The Carnival Triumph set sail in February 2013 with 4,200 people on board. It was supposed to be a four-day round trip from Galveston to Cozumel. It turned into an eight-day floating disaster. A fire in the engine room knocked out power. That killed propulsion, refrigeration, air conditioning, and every toilet on the ship. The vessel drifted in the Gulf of Mexico for five days. The sewage backed up. The food spoiled. The lights went dark. The ship earned a new name. Poop Cruise.
Netflix just released the footage. The new documentary, part of its Trainwreck series, is called Poop Cruise. It features raw interviews with passengers and crew. They describe the moment the fire broke out. Flames shot from the ship’s red fin. The alarms blared. The power cut. The toilets stopped. The cruise director told passengers to urinate in the showers and defecate in red biohazard bags. Those bags were handed out by staff. Some passengers threw them overboard. One bag boomeranged back onto the deck.
The ship’s interior turned into a swamp. Passengers slept on deck to escape the stench. Others lined the hallways with plastic bags filled with human waste. A chef described smoke rising through the kitchen drains. A passenger named Jayme said she thought it was the Titanic. Another, Ashley, said the flames were the first thing she saw when she stepped onto the lido deck. The crew tried to calm the panic. It didn’t work.
The ship had no refrigeration. Food spoiled fast. The bar opened for free drinks. That made things worse. People got drunk. Fights broke out. The crew lost control. The ship floated without power for five days before being towed to Mobile, Alabama. The passengers were finally allowed off. Carnival offered refunds and credits. Lawsuits followed.
The documentary shows footage from inside the ship. Red bags stacked in hallways. Passengers crying. Crew members overwhelmed. The smell was described as unbearable. One passenger said the air felt thick with sickness. Another said she took Imodium and refused to eat to avoid using the bags.
The Carnival Triumph was later renamed. The company tried to move on. The passengers didn’t. The footage stayed buried until now. Netflix dug it up. The documentary is streaming now. It’s not for the squeamish.
Sources
https://ew.com/trainwreck-poop-cruise-netflix-documentary-11760603