Watch CBS News

Peeved passengers describe "chaos" on cruise ship

Passengers aboard a Halloween cruise to the Bahamas got more excitement than expected after their ship hit an unknown object as it headed back to Florida.

The Bahamas Celebration returned to Grand Bahama Island after the accident late Friday. The Celebration Cruise Line company said in a statement that passengers were evacuated from the ship and placed in several resorts pending their return to Florida.

The ship was supposed to have arrived in Palm Beach, Florida, early Saturday. Instead, it arrived late Saturday night in PortMiami and were put on a shuttle to West Palm Beach, reports CBS Miami.

Passengers were none-too-pleased.

"This trip has turned out to be an absolute disaster and it made us never want to go on a cruise ship again Joan Fischer, of Boynton Beach, Florida, told the station. "We all got stuck last night at 8 o'clock, the lights blew out (while) we were all eating. It became total chaos. There was no one able to manage what was going on. But they had us waiting for four hours this afternoon before we could get on the next boat. They gave us no food, they gave us nothing. There was chaos upstairs, chaos downstairs. There was no organization. It was the worst trip I've ever been on and I will never cruise again."

There were no reported injuries, but Fischer told of one.

"They did not have life jackets for us in the rooms," she said. "We had to go meet on certain stations. I fell three times, my girlfriend broke her toe. Then it went dark, they had no generators going. And then we had to wait almost four hours before they got a ramp to get us down. Then they took us to a hotel and we slept in a hotel. Then this morning they told us we had to be back by 11 o'clock and we got there at 11 and we had to wait until 5 o'clock until we were able to get on another ship."

Another passenger, Sandra Douglas of Houston, told CBS Miami, "All I know is that it just went black. The lights went completely out. Then they came on for a second and then they went back out. And then the sirens started and they said this was the real thing. Then we had to go back to our floors to get the instructions and the life preservers and things like that.

"People did panic but that's human nature. I tried to see the bright side of it ... by trying to stay calm, because there's nothing you can do anyway, so you might as well try to go with the flow."

Crews were working to assess damage to the ship and the company said it would cancel at least two cruises planned for the vessel.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.