The Carnival ship Carnival Dream is currently docked in St. Maarten in the Caribbean because of equipment malfunctions. The failure of the Dream, which is being described as a “technical issue” by Carnival, has led to various problems on the ship, with one passenger complaining to CNN that human waste is all over the floors of some bathrooms because of overflow. Some of the elevators on board the Carnival Dream are also not working, an issue that is presumably tied to the reported power outages occurring on the ship.
It’s been a rough year so far for Carnival, the world’s largest cruise ship operator. Last month, the Carnival Triumph was stuck at sea for several days after a fire in the engine room knocked out the ship’s power. (This ill-fated vacation has since been called the “cruise from hell.”) Now Carnival has another ordeal on their hands – one that is similar in many ways to the Triumph debacle – with the failure of the Carnival Dream. And we are only halfway through the third month of the year.
According to Carnival, the Dream experienced problems because a backup generator malfunctioned. Carnival emphasized that at no point did the ship lose power – its primary source of power remained functional – but the disruption nevertheless caused problems with the bathroom and elevator systems for a few hours last night.
If the problems with the Dream would have only happened about a day later, Carnival could have avoided another embarrassment. The Dream’s seven-day journey was close to coming to an end – the ship was supposed to leave St. Maarten yesterday to begin the journey home. After the backup generator failed, however, the ship was forced to stay docked. Now, instead of sailing home, the thousands of passengers on board the ship will be flown home directly from St Maarten. Passengers will get reimbursed for three days of the trip, and they will each received a 50 percent discount on a future cruise (should they choose to roll the dice with a Carnival vacation again).