Update from Carnival at 11:45 am: “The Carnival Dream has a technical issue which our engineering team is currently working on. The ship is at dock in St. Maarten. At no time did the ship lose power but there were periodic interruptions to elevators and toilets for a few hours last night. However at this time all hotel systems are functioning normally and have been functional since approximately 12.30am. The ship has full power but is still at dock while personnel continue to work on the technical issue. The Carnival Dream was on a seven-day cruise and is based in Port Canaveral, Fla.”
Carnival is making arrangements to fly passengers home via charter flights. All passengers will receive a refund of 3 days of the cruise fare that they paid and 50% off a future cruise. The March 16 sailing has been canceled so repairs can be made. Guests who were scheduled to sail on this cruise will receive a full refund and 25% off a future cruise. All non-refundable travel expenses will be reimbursed.
Original article: Reports are coming in from the port of St Maarten that the Carnival Dream is experiencing mechanical problems and had not left port as scheduled. The ship was scheduled to head back to Ft Lauderdale at 5 pm on Wednesday. The issue appears to be a generator problem on the Dream that CCL is currently working on.
This incident comes a little over a month after another Carnival cruise ship had mechanical problems when the Carnival Triumph had a fire break out in one of its engine rooms. The Triumph had to be towed back to port after four long days at sea with minimal power.
Passengers on board the Dream have said that they are not allowed to leave the ship and the restrooms on board are not always functional. There were reports of overflowing toilets in stateroom cabins as well as many of the public restrooms. However, all hotel systems are currently functioning normally since shortly after midnight.
Toilets on cruise ships rely on power to work properly since they operate on a vacuum system to carry the waste away. Elevators on the Dream are also working periodically.
An announcement was made over the P.A. system on the ship that said they were having problems and working on the generators. A few hours later, another announcement informed passengers that the problem was worse than they had expected.
Little information has become available as of Thursday morning, and Cruise Fever is currently waiting for a response from Carnival. More detailed information should be available shortly.
The Carnival Dream is a one of Carnival’s largest cruise ships and can hold nearly 5,000 passengers and crew members. The Dream currently sails 7 night cruises to the Eastern and Western Caribbean out of Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Cruise Fever will continue to monitor the situation with the Dream and will update this page as more information becomes available.
