FOXNews.com: Passengers Disembark Disabled Ship

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Passengers Disembark Disabled Ship Feb 15th 2013, 06:05 The first buses carrying passengers from a cruise ship disabled for days at sea are pulling away to take them to next stop on their journey. The cruise ship terminal in Mobile, Ala., was raucous late Thursday as the first of some 3,000 passengers streamed off the Carnival Triumph, a cruise ship passengers compared to a shanty town due to reports of vile conditions onboard. Pulled by a tugboat at a maddeningly slow pace, the ship finally arrived in the port at about 9:15 p.m. Central time Thursday after taking about six grueling hours to be towed from the mouth of Mobile Bay some 30 miles to the port. Anxious passengers were lining the decks waving, cheering loudly and whistling to those on shore, but had hours to wait before they can walk on solid ground. Earlier, Terry Thornton, a senior vice president of marketing, said passengers will be disembarked shortly after the vessel arrives. Even though the ship has been fully cleared by customs and Border Patrol, the process could still take four to five hours as there is only one functioning elevator on the ship. He said warm food, blankets, and cellphones await passengers, and that the ship would be taken Friday to a nearby shipyard to be assessed. Once off the ship, most passengers will head on another journey, this time via bus. Carnival said the 3,143 passengers and 1,086-person crew had the option of a seven-hour bus ride to the Texas cities of Galveston or Houston or a two-hour trip to New Orleans. The company said it had booked 1,500 hotel rooms in the Louisiana city, and passengers staying there would be flown Friday to Houston. "I can't imagine being on that ship this morning and then getting on a bus," said Kirk Hill, whose 30-year-old daughter, Kalin Christine Hill, is on the cruise. "If I hit land in Mobile, you'd have a hard time getting me on a bus." Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill apologized at a news conference late Thursday. "I appreciate the patience of our guests and their ability to cope with the situation. And I'd like to reiterate the apology I made earlier. I know the conditions on board were every poor," he said. "We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case." On Thursday night, dozens of chartered buses -- with markings from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas -- had gathered in Mobile. Carnival said 100 buses had been reserved and that it will cover transportation costs. The cruise was initially supposed to arrive sometime Thursday afternoon, but the company later pushed the expected time to sometime between 8 and 11 p.m. The latest problem is a broken towline that is creating a new delay, a Coast Guard spokesman said. Thelbert Lanier was waiting at the port for his wife, who texted him early Thursday. "Room smells like an outhouse. Cold water only, toilets haven't work in 3 1/2 days. Happy Valentines Day!!! I love u & wish I was there," she said in the text message, which was viewed by The Associated Press. "It's 4:00 am. Can't sleep...it's cold & I'm starting to get sick." Renee Shanar was on board with her husband. In a text message to AP, she said Carnival told the passengers they are delayed again "because of winds." "We think they don't want media there," she wrote. Shanar said conditions were "horrible." There was food, but bathrooms weren't flushing. "People have gotten food poisoning. Old people have fallen and hurt themselves," she wrote in a text message. SEND TIPS TO NEWSMANAGER@FOXNEWS.COM Carnival Cruise Lines said Wednesday all guests on board will receive a full refund for the cruise, as well as a future cruise credit equal to the amount paid for the trip and an additional $500. The conditions on the ship appeared to be deteriorating prior to the ship's arrival in Mobile. Passengers complained of smelling raw sewage and eating a steady diet of onion sandwiches. Some passengers, seeking refugee from the smell, reportedly opened what is referred to as a shanty town on the deck. Vivian Tilley, whose sister, Renee Shanar, is on the ship, said Shanar, of Houston, told her the cabins were hot and smelled like smoke from the engine fire, forcing passengers to stay on the deck. She also said people were getting sick. The company has disputed the accounts of passengers who describe the ship as filthy, saying employees are doing everything to ensure people are comfortable. Mobile Mayor Sam Jones questioned the plan to bus passengers to other cities late Wednesday, saying the city has more than enough hotel rooms to accommodate passengers and its two airports are near the cruise terminal. "We raised the issue that it would be a lot easier to take a five-minute bus ride than a two-hour bus ride" to New Orleans, Jones said. Jones said Carnival employees will be staying in Mobile, adding he was not told of the company's reasoning for putting passengers on extended bus rides after their experience at sea. "I don't know if the passengers even know that," Jones said. Earlier Wednesday, Carnival Cruise Lines canceled a dozen more planned voyages aboard the Triumph and acknowledged that the crippled ship had been plagued by other mechanical problems in the weeks before the engine-room blaze. The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into the cause. "We know it has been a longer journey back than we anticipated at the beginning of the week under very challenging circumstances," Cahill, the company's president, said. "We are very sorry for what our guests have had to endure." Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen acknowledged the Triumph's recent mechanical woes, explaining that there was an electrical problem with the ship's alternator on the previous voyage. Repairs were completed Feb. 2. Testing of the repaired part was successful and "there is no evidence at this time of any relationship between this previous issue and the fire that occurred on Feb. 10." Debbi Smedley, a passenger on a recent Triumph cruise, said the ship had trouble Jan. 28 as it was preparing to leave Galveston. Hours before the scheduled departure time, she received an email from Carnival stating the vessel would leave late because of a propulsion problem. Passengers were asked to arrive at the port at 2 p.m., two hours later than originally scheduled. The ship did not sail until after 8 p.m., she said. "My mother is a cruise travel agent so this is not my first rodeo. I have sailed many, many cruises, many, many cruise lines. This was, by far, I have to say, the worst," said Smedley, of Plano, Texas. Communication with passengers on the Triumph has been limited to brief windows when other cruise ships with working cellular towers have rendezvoused to deliver supplies, but some relatives have reported being told of uncomfortable and unsanitary conditions. Robert Giordano, of the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond, said he last spoke to his wife, Shannon, on Monday. She told him she waited in line for three hours to get a hot dog and that conditions on the ship were terrible. "They're having to urinate in the shower. They've been passed out plastic bags to go to the bathroom," Giordano said. "There was fecal matter all over the floor." Even more distressing, Giordano said, has been the lack of information he has been able to get from Carnival, a complaint shared by Tilley, of San Diego. Carnival, she said, has not told families what hotel passengers will be put in or provided precise information about when they will arrive in Mobile. And that came after the cruise line switched the ship's towing destination from Progreso, Mexico, to Mobile. Passengers are supposed to get a full refund and discounts on future cruises, and Carnival announced Wednesday they would each get an additional $500 in compensation. Once docked, the ship will be idle through April. In addition to the dozen voyages canceled Wednesday, two other cruises were called off shortly after Sunday's fire. Jay Herring, a former senior officer with Carnival Cruise Lines who worked on the Triumph from 2002 to 2004, said the ship was not problematic when he was on it. The Triumph takes five generators -- with one on backup -- to power the ship, and 80 percent of that energy is needed to simply push the massive vessel through the water, Herring said. Each of those generators is the size of a bus, so it's unrealistic to think that the ship could have enough backup power on board to run services when the engines die, Herring added. "It's one of their bigger ships. It's certainly on the top end of Carnival's fleet," he said of the Triumph. "There are so many moving parts and things that can go wrong." SEND TIPS TO NEWSMANAGER@FOXNEWS.COM The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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