Carnival
officials, in a statement to FoxNews.com, said the ship has a
"technical issue" with its backup emergency diesel
generator that is currently being worked on by its engineering team.
“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.”
Approximately
4,300 passengers and roughly 1,100 crew members were aboard the ship,
a Carnival spokesman told FoxNews.com.
A
U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman in Miami told the Associated Press
Thursday that Carnival Dream's captain reported possible trouble with
the ship's propulsion system. Petty Officer Sabrina Laberdesque said
the ship has sewage and power and officials are working to correct
the problems. She says the Coast Guard is not involved because the
ship is moored.
Carnival
officials said in a statement that they “can confirm only one
public restroom was taken offline for cleaning based on toilet
overflow and there was a total of one request for cleaning of a guest
cabin bathroom. Aside from that there have been no reports of issues
on board with overflowing toilets or sewage."
As
engineers work on the technical issue, arrangements are being made to
fly all guests home via private charter flights and scheduled flights
from St. Maarten. Passengers will receive a refund equivalent to
three days of the voyage and 50 percent off a future cruise, Carnival
officials said.
The
ship’s next voyage, scheduled for Saturday, has also been canceled.
Guests scheduled to sail on that cruise will receive a full refund
and 25 percent off a future seven-day cruise. Any non-refundable
transportation related expenses will also be reimbursed.
Multiple
passengers aboard the Carnival Dream told CNN.com of the unpleasant
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."
GreggStark, who is traveling aboard the 1,004-foot liner with his wife and
two children, said “human waste” was found on the floor of some
of the ship’s bathrooms and that some toilets had overflowed. The
ship also had mechanical issues, he said.
"The
elevators have not been working,” Stark told CNN. “They've been
turning them on and off, on and off."
Several
passengers told The Associated Press, however, that power and water
were out for just 10-20 minutes on Wednesday evening, contradicting
reports of longer outages and unsanitary conditions.
"We
have toilets. We have water. It's no different than a regular day at
sea," said 31-year-old Tasha Larson of Winston-Salem, N.C.,
after disembarking with her boyfriend to spend the day in St.
Maarten.
Mary and Terry Washington of Tampa, Florida, said the generator
malfunction gave them an additional day to spend in St. Maarten.
"The
plumbing is fine," Mary Washington said. "The food is fine.
Everything is fine."
Ship
officials announced over the liner’s public address system that
they were trying to fix the problem and were working on the
generators. A few hours later, another announcement was made, saying
the problem was worse than expected, Stark said.
The
Dream had been scheduled to leave port at about 5 p.m. ET Wednesday
after sailing from Port Canaveral on Saturday.
Vance Gulliksen, a Carnival spokesman, told CNN late Wednesday he wasn't
aware of a problem. In a message posted on its Facebook page later
Thursday, Carnival said there were brief interruptions to elevators
and toilets Wednesday night.
A
class-action lawsuit has been filed against Carnival Corp. following
last month’s fire in an engine room that crippled the Carnival
Triumph, leaving more than 4,200 passengers without power or working
toilets for five days.
A
Coast Guard official said a leak in a fuel oil return line caused the
fire that disabled the massive 14-story vessel.
Cruise
industry expert Andrew Coggins, a former Navy commander who is now a
professor at Pace University in New York, said the fire could
potentially have been serious.
"The
problem is the oil's under pressure," he told the AssociatedPress. "What happens in the case of a fuel oil leak where you
have a fire like that is it leaks in such a way that it sprays out in
a mist. In the engine room you have many hot surfaces, so once the
mist hits a hot surface it will flash into flame."
"Fortunately
this latest incident occurred close to a port, but it does underscore
the inherent vulnerabilities of cruise ship travel," Peltz said
in a statement. "When a ship loses power while at sea, its
passengers and crew are at severe risk for injury or death. Far too
often, ships left without power are left at the mercy of unstable
currents and unpredictable weather. The cruise industry needs to go
beyond lip service and take meaningful steps to ensure this dangerous
problem does not continue to keep occurring."
Source:foxnews
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