Crippled cruise ship arrives at U.S. port after hellish trip

MOBILE, Alabama (AFP) ― The stricken Carnival cruise ship Triumph arrived back in port late Thursday, ending a nightmarish ocean voyage for some 4,000 desperate passengers and crew after it lost power over the weekend.

At a little after 9 p.m. Thursday, the crippled ship limped into the port in Mobile, Alabama, after being towed here by a flotilla of tugboats. Families cheered from dockside and waved to relatives who stood on the deck of the darkened ocean liner, which has been likened to a massive hulking skyscraper on the open water.

Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill told reporters shortly after Triumph’s arrival here that the first order of business would be to apologize to the passengers for their ordeal.

“I would like to reiterate the apology that I made earlier, because I know that the conditions on board were very poor and it was very difficult, and I want to apologize again to subjecting the guests to that,” he said.

“We pride ourselves in providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case.”

What was supposed to have been a pleasurable excursion in the Gulf of Mexico turned into a hellish ordeal after an engine room fire on Sunday left the ship without the power needed to prepare meals or flush toilets.

A flotilla of tugboats was pulling the massive ocean liner into port, in an operation that took longer than anticipated because of a delay when the towline for one of the boats snapped and had to be replaced.