Here We Go Again: Another Carnival Cruise Ship Breakdown

It turns out that the Carnival cruise ship, "Dream" is not such a dream after all, more like a nightmare for some passengers on board that ship docked in port at Philipsburg, St. Maarten, in the eastern Caribbean.   According to CNN, passengers told them of power outages and overflowing toilets while in port at Philipsburg.  Ironically, these reports come just two days after Carnival Cruise Lines announced it was conducting "a comprehensive review" of all its 23 ships.

One passenger, Jonathan Evans of Reidsville, North Carolina, said in an e-mail early Thursday: "We are not allowed off of the boat despite the fact that we have no way to use the restrooms on board. The cruise director is giving passengers very limited information and tons of empty promises. What was supposed to take an hour has turned into 7-plus hours."  Meanwhile, Carnival is spinning a very different report claiming that the ship never actually lost power but there were "periodic interruptions to elevators and toilets for a few hours (Wednesday night). However, at this time all systems are functioning normally and have been functional since approximately 12:30 a.m. (Thursday morning)." Apparently Carnival did not get their "technical issue" worked out because Coast Guard Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios says the ship's emergency generator, which provide engine propulsion has failed.  Carnival says it will fly all passengers home, give out refunds, and a discount off a future cruise.  It's another major "Ooops!" for Carnival Cruise line that could turn out to be quite costly.