Another Carnival Cruise Ship, “Dream” in Troubled Waters
Carnival Dream cruise stuck in Philipsburg, St. Maarten, passengers report overflowing toilets
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By: Tina Burnside and Ed Payne, CNN
A month after a fire crippled a Carnival ship in the Gulf of Mexico, another one of the cruise line’s vessels may be experiencing its own problems.
Multiple passengers aboard the Carnival Dream have contacted CNN, telling stories of power outages and overflowing toilets, all while docked in port at Philipsburg, St. Maarten, in the eastern Caribbean.
“We are not allowed off of the boat despite the fact that we have no way to use the restrooms on board,” Jonathan Evans of Reidsville, North Carolina, said in an e-mail early Thursday. “The cruise director is giving passengers very limited information and tons of empty promises. What was supposed to take a hour has turned into 7+ hours.”
The Dream was scheduled to leave port around 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
Click here for possible live video from aboard the cruise (http://bit.ly/WJkOgE)
Gregg Stark, who is traveling with his wife and two young children, told a similar story.
“There’s human waste all over the floor in some of the bathrooms and they’re overflowing — and in the state rooms,” he said. “The elevators have not been working. They’ve been turning them on and off, on and off.”
An announcement over the ship’s public address system said they were trying to fix the problem and were working on the generators, according to Stark. A few hours later, another announcement was made, saying the problem was worse than expected.
When told of the complaints, Carnival representative Vance Gulliksen said late Wednesday night he wasn’t aware of a problem. Several subsequent calls to the cruise line went unanswered.
The U.S. Coast Guard said there were no reports of an incident, adding cruise lines typically give a courtesy call even when they’re experiencing minor problems.
Carnival, said Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios, had not requested assistance — and there’s little the Coast Guard can do. Because the ship is at port in St. Maarten, it’s outside the Coast Guard’s jurisdiction.
The Dream, which can carry more than 5,000 passengers and crew, sailed from Port Canaveral in Florida on Saturday.
The reports are similar to those that came from the Carnival Triumph last month.
An engine room fire left that cruise ship crippled and adrift in the Gulf of Mexico with more than 4,200 people aboard.
The scheduled four-day cruise stretched into eight days as tugs pulled the vessel into port. Food was scarce and passengers sweltered in the heat with no air conditioning.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Carnival Corporation in the aftermath.
