A cruise ship that was scheduled to arrive in Southampton this morning has been forced to turn back and divert course back to France after running into adverse conditions.

AIDAnova was supposed to arrive at the city's port from Hamburg, Germany this morning at 7am, but once reaching Cowes on the Isle of Wight, the vessel suddenly turned back due to encountering bad weather.

The ship was stuck moving in circles in the English channel and is now heading back towards France, skipping Southampton entirely.

AIDAnova was scheduled to be in Southampton until 8:30pm tonight, when the cruise was supposed to head to Cherbourg, France.

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SEE Southampton - which runs guided tours of the city and host other heritage activities - posted on Facebook to confirm that the ship had gone off course.

SEE Southampton said: "Our Cruise Welcome Team was planning to meet the Aida this morning - however it only got as far as Cowes before turning round, and at 9.00 was ‘treading water’ in Sandown Bay!"

A spokesperson for AIDA: "Due to adverse weather with wind gusts up to 68 knots and restricted tug availability we had to proceed to Cherbourgh, the next port on AIDAnova’s itinerary."