender described the earthquake as a once-in-a-lifetime experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/06\/09\/tallahassee-man-describes-earthquake-felt-cruise-ship-near-cuba\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; A Tallahassee man on a cruise ship near Cuba experienced an earthquake Monday that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[126369,126370,126366,126367,232,126368,234,233],"class_list":["post-300856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-caribbean-earthquake","tag-cruise-ship-shaking","tag-earthquake-cuba-cruise-ship","tag-margaritaville-islander-earthquake","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-cruise-passenger","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}