Holidaymakers clung on for dear life as their luxury cruiseship came close to capsizing, washing people out of the swimming pool "like a mini-tsunami" and scattering furniture overboard.

The freak roll sent passengers aboard the 113,000-ton Crown Princess flying off their sunloungers and smashed them against the railings. Stairwells and lift shafts became waterfalls as the ship’s four pools emptied over the 15 decks, which were left strewn with broken glass and blood.

The incident happened 11 miles off the east coast of Florida last night. Emergency officials said that 98 people were taken to hospital when the ship docked in Port Canaveral, including a young girl said to have life-threatening injuries. Ironically, the ship’s poolside cinema had been due to screen Titanic hours later.

"The ship just started tipping and it was the most terrifying experience of my life," said passenger Carol O’Connell. "I actually felt like we were going overboard. People were screaming."

Passengers said that the veteran captain, Andrew Proctor, of Aberdeen, sounded panicked when he addressed sobbing passengers over the vessel’s loud speakers after the ship righted itself.

"He was out of breath and he was extremely scared," said Patrick Phillips, of New York.

Some claimed that the ship listed at a 45-degree angle, though experts disputed that it could have been that much.

"I went from one end of the ship right into the wall like you see on the Titanic and a lady came right after me," said Gary Bauman, from New York.

Guests told how they were left face-to-face with the sea or the sky as the 951-foot vessel lurched heavily to the starboard. Some grabbed loved ones to save them from plunging overboard. Elderly guests were thrown from their wheelchairs.

Honeymooner John Joyce recalled: "I watched the grand piano come tumbling by. I just assumed my wife was already in the ocean."

Gymnasium equipment was flipped over and slot machines in the casino uprooted. Guests undergoing treatments in the spa found themselves sliding along corridors on their massage tables.

Tom Daus, 32, of New York, said:"I was just holding on for dear life onto the banister. Water came gushing out of the pool like a mini-tsunami...people who were in the pool were shoved out."

Matt Bergen, of Florida, said that even members of the British and Italian crew, some of whom handed out life jackets, were in shock. "People were yelling, screaming and crying, even the staff were crying. It was nuts," he said.

Emergency services in Florida closed down a main road to act as a helicopter landing zone after the 1,157-cabin vessel limped into Port Canaveral to decant its wounded.

A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises in Southampton, Hampshire, said that 58 of the ship’s 3,080 passengers were British.

Inspectors from the National Transportation Safety Board yesterday boarded the ship, which was built in Italy and has only been in service for one month, to investigate. The episode is suspected to have stemmed from a faulty steering mechanism.

A similar incident occurred aboard another of Princess Cruises’ ships, the Grand Princess, which listed at an angle of 16.5 degrees off Texas in February, injuring 23. In March, a man died when fire ripped through 100 cabins on its sister-ship, the Star Princess, off Jamaica.

The Crown Princess, known as the jewel of the fleet, carries 3,080 passengers and 1,200 crew. It had just left Port Canaveral in Florida on Tuesday afternoon and was heading home to New York at the end of a nine-day trip around the western Caribbean, which had included stops in the Turks and Caicos islands, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

A spokesman for Princess Cruises said:"We deeply regret this incident."

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