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18 February 2013 09:31
Passengers aboard Carnival Triumph wave to those ashore after docking in Mobile (AP)
A cruise liner company boss personally apologised to passengers for the atrocious conditions they suffered when a ship was left adrift forn five days. Customers told nightmare stories of overflowing toilets, food shortages, awful smells and dangerous, dark passageways while the Triumph was adrift in the Gulf of Mexico. An engine room fire had disabled the power.
Now Carnival Cruise Lines' chief executive Gerry Cahill has said sorry on the ship's public address system, to the 3,000 holidaymakers on board, saying he appreciated their patience. Mr Cahill said that his company was proud of providing tourists with great holidays "and we clearly failed in this particular case". Such incidents highlight the need to make carefully laid plans beforehand, and you can travel in confidence with cost-effective cruise travel insurance.
Conditions got so bad there that passengers waiting to leave the 14-storey cruiser shouted "Let me off! Let me off!" after it finally limped into dock at Mobile, Alabama. It took six arduous hours for at least four tugboats to guide the giant ship - at 893ft (272 metres) the largest cruise ship ever to anchor at Mobile - to dock. Carnival has scrapped 12 further scheduled trips aboard the Triumph.
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