Carnival Cruise Passengers In Trouble - Again!

People who thought that they were reading old news reports when stories of overflowing toilets on a Carnival Cruise surfaced this week are sadly mistaken.

Just one month after passengers on a Carnival Cruise trip in the Gulf of Mexico experienced hellish conditions after the engines caught fire, yet another Carnival cruise liner has broken down, creating electrical outages and disruption of services, this time near the island of St. Maarten.

According to a company statement, there were more than 4,000 passengers and 1100 crew members aboard the Carnival Dream when a generator failed during testing and the captain alerted officials on shore of a possible problem with the ship's propulsion system.

“Yesterday, during regularly scheduled testing of the ship’s emergency diesel generator, a malfunction occurred,” the statement read. “At no time did the ship lose power and the ship’s propulsion systems and primary power source was not impacted. The ship is at dock in St. Maarten. All guests are safe and comfortable. There were periodic interruptions to elevators and restroom services for a few hours last night. However, all hotel systems are functioning normally and have been functional since approximately 12:30 a.m.”

Speaking to CNN, multiple passengers aboard the Carnival Dream described the situation unfolding situation while docked in port at Philipsburg, St. Maarten.

"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, N.C., said in an email early Thursday. "The cruise director is giving passengers very limited information and tons of empty promises. What was supposed to take an hour has turned into seven-plus hours."

Another passenger tells the Huffington Post, things aren't so bad.

"We have toilets. We have water. It's no different than a regular day at sea," Tasha Larson, 31, from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said after disembarking with her boyfriend to spend the day in St. Maarten.

Rather than subjecting the passengers to an almost a weeklong of hellish living conditions, Carnival is arranging for scheduled commercial as well as chartered air flights to fly all passengers home. In addition, next week's Carnival Dream cruise has been cancelled while the ship undergoes an overhaul.

The Dream was on a seven-day cruise of the Caribbean with 3,646 passengers. The ship's March 16 voyage from Port Canaveral has been canceled.

On The Web:

New Carnival nightmare: Passengers being flown home from troubled cruise
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/03/14/power-outages-overflowing-toilets-reportedly-plague-another-carnival-cruise/

Carnival Dream Cruise Ship Reports Problems In St. Maarten
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/14/carnival-dream-cruise-ship-trouble_n_2875153.html