SAN DIEGO — Three days after an engine fire shut down all electricity on a Carnival cruise ship, stranding nearly 4,500 passengers and crew members at sea, the vessel was pulled to shore here by several tugboats early Thursday morning.
The 1,000-foot ship — twice as large as the Titanic — was docked at about 9 a.m. Pacific time,, but it was expected to take several hours to remove all the passengers.
The ship sailed from Long Beach on Sunday for what was supposed to be a seven-day trip through the Mexican Riviera. It was 44 miles off shore, roughly 200 miles south of San Diego, when the fire broke out.
Since then, passengers on the ship have been subsisting on cold food — lining up for hours for menus that featured Spam, Pop-Tarts and canned crab meat. On Wednesday night there was a special treat of meatballs with barbecue sauce. One passenger, Joey Noriega, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that people were also eating and drinking “warm yogurt and warm milk.”
“Everything smells like it’s spoiled,” he said. “It’s disgusting. You’re afraid to eat it because it’s been left out and touched by everyone else on the ship.”
Passengers were also offered free wine and beer, and Carnival has promised to refund passengers fare and reimburse them for travel costs — as well as offer a voucher for another cruise.
The engine room fire early Monday morning knocked out electricity, leaving the ship without air conditioning, hot water or chlorine pumps for the swimming pool. Several toilets did not work and most bathrooms remained dark. Passengers have told friends and family that they were passing the time by playing cards and participating in group sing-a-longs.
The ship’s cruise director, John Heald, said in a blog post that while some passengers would call it the “cruise from hell,” most “have risen to the obvious challenges and difficult conditions.”
Carnival officials have said that they had no reason to believe that any other ships in the fleet were at risk. The ship is expected to stay in San Diego for repairs, and Coast Guard officials will investigate the cause of the fire.
“We’ve never had anything like this happen before, so I really don’t think we have any risks to other ships,” Gerry Cahill, the chief executive of Carnival Cruise Lines said at a news conference Wednesday. “This is a very unusual situation.”
(source:nytimes.com)
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