The corridors were filled with human waste in red biohazard bags. Floors became slippery due to overflowing toilets. The walls were covered in streaks of waste, emitting an unbearable smell.
These shocking events took place during the infamous ‘poop cruise’ in February 2013. A total of 3,100 passengers and 1,100 crew members were left stranded on the Carnival Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine room fire caused the ship to come to a halt, resulting in a complete bathroom shutdown.
As the passengers found themselves trapped in these dire conditions, they had no choice but to use showers for urination and bags for defecation. The overwhelming stench left them choking and with watery eyes, prompting them to resort to drastic measures and leading to disputes over dwindling food resources.
What was meant to be a fun four-day return trip from Galveston, Texas, to Cozumel in Mexico, turned into the cruise from hell.
The incredible drama is revisited in Netflix’s ‘Trainwreck: Poop Cruise’ documentary, which debuts on Tuesday, June 24.
Twelve years on, former passengers tell Daily Mail, they are still traumatized by their sickening ordeal and some have PTSD.
Oklahoma couple Matt Crusan, 54, and wife Melissa, 49, were among those who endured the disgusting conditions.
Shocking scenes unfolded on the notorious ‘poop cruise’ in February 2013 when 3,100 passengers and 1,100 crew were left stranded aboard the Carnival Triumph in the Gulf of Mexico after it was brought to a standstill by an engine room fireÂ
Passengers turned into ‘animals’ as they fought for limited food supplies. They were forced to camp on decks to avoid the overwhelming heat and stench from the overflowing toilets
Kendall Jenkins, a passenger on the infamous ‘poop cruise,’ kisses the ground after the the stricken cruise was towed into Mobile, Alabama, on February 14, 2013
‘Melissa watched about 30 seconds of the (Netflix) trailer and it was too much for her,’ Marine veteran Matt told Daily Mail of his spouse.
He said Melissa was diagnosed with PTSD in the aftermath of their harrowing voyage and still has flashbacks.Â
‘It suddenly brought back too many bad memories to the point it’s making her nause[ous].
‘It really was that bad. When she saw the red biohazard bags on the trailer she hasn’t been the same since.
‘Up to that point we mostly forgot about the details of it, but I guess that’s what PTSD does to a person.’
The doomed cruise left Galveston on February 7, 2013, and docked at Cozumel, 600 miles south, on February 9.
The following morning, the 890-foot-long vessel with a maximum speed of 20 knots, was 150 miles off the Yucatán Peninsula when a leaking fuel line sparked a fire.
Relieved passengers (pictured) finally escaped the ‘poop cruise’ after it was towed into port in Mobile
Passengers endured a tortuous journey across the Gulf of Mexico after an engine fire disabled the Carnival Triumph shipÂ
The Netflix documentary debuts on the streaming service on Tuesday, June 24
Without power the vessel began to drift. Toilets stopped working, refrigerators couldn’t cool food, the air conditioning shut down and and cabin temperatures soared.
The pervading, pungent smell of sewage was overwhelming.
Another former passenger, Christina Peaden, 49, shared a first deck stateroom with her three young daughters, at the time aged nine to 11, and then-husband Mark, 65.
She revealed to Daily Mail that other passengers began frantically ‘hoarding’ and fighting over rationed food supplies.
They acted ‘like animals’ and it was ‘every man for himself,’ she recalled.
‘The floors were wet from the plumbing and the odor was horrible, like being in a sewer.’
Christina Peaden told Daily Mail: ‘‘I realized how quickly things can change with humanity. They kind of act like animals and so I had to protect my kids’
Passengers were told by ship staff to urinate in showers and use the red bags to defecate but not to throw them overboard which was against international maritime law.
‘They told us to leave the bags in the hallway and they would be collected but in the last couple of days they didn’t,’ she said.
Christina and her daughters spent much of the time huddled at their assigned ‘muster station’ on deck next to a lifeboat.
‘I’d watched the Titanic and was going to have a seat on a freaking lifeboat, my kids too,’ she said.
Amid the turmoil, a friendly group of women also let Christina and the children use their ocean-facing suite, which came with a private balcony and cooling breeze, for safety.
She described trying to keep calm for the sake of the youngsters. ‘Your kids are going to pick up on that negative energy,’ she said.
‘I realized how quickly things can change with humanity,’ she noted. ‘They kind of act like animals and so I had to protect my kids.
‘People were grabbing three burgers and then they’d go to waste in the sun.’
Christina wrote a self-published book about her doomed trip on the Carnival Triumph
At one point, Captain Alessandro De Nova announced the bar ‘open’ with free alcohol for passengers which was ‘stupid’ and ‘disgusting’, commented Christina.
‘People were acting crazy and so they decided no more alcohol,’ she said. ‘It was a fiasco.’
‘The scariest part was when the ship was listing too much and I started praying hard. It was like watching a disaster movie.’ Â
The Triumph was eventually towed into dock in Mobile, Alabama on February 14, where relieved passengers were able to disembark and were taken back to Texas on a fleet of coaches.
Houston-based attorney Frank Spagnoletti represented about 100 passengers in a class-action lawsuit filed in Miami.
He told Daily Mail that Carnival staff were already aware of faulty fuel lines before the cruise departed for Mexico.
The ship, he insisted, ‘should never have put to sea with the known issues which was an inevitable risk to passengers.’
Passengers wrote on bedsheets to express their horror while trapped aboard the Triumph
Passengers, expecting a relaxing cruise to Mexico, instead had to defecate in red plastic bags
Human fecal matter was discharged all over the ship according to horrified passengers after the onboard sewage system stopped working due to an engine room fire
Passengers were forced to create their own makeshift camps to escape the stench below deck
Passengers were forced to defecate into red biohazard bags and leave them in the corridors to be collected by crew members
He said some women, who slept in groups under the stars to avoid the stifling heat below deck, were sexually assaulted by other passengers.
Spagnoletti, who revealed he is not a fan of cruises himself, added: ‘Many people were traumatized by what they went through.’
The lawsuit was eventually settled in 2015, with Carnival reportedly agreeing to pay millions of dollars in compensation to the affected passengers.
At the time, then-Carnival President and CEO Gerry Cahill said: ‘I want to again apologize to our guests and their friends and families. The situation on board was difficult and we are very sorry for what has happened.Â
‘We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience and clearly we failed in this case.’
Tay Redford, shown, described the ‘poop cruise’ as ‘the scariest thing I’ve ever been through’Â
Christina later wrote a self-published book about the nightmare called ‘Triumph Over Calamity,’ which, she said, reflects ‘my resilient spirit.’
The Texas native and her family took a complimentary four-day cruise the following year on the same ship after she underwent a $115 million repair and refit, although the author said she noticed a few spots of rust.
‘It’s like you fall off the horse and get back on again,’ she added. ‘I really didn’t want to go to Mexico again. I wanted to go to Alaska but I was outvoted.’
She hasn’t been on another cruise since.
Tay Redford was 12 at the time of the ill-fated cruise and said, based on viewing the trailer, that the documentary doesn’t capture the true horror.
The 24-year-old baker from Oklahoma said the experience was the ‘scariest thing I’ve ever been through.’Â
The ship underwent a $200 million bow-to-stern refurbishment in 2019 and was renamed Carnival Sunrise and she is still in service today based out of Miami.
‘The Carnival Triumph incident over 12 years ago was a teachable moment for the entire cruise industry,’ Carnival officials said in a statement to Daily Mail.
‘A thorough investigation following the incident revealed a design vulnerability which was corrected and led Carnival Cruise Line to invest more than $500 million across our entire fleet in comprehensive fire prevention and suppression, improved redundancy, and enhanced management systems, all in support of our commitment to robust safety standards.
‘We are proud of the fact that since 2013 over 53 million guests have enjoyed safe and memorable vacations with us, and we will continue to operate to these high standards.’
