The nightmare is over: Carnival Triumph finally docks in Alabama

[catlover79]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/11/travel...ire/index.html

Busted toilets, hot rooms, headaches after fire strands cruise ship in Gulf

By CNN Staff

updated 8:57 PM EST, Mon February 11, 2013


(CNN) -- Passengers on a Carnival cruise ship drifting in the Gulf of Mexico aren't getting the vacation they expected -- sleeping on its decks, making do with a few working toilets, and doing what they can to get food -- all due to a weekend engine fire left the vessel dead in the water.

The Carnival Triumph was about 150 miles off the coast of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, heading back to Galveston, Texas, on Sunday morning when a fire broke out in an engine room, according to Carnival Cruise Lines. The ship's automatic fire extinguishing system kicked in and soon contained the flames, and no injuries were reported, Carnival reported.

This fire left the ship -- and its 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew members -- adrift without propulsion, the cruise line said, and its trip back to port halted.

Two tugboats -- one from Mexico, the other from Mobile, Alabama -- will tow the ship Mobile, the cruise line said in a statement Monday. The ship should arrive in Mobile some time Thursday.

Not being able to sail, though, was just one of the problems. Issues with running water, scarce electricity and more contributed to headaches big and small, according to passengers and their loved ones.

Toby Barlow's wife Ann told him there was "sewage running down the walls and floors" with passengers being asked to defecate in bags and urinate in showers due to a lack of functioning toilets. Food lines ran 3½ hours long and some, like herself, slept outside to keep cool.

"Elderly and handicap(ped people) are struggling," she texted her husband. "The smells are gross."

Read related: Cruise safety drill results in 5 deaths

Brent Nutt said his wife, Bethany -- who is on board, and whom he talked to Sunday -- reported similar problems.

"She said they had no power, no running water, and she said she hadn't been able to eat anything yet. Then you call the Carnival phone number for families, and they tell you that everything is all right," Nutt told CNN.

Posts to CruiseCritic.com, which bills itself as an "interactive community of avid and first-time cruisers," documented similar issues with power and more. Some posts, though, were more light-hearted.

"They are all fine," wrote one woman, whose sister is on board. "Said they are still having fun and gave me the task to call her boss who seems to think I was lying."

Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen acknowledged issues, while noting the cruise line's efforts to address the situation.

Some people are camping out on the decks because some cabins don't have air conditioning, he said Monday evening.

And Gulliksen pointed to recent progress. For instance, "we have restored toilets in some public areas and cabins;" there is running water for showers, even if it's cold; and some elevators are working.

As for the food situation, he said the Triumph's poolside restaurant has "limited food service" and meals have been brought aboard from two other Carnival ships. Earlier Monday, the cruise line said in a statement that there was hot coffee available, among other options.

"Guests have been supplied with food and refreshments throughout yesterday and this morning and the ship has supplies on board to last until the vessel returns to port," Carnival said.

Read related: What caused the Costa Cruises ship disaster?

Besides the two Carnival vessels that have come to transfer supplies -- and, in one case, take on a passenger with a pre-existing medical condition, said Gulliksen -- the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Vigorous is on-site to aid the stranded ship. On Monday, the Coast Guard said the Triumph was drifting about 2 mph to the northeast.

"It's in deep water and not near any hazards to navigation," said Greg Magee, the commander of the Vigorous.

After being towed to port, those aboard the Carnival Triumph will be flown home at no cost to them, the cruise line said. They will also get a full refund, credit that can be used toward a future trip and reimbursement for all expenses, except casino and gift shop purchases, for their current trip.

The vessel's next two departures, scheduled for Monday and Saturday, have been canceled. Those slated to be on those trips will get full refunds and discounts toward future cruises, the cruise line said.

Family and friends of those on board may call 888-290-5095 or 305-406-5534 for information.

Throughout the ordeal, Barlow said his wife Ann has kept her sense of humor despite being stranded.

"I joked with her that I got the raw end of the deal. I was stuck in Texas with all (the) kids going to watch midget wrestling while she was on a cruise this weekend with her girlfriends," he said. "When I talked to her (Sunday) night, I reminded her maybe I got the better end of the deal," he said.

[catlover79]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/n...,3490554.story

Carnival Triumph, crippled cruise ship, finally reaches port

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
February 14, 2013, 7:31 p.m.

MOBILE, Ala. -- The crippled Carnival cruise ship Triumph finally limped into port Thursday night, but the passengers’ ordeal wasn’t over yet: It could take up to five hours for everyone to disembark, and only one elevator was working.

Less than an hour after a news briefing in which a Carnival spokesman said the ship was five miles away and would arrive between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. Central, the Triumph was visible from shore a bit early.

Passengers cheered, crowding the rails on at least three decks as the ship pulled into port. The ship's horn sounded several times. Cameras flashed on board and people waved to those on the ground and across from them in the cruise terminal as the ship pulled alongside the gangway.

By 9:20 p.m., Triumph had docked. Buses were standing by to take passengers to hotels in Galveston, Houston or New Orleans. Families, too, were standing by.

As the ship docked, passengers sang, "Sweet Home, Alabama," and someone on board shouted, "It's good to be home!"

Joe Burgess of Carthage, Miss., was on his cellphone waving at the boat and looking for his wife and 18-year-old daughter, who told him they were dangling a bed sheet. With all the chaos, they had trouble seeing each other.

"Wave or something!" he told them.

An engine fire on Sunday left the 14-story-high ship without power. Many toilets weren’t working, passengers told relatives and reporters by cellphone, and food was scarce. Although the ship was restocked with food during the days it was under tow, the misery of the more than 4,000 people aboard persisted.

Earlier in the day, some towing equipment broke and, later, a tow line snapped. But by 8:30 p.m. Central, Triumph was within five miles of port, Carnival spokesman Terry Thornton told a news briefing.

A passenger was removed from the ship Monday for treatment in Mobile after suffering an unspecified medical problem, Thornton, Carnival vice president of planning, told a midafternoon briefing.

Thornton said he did not know whether the passenger was an adult or child, what condition the individual suffered or whether the person was hospitalized. Another passenger, a woman, had to be removed from the ship Monday for dialysis, Thornton has said.

A Carnival spokesman told the Los Angeles Times there had been no deaths or serious injuries aboard the Triumph since it left Galveston, Texas, last Thursday on what was supposed to be a four-day cruise to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. The ship lost power off the Yucatan coast Sunday after an engine fire.

The Triumph carried 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew members.

[Family Ties Forever!]

It's sad what all those passengers had to go through. They mentioned on the news that one woman suffered a stroke and had to be life flighted to a hospital.

[Penny Lane]

I hope that the passengers will get their fares reimbursed. Sorry that they had to go through this while on vacation. Think I'll stay on dry land!

[catlover79]

The only way you'll ever get me on a cruise (or a trans-atlantic flight) is over my unconcious body!!!!

[Penny Lane]

Originally Posted by catlover79

The only way you'll ever get me on a cruise (or a trans-atlantic flight) is over my unconcious body!!!!

Right on Baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[catlover79]

Remember the good old days when the scariest part of Carnival was...



I'M KIDDING!!

[catlover79]

Here are some other notable Carnival cruise incidents:

In 1995, the Carnival Celebration caught fire and over 1700 people had to be evacuated.

On July 20, 1998, the Carnival Ecstasy's laundry room caught fire and the ship lost power. Thankfully, the ship had just pulled out of the harbor in Miami so fire boats were able to catch up with it and put out the fire.

In September 1999, the Carnival Tropicale's engine room caught fire and was stuck without power for two days in the Gulf of Mexico when it was struck by Tropical Storm Harvey.

On November 8, 2010, the Carnival Splendor's generator room caught fire and was stuck off the west coast of Mexico with most of its power out. The ship had to be towed to San Diego.

Then, in January 2012, the Costa Concordia (whose parent company is Carnival) ran aground and capsized off the coast of Italy. Over 30 people were killed.

In March 2012, the Costa Allegra (also owned by Carnival) endured an engine room fire and was adrift without power in the Indian Ocean. After several days, the ship was towed back to shore, but thankfully this time there were no casualties.

In between those two disasters, in February 2012, over 100 people became ill due to a norovirus on a British Carnival cruise.

Here are the incidents the people aboard the Carnival Legend have endured over the years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Legend

Also, here's a list of the illness outbreaks through the years of various Carnival cruises:

http://www.cruisejunkie.com/Illness_...ks_by_CCL.html

[JamesG]

The only cruise I've been on was w/ Carnival back in 2004. Took it from NY to Halifax.

Thankfully there were no problems. The only thing was that you felt the rocking a little bit when you sat down to eat in the dining hall.

I haven't been on a cruise since because I didn't really get into it.

[catlover79]

http://www.wltx.com/news/national/ar...us-Breaks-Down

8:56 AM, Feb 15, 2013

(CBS News) Thousands of passengers erupted into cheers Thursday night as the crippled triumph finally pulled up to the dock. As they stepped onto dry land, and into the arms of their loved ones some couldn't contain their excitement.

Carnival then chartered a caravan of buses to transport folks out of Mobile, Ala. To add insult to injury, at least one of those buses became stranded on the way to New Orleans, reports CBS News correspondent Anna Werner.

The nightmare started Sunday, when an engine fire knocked out power.

Kendell Jenkins won the trip in a contest, but said it was more like cruising on a floating port-o-potty. "I'm just really thankful and blessed to be back," she said. "I mean there was sewage, water everywhere, mix that with some rotten food smells and welcome to carnival Triumph."

"No ships were coming, no boats, were coming, we saw no helicopters," said Jenkins. "It scared us because we thought the ship wasn't notifying or coming out to help us."

It took more than a day before the first tugboat arrived. As passengers got cell reception, they shared photos revealing squalid conditions - sewage seeping through the floors, plastic bags used for restrooms. Tent camps above deck, and mattresses sprawled out below. For some, the hardest part was losing contact with their family.

It took several grueling hours to drag the massive ship through a narrow channel Thursday. At the terminal, carnival C.E.O. Gerry Cahill addressed reporters.

"We pride ourselves in providing our guests with a great vacation experience and clearly we failed in this particular case," he said. He then boarded the ship and apologized to passengers, but some still want answers.

[catlover79]

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/carniva...ry?id=18509079


By MATT GUTMAN (@mattgutmanABC) , CHRISTINA NG (@ChristinaNg27) and ANTHONY CASTELLANO

Feb. 15, 2013





Despite having their feet back on solid ground and making their way home, passengers from the Carnival Triumph cruise ship are still fuming over their five days of squalor on the stricken ship and the cruise ship company is likely to be hit with a wave of lawsuits.

"I think people are going to file suits and rightly so," maritime trial attorney John Hickey told ABCNews.com. "I think, frankly, that the conduct of Carnival has been outrageous from the get-go."

Hickey, a Miami-based attorney, said his firm has already received "quite a few" inquiries from passengers who just got off the ship early this morning.

"What you have here is a) negligence on the part of Carnival and b) you have them, the passengers, being exposed to the risk of actual physical injury," Hickey said.

The attorney said that whether passengers can recover monetary compensation will depend on maritime law and the 15-pages of legal "gobbledygook," as Hickey described it, that passengers signed before boarding, but "nobody really agrees to."

One of the ticket conditions is that class action lawsuits are not allowed, but Hickey said there is a possibility that could be voided when all the conditions of the situation are taken into account.

One of the passengers already thinking about legal action is Tammy Hilley, a mother of two, who was on a girl's getaway with her two friends when a fire in the ship's engine room disabled the vessel's propulsion system and knocked out most of its power.

"I think that's a direction that our families will talk about, consider and see what's right for us," Hilley told "Good Morning America" when asked if she would be seeking legal action.

While she said that she does not want to be greedy or exploit the situation, she does not feel that Carnival's $500 compensation is enough for the trauma passengers suffered.

"You talk about the emotional trauma and just last night, feeling what we went through last night while we were on land with our families and our insides just trembling," she said. "I don't think it begins to even say what is needed here."

In addition to the money, passengers will receive a full refund for the cruise, transportation expenses and vouchers for another cruise.

"We made our own nest [on deck] because we were just too terrified to go inside because of the smells and the germs, so we just banded together and made our own little nest and just survived," Hilley's friend Ann Barlow said.

Her friend Carolyn Klam said she got a stomach virus from drinking bad water once the power went out and friend Tammy Hilley said her cell phone was stolen this morning as the boat came into port.

"I think going back to our room was kind of traumatic and seeing that from day one we had no home, we were homeless," Hilley said. "We would go downstairs below deck and your feet could feel the sludge that you were walking through. The smells and the liquids draining from the ceiling and the stories of people sleeping in the hallways and the sanitary bags in the hallway, that was traumatic to just watch it start piling up."

The more than 4,000 passengers and crew began to disembark from the damaged ship around 10:15 p.m. CT Thursday in Mobile, Ala., amid cheers and tears. The last passenger left the ship at 1 a.m. CT, according to Carnival's Twitter handle.

Passenger Brandi Dorsett was thankful to be home, especially for her mother who was with her on the ship. Dorsett said she wasn't pleased with the doctor on staff.

"My mother is a diabetic, and they would not even come to the room because she cannot walk the stairs to help her with insulin. She hasn't had insulin in three days," Dorsett said.

The Carnival Triumph departed Galveston, Texas, last Thursday and lost power Sunday.

After power went out, passengers texted ABC News that sewage was seeping down the walls from burst plumbing pipes, carpets were wet with urine, and food was in short supply. Reports surfaced of elderly passengers running out of critical heart medicine and others on board squabbling over scarce food.

"It's degrading. Demoralizing, and then they want to insult us by giving us $500," Veronica Arriaga said after disembarking the ship.

As the ship docked, passengers lined the decks of the Triumph, waving and whistling to those on shore. "Happy V-Day" read a homemade sign made for the Valentine's Day arrival, while another sent a starker message: "The ship's afloat, so is the sewage."

Some still aboard chanted, "Let me off, let me off!" and "Sweet Home Alabama."

Kendall Jenkins was one of many passengers who were photographed kissing the ground when they exited the ship. Jenkins, like many passengers, created makeshift beds out of lounge chairs on the ship's deck after the raw sewage smell became too much to contend with.

"We kind of camped out by our lifeboat. We would have nightmares about Titanic basically happening," passenger Kendall Jenkins told ABC News Radio.

"I am just so blessed to be back home," she added.

Approximately 100 buses were waiting to take passengers on the next stage of their journey. Passengers had the option to take a bus ride to New Orleans or Galveston, Texas, where the ill-fated ship's voyage began. From there, passengers will take flights home, which Carnival said it would pay for.

Inside the buses, Carnival handed out bags of food that included French fries, chicken nuggets, honey mustard barbecue sauce and apples.

Deborah Knight, 56, decided to stay in Mobile after the arduous journey was over rather than board a bus for a long ride. Her husband Seth drove in from Houston, and they checked in at a downtown Mobile hotel.

"I want a hot shower and a daggum Whataburger," said Knight.

She said she was afraid to eat the food on board and had gotten sick while on the ship.

Carnival president and CEO Gerry Cahill praised the ship's crew and told reporters that he was headed on board to apologize directly to its passengers shortly before the Carnival Triumph arrived in Mobile.

"I know the conditions on board were very poor," Cahill said Thursday night. "I know it was very difficult, and I want to apologize again for subjecting our guests for that. ... Clearly, we failed in this particular case."

Luckily no one was hurt in the fire that triggered the power outage, but many passengers aboard the 900-foot colossus said they smelled smoke and were living in fear.

"You didn't know if the ship was going to explode, catch back on fire. You know, for a day or so, we didn't see any kind of sign of life. And so that's pretty scary when you're out there on the water," Robyn Burgess said.

Carnival's original plan was to tow the damaged ship to Progreso, Mexico, because it was the closest port, but by the time tugboats arrived, the ship had drifted about 90 miles north due to strong currents, putting it nearly equidistant to Mobile, Ala.

Carnival added that it has canceled a dozen planned voyages for the Triumph and acknowledged that the crippled ship had been plagued by other mechanical problems in the weeks before an engine-room fire left it powerless in the Gulf of Mexico.

ABC News' Michael S. James, ABC News Radio and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[shotzette]

Carnival Cruises have a history of problems. I went on one cruise, a non-Carnival line and had a blast! I would love to do it again.

I spoke to a friend who used to cruise regularly as part of her yearly vacation and she said that Carnival, despite the hype, was sort of low end and that there are several better and more reasonably priced options. She likened Carnival to Coors Beer; mediocre at best, but well hyped.

[AB]

Glad it finally made it to port, I know all those passengers were happy to get back on solid ground. You hear so much lately about things going wrong on cruises that it kind of makes you wary of booking one.

[catlover79]

Just the thought of taking a cruise - ANY cruise - makes me sick because I am afraid of large bodies of water. I managed a paddleboat ride in Frankenmuth, Michigan - that was good enough for me.

[catlover79]

Now, we can add March 2013's Carnival Dream, stuck in the East Caribbean near the island of St. Maarten due to similar circumstances that Triumph did (power failure, non-working restrooms, with human waste flowing all over place). These two disasters happened in the span of just one month!!!