Sewage-laden Carnival cruise ships docks
in Mobile, Ala.; passengers finally disembark
from vacation vehicle turned smelly nightmare
Passengers reunited with family members and prepared to head home after the
disabled vessel docked. During the ordeal, helpless passengers pleaded for help
after being exposed to overflowing toilets and raw sewage leaked into cabins
PUBLISHED: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013, 11:15 AM
UPDATED: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2013, 2:18 AM
Kendall Jenkins kisses the ground after stepping off the Carnival ship Triumph at the
Alabama Cruise Terminal.
Smell ya later!
Bedraggled passengers rushed down the gangway off their crippled Carnival cruise ship Thursday night, grateful to disembark from the stinking boat after it finally reached land.
“It was absolutely filthy,” Robin Burgess said.
“I’m feeling awesome just to see land,” added Brittany Ferguson, 24.
Many passengers cheered, danced on deck and waved to their relatives as the hulking ship docked in Mobile and its horn blared with relief.
Kendall Jenkins (left) and friend cheer after stepping off the crippled Carnival ship Triumph, where dream vacations turned into a nightmarish ocean voyage for some 4,000 desperate passengers and crew after it lost power over the weekend.
“We are partying and celebrating,” tearful passenger Kelly Miller said.
But the 3,143 guests who endured a four-day nightmare aboard the Triumph — confined to sweltering quarters without working toilets after an engine room fire knocked out power on the ship — also voiced their fury with the rancid ordeal.
“Let us off! Let us off!” some chanted during a tiresome disembarking process that lasted for several hours.
Not even a mea culpa soothed them.
“We know that this has been a difficult journey. I apologize,” Carnival chief executive Gerry Cahill said, prompting an angry response.
“Bulls---! Bulls---!” some chanted.
Many passengers still faced frustrating travel hassles to get home.
Carnival was offering buses from Mobile to Houston — a seven-hour trip — and to New Orleans, with flights from the Big Easy to Houston on Friday.
Stories of overflowing toilets, sewage in the showers, food shortages, overpowering odors and sick passengers emerged as the disabled liner returned to civilization Thursday, pulled there by tugboats at a painfully slow 5 mph.
With cabins and hallways reeking of excrement and filth, and the ship dead in the water, guests seeking fresh air set up a tent city on what was supposed to be a sun deck.
Tricia Duhan, the sister of a pregnant passenger, said the mom-to-be had been sleeping with a blanket over her head to stem the stench.
“There’s poop and urine all along the floor,” another passenger, Renee Shanar, said. “The floor is flooded with sewer water ... and we had to poop in bags.”
The 900-foot, 14-story ship with 1,086 crew members departed Galveston, Tex., on Feb. 7 bound for Cozumel, Mexico. Three days later, the blaze turned the boat into the world’s largest floating petri dish.
Rescuers began towing the ship Tuesday from its Gulf of Mexico purgatory toward Mobile. But stiff headwinds and a broken towline caused major delays.
Thelbert Lanier drove to Mobile to pick up his stranded wife, who texted him from the ship that morning. "Room smells like an outhouse. Cold water only, toilets haven't [WORKED] in 3 1/2 days. Happy Valentines Day!!! I love u & wish I was there," she wrote.
Rusty Adkins waited on land in Mobile for his daughter to disembark from the harrowing trip that was meant to be a fun high school graduation gift.
Crew members watch the activity on the dock after the Carnival Triumph was towed
to the cruise terminal in Mobile, Ala., on Thurs., Feb. 14, 2013
His 18-year-old Brianna called him "crying her eyes out" when the ship inched back into cell phone range Thursday, Adkins told the Daily News.
"The different levels (of the ship) were separated," Adkins said. "It was worse for some. She had it worse. It was tough to sleep with the smell. It was very hot, with no air conditioning at all. And the smell got worse every day."
Photos tweeted by KHOU-TV in Houston showed Carnival guests crowded around a lone electrical outlet charging their phones, and hastily made beds stretched across dining room banquettes and under lifeboats.
Passengers subsisted on cold cuts until a passing cruise ship dropped off burgers — but the lines for hot food were reportedly up to four hours long. “There were fights over the food,” Burgess said.
"And then people started getting sick from the food," she added.
Two sick passengers were removed from the ship during its calamity — one Wednesday and one Thursday, a Carnival spokeswoman said.
The company, which has disputed accounts of guests who said the ship was filthy, said it was covering all the costs. And passengers are supposed to get a full refund, discounts on future cruises, and $500 in compensation, Carnival announced Wednesday. Such cruises typically cost $300-$500.
It’s not the first time Carnival has had trouble at sea. The latest calamity comes about a year after 32 people were killed when Carnival’s Costa Concordia ran aground off Tuscany and nearly capsized.
Carnival Chairman and CEO Micky Arison did not travel to Italy to personally manage the tragedy, and he’s taken an equally hands-off approach this time as well.
His only known public appearance since Sunday was when he sat in his courtside seats at Tuesday’s Miami Heat game, Reuters reported.
Passengers are seen sleeping on the deck of the Carnival Triumph cruise ship
.
The cruise ship docked in Mobile, Ala. The ship with more than 4,200 passengers
and crew members has been idled for nearly a week in the Gulf of Mexico following
an engine room fire.
General view of Carnival Cruise ship being pulled into port in Alabama.
People aboard the Carnival ship Triumph use their bodies to spell out the word 'help.'
This Sunday, Feb. 10, 2013 photo, provided by Kalin Hill, of Houston, shows passengers
with makeshift tents on the the deck of the Carnival Triumph cruise ship at sea in the
Gulf of Mexico. The ship nearing Mobile Bay is without engine power and is being towed
by tugboats.
The deck of the Triumph.
Source: Daily News, New York, USA.
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