More cruises axed on troubled ship

Carnival Cruise Lines has cancelled a dozen more planned voyages aboard the Triumph.

More cruises axed on troubled ship

Carnival Cruise Lines has cancelled a dozen more planned voyages aboard the Triumph.

The company admitted 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.

The firm’s announcement came as the Triumph was being towed to a port in Mobile, Alabama, with more than 4,000 people on board, some of whom have complained that conditions on the ship are dismal and that they have limited access to food and bathrooms.

The ship will be idle during April and two other cruises were called off shortly after Sunday’s fire.

Debbi Smedley, a passenger on a recent Triumph cruise, said the ship had trouble on January 28 as it was preparing to leave Galveston, Texas.

Hours before the scheduled departure time, she received an email from Carnival stating the vessel would leave late because of a propulsion problem.

Passengers were asked to arrive at the port at 2pm, two hours later than originally scheduled.

The ship did not sail until after 8pm, she said.

“My mother is a cruise travel agent so this is not my first rodeo. I have sailed many, many cruises, many, many cruise lines. This was, by far, I have to say, the worst,” said Ms Smedley, of Plano, Texas.

After losing power on its most recent journey, the ship drifted until Tuesday, when two tugboats began moving it towards shore. A third tugboat was on its way from Louisiana early today.

The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into the fire.

Passengers have had limited mobile phone service because of the power failure, but many were able to make calls to friends and family when the Triumph was joined by another Carnival ship with a working cellular antenna that dropped off food and supplies.

Robert Giordano, of the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, said he last spoke to his wife Shannon on Monday. She told him she waited in line for three hours to get a hot dog, and conditions on the ship were terrible.

“They’re having to urinate in the shower. They’ve been passed out plastic bags to go to the bathroom,” Mr Giordano said. “There was faecal matter all over the floor.”

Even more distressing, he said, had been the lack of information from Carnival, a complaint shared by Vivian Tilley, of San Diego, California, whose sister is also on the vessel.

Carnival, she said, had not told families what hotel passengers would be put in or provided precise information about when they would arrive in Mobile.

Ms Tilley said her sister, Renee Shanar, of Houston, Texas, told her the cabins were hot and smelled like smoke from the engine fire, forcing passengers to stay on deck. She also said people were getting sick.

“It’s a nightmare,” Ms Tilley said.

Meanwhile, officials in Mobile are preparing a cruise terminal that has not been used for a year to help passengers go through customs after their ordeal.

The Triumph is expected to arrive this afternoon local time.

The cruise ship company has chartered 15 buses to take passengers to hotels in New Orleans and central Mobile, said Barbara Drummond, a spokeswoman for the city of Mobile.

Carnival said passengers would also be able to fly home on chartered flights.

The company has disputed the accounts of passengers who describe the ship as filthy, saying employees are doing everything to ensure people are comfortable.

Passengers are supposed to receive a full refund and discounts on future cruises and Carnival announced yesterday they would each receive an additional $500 (€371.5m) in compensation.

“We know it has been a longer journey back than we anticipated at the beginning of the week under very challenging circumstances,” Carnival president and chief executive Gary Cahill said. “We are very sorry for what our guests have had to endure.”

Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen acknowledged the Triumph’s recent mechanical woes, saying there was an electrical problem with the ship’s alternator on the previous voyage. Repairs were completed on February 2.

Testing of the repaired part was successful and “there is no evidence at this time of any relationship between this previous issue and the fire that occurred on February 10”, he said.

But according to the email sent to passengers on January 28, the issue affected the ship’s cruising speeds, delaying its arrival in Galveston.

The email, signed by Vicky Rey, vice president of guest services, also informed Ms Smedley and other passengers that the propulsion problem would prevent them from docking at two ports.

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