Stranded Carnival Cruise Passengers Report Human Waste on Floor

By Chris Joseph Thu., Mar. 14 2013 at 2:51 PM

Categories: Cruise Ships

After getting stuck for the past two days thanks to a generator failure that has stopped some of the toilets from working, Carnival Cruise's Dream is flying passengers off the ship.

The good news is that the ship was not stuck in the middle of the sea but rather on the dock at Philipsburg, St. Maarten, in the eastern Caribbean.

The bad news is that passengers were not allowed to disembark during the "blackout."

The really bad news: Shit and pee has been reported to be overflowing from some toilets.

The Dream had been on its final stop of a Caribbean cruise in St. Maarten when passengers were told they would not be departing back to Florida any time soon.

Passengers were told there was a "technical issue" with its backup emergency diesel generator.

"There's human waste all over the floor in some of the bathrooms, and they're overflowing -- and in the state rooms," passenger Gregg Stark, who is traveling with his wife and children, told CNN.

This marks the second incident for Carnival in a month, when another ship was disabled by a fire that trapped thousands of passengers. This one was stranded at sea for several days.

In a statement via its Facebook page, Carnival said it would be flying all of The Dream's 4,300 passengers out of St. Maarten and back home via private charter.

Those affected with nonworking toilets and elevators were promised a refund, as well as a 50 percent discount should they decide that riding on a giant boat with the possibility of being stranded at sea and walking around in ankle-deep human waste would be a fun idea again.

The Dream cruise took passengers through the Caribbean for seven days.

The refund will be for only three of those days.

The Dream was set to sail again Saturday, but that voyage has been canceled.

This is the second time in a week in which a cruise ship has had some technical issues.

Last week, Royal Caribbean's Vision of the Seas had to be return to port after several passengers and crew reported having diarrhea thanks to an onboard norovirus.