Carnival cruise vacation ends, but at least the toilets are flushing

Pictured above, the Carnival Triumph, which lost power in the Gulf of Mexico in February.

By Matt Pearce

March 14, 2013 12 AM PT

Another Carnival Cruise ship, the Dream, was disabled Thursday, this time at its St. Maarten dock because of a problem with its emergency diesel generator, and the company and others took to Twitter to describe the situation.

This time around the toilets are working and there is plenty of food. But passengers will have to fly, not cruise, home in what is likely to be an abbreviated vacation.

The news of another stranded ship rekindled memories of the Carnival’s nightmare voyage home through the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago on the Triumph. On that ship, 3,141 passengers were stuck at sea with no power or working toilets.

The Dream has it much better. The faults with the generator were discovered while the ship was docked in St. Maarten, a beach haven in the northeastern Caribbean. The company has offered to fly passengers home and reimburse them for the three remaining days of the cruise, which began in Florida on Saturday.

“We can confirm that 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,” Carnival said in a statement. “Aside from that there have been no reports of issues on board with overflowing toilets or sewage.”

Carnival, perhaps still sensitive to the reports of Triumph passengers using plastic bags as toilets a few weeks ago, was eager to relay that point to journalists flocking to cover the outage.

Information on Carnival Dream and Alleged Toilet System Issues: bit.ly/ZQ0WqS — Carnival Cruise PR (@CarnivalPR) March 14, 2013

@ecflnewsWe would like to provide you with information regarding your tweet on Carnival Dream regarding toilets: bit.ly/ZQ0WqS — Carnival Cruise PR (@CarnivalPR) March 14, 2013

@gsbrownabc Saw your story on Carnival Dream, wanted to make sure you had the latest statement addressing toilets. bit.ly/ZQ0WqS — Carnival Cruise PR (@CarnivalPR) March 14, 2013

The malfunction at St. Maarten, perhaps predictably, did not hit well with the public.

As I’m looking 2 book a cruise news comes on cruise ship stranded guess I will change my plans lol — Lito (@NUBLUEYANKEE) March 14, 2013

not another #Carnival cruise ship stuck!!! I’m NEVER going on a #Cruise!! And to think at one point in my life I use to sell cruises!! LOL! — Gleeza(@madewithglee) March 14, 2013

Then there were those who had family and friends aboard.

My son is on the Carnival Dream,haven’t heard from him but I hear everything is working again.I would be having a few drinks. #carnivaldream — Lori Jablonski (@jabolori) March 14, 2013

My cousins are on a cruise and the engine brokeThey’ve been stuck for 13 hoursIt’s kinda funny — Chelsea (@chelseafriar928) March 14, 2013

Some passengers on the boat were also tweeting about their ordeal.

We’re on a boat anddddd it’s stuck on an islanddddd #carnivalnightmare #sos — Bethany Bea (@missbbea) March 14, 2013

I am having the most major #firstworldproblems My cruise ship is stranded at St. Maarten. — Nikki Turner (@ThatTrickyNikki) March 14, 2013

It’s a hard life... #Carnivalnightmare twitter.com/missbbea/statu… — Bethany Bea (@missbbea) March 14, 2013

Other passengers were less glib.

Stranded on a #Carnival cruise. Seriously? And I’m pretty sure they shut down the wifi to keep people quiet! — Isaac Odim (@izikoosumohdum) March 14, 2013