Weary and miserable, sickened by the stench of sewage, the last of more than 3,000 passengers walked off a hobbled cruise ship Friday after tugboats lugged it to the Alabama shore and finally brought an end to a five-day floating nightmare.
As they filed off the vessel, the Carnival Triumph, people kissed loved ones and the ground beneath them. They gobbled down fresh food, took hot showers and gave thanks for the simple pleasures of power and functional plumbing.
The last passenger disembarked just before 2 a.m.
?It was really rough,? Julie Billings told NBC News. ?It was like post-natural disaster, but stuck on a boat with 3,200 other people, and those poor workers trying to clean up after everyone and deal with everyone freaking out.?
The ship, three football fields long and more than 100,000 tons, lost power Sunday after a fire in the engine room and had to be towed to land. It was tugged first toward Mexico, then toward Mobile, Ala., after strong wind in the Gulf of Mexico carried it north.
On the last day of the rescue, the agony was prolonged by a snapped cable connecting the Triumph to one of four tugboats, to say nothing of the logistical challenge of easing a 100,000-ton behemoth safely into port when it had no power to steer itself.
Carnival had workers in place to provide passengers with warm food, blankets, phones and refreshments. Buses took them to Galveston, Texas, where many had left their cars at the start of the voyage, or to hotels.
On Thursday, as the ship came within sight of land and within reach of a cellphone signal, passengers began sending photos of the ordeal. As they left the ship, they told horror stories to match.
?You just couldn?t walk down the hall without smelling sewer,? Janie Baker told MSNBC from Mobile. ?It truly has been a very trying, rough, rough time.?
Baker said that the crew was ?fantastic? and kept their spirits up, but said that by the final night, ?people?s tempers started flying.? She described one incident in which a passenger tried to disrupt a movie and was taken away by the crew.
?If we had gone any longer, it could have been much, much worse,? Baker said.
In the sweltering heat, passengers set up tent cities on outdoor decks, hoping to catch a breeze or simply unwilling to endure the stench emanating from inside. One passenger compared the smell to a zoo.
?Going to the bathroom in plastic bags and then handing it to another human being to throw it away ? that is just the most embarrassing thing,? one passenger, Jayme Lamm, told MSNBC.
As they neared home, some people aboard chanted, ?Let me off, let me off!? They used bedsheets to make giant signs, visible from news helicopters hovering around the boat, that said, ?SOS!? or ?Sweet Home Alabama!?
?The ship?s afloat, so is the sewage,? another said.
The government is investigating the engine-room fire. Carnival, which has suspended its cruises through mid-April, will give $500 to each passenger from the Triumph, plus reimbursement for the cruise and a free future cruise.
It was not clear how many would take the company up on the offer.
?Not with Carnival,? Billings said. ?Not yet.?
Slideshow: Passengers share photos of life on crippled Carnival Triumph
As the ship docked, Carnival Cruise Lines CEO Gerry Cahill spoke to the media ? with some passengers cheering in the background ? and apologized for the ordeal.
?I appreciate the patience of our guests and their ability to cope with the situation,? he said. ?And I?d like to reiterate the apology I made earlier. I know the conditions on board were very poor,? he said.
?We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case,? he added.
As for the crew, Terry Thornton, the company?s senior vice president, said that they would have the option of staying on the ship or moving to a hotel.
After the power went out and toilets stopped working, cruise staff instructed people to urinate into the showers and put fecal matter into plastic bags, which were collected by stewards and put into giant trash bags, passenger Shannon Caceres told NBC News.
She confirmed reports of passengers being fed onion-and-cucumber sandwiches, but said she did not touch anything the crew prepared with their hands, choosing instead to subsist on potato chips and pretzels purchased from the gift shop.
Many people on board got upset stomachs, she said.
Caceres, who lives in Flower Mound, Texas, booked the cruise with three of her co-workers as part of an employee vacation. She described a ship that was descending into chaos, with reports of people looting rooms and taking laptops, phones and cameras.
There were also reports of drunk people running amok after crew members served them alcohol.
?There were people screaming obscenities in the hallways, wasted,? Caceres recalled. ?People were acting like idiots. You have children sleeping out on the lido deck with drunk people running around, that?s not OK.?
Caceres, who was on Deck 8 in a room with a balcony, at first kept the door of her cabin open to allow a breeze to come in so that passengers with interior rooms across the hall would be more comfortable. But as reports of looting spread, she kept her door closed.
Still, she was most scared at the beginning, when the fire broke out, alarms began going off and people stood terrified in the hallways with their life jackets on.
?I thought we were going to die,? Caceres said. ?I have never been that scared in my whole life.?
Other passengers described a similar ordeal.
Baker said she and her friends slept with life vests one night because the ship was listing and they feared that it would capsize.
?I?ve never actually had to fear for my life,? she said. ?That first night on the ocean, it was pretty rough.?
Carnival had disputed passenger accounts before the ship reached land, but the photos, not to mention the relief on passengers? faces, seemed to confirm their accounts. The company had confirmed that fewer than two dozen public toilets were working.
The Triumph had 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew on board. Late Thursday, passenger Chase Maclaskey told NBC News that U.S. Customs officers had come on board and processed passengers quickly.
?Conditions have improved greatly since yesterday and previous days,? he said. ?There have been bands performing to try and lift the mood. I have to stress, the staff, all of those who directly interface with guests, have gone above and beyond to try and lighten the burden while sleeping right alongside guests in lounges and on decks."
Joe Myxter of NBC News contributed to this report.
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