The five-day saga behind the Carnival Triumph, a luxury cruise turned nightmare vacation, came to an end after thousands of passengers disembarked on Thursday. But the ride home wasn't smooth for everyone as some passengers were faced with not only a broken cruise liner but a broken bus as well.
After staying Thursday night in the city of Mobile, Ala., where the Triumph was towed in by tug boats, roughly 3, 000 passengers boarded chartered buses set for New Orleans and Galveston, Texas. According to CBS News, one of the buses bound for New Orleans broke down, leaving passengers stranded — again.
"You wouldn't think after the ship nightmare, that on the bus ride to New Orleans, the bus would break down," Carnival passenger Jacob Combs told CNN on Friday, after the bus finally arrived in New Orleans. Combs said that passengers head a loud popping sound 45 minutes into the drive, forcing the bus to pull over to the side of Interstate 10. The passengers had to wait about 45 minutes until a replacement bus arrived. No other buses reported any issues driving back.
The bus delay is just the latest of incidents to plague the cruise ship after an engine fire left the ship immobile on the Gulf of Mexico earlier in the week. Amid the reports of passengers forced to contend with unsanitary conditions like non-working toilets, urine-soaked carpets; passengers also had to deal with foul smells and sleeping in the rain after they weren't able to return to their cabins since the boat had lost all power.
Earlier on Thursday, officials with Carnival had to push back its estimates after one of the four cables linked to the tug boats towing the broken boat snapped, reports NBC News. Still passengers were relieved to say the very least to be on solid ground when everything was said and done.
"This is my first and last cruise. So if anyone wants my free cruise, look me up,'' said Kendall Jenkins, 24, of Houston in an interview with the Associated Press, referring to compensation offered by Carnival Cruise Line. Bounding off the ship Thursday night clad in bathrobes, she and her friend Brittany Ferguson immediately kissed the pavement at the Port of Mobile in Alabama.
With Files Form The Associated Press
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