Cruisers describe fear as fire raged on ship

Cruisers describe fear as fire raged on ship

Passengers on the Royal Caribbean ship that caught fire Monday off the coast of Florida are describing a scary, middle-of-the-night ordeal. "We honestly thought the boat might have been sinking," Danielle Miller, 23, tells ABC News of hearing a call to muster stations around 3:00 am on the line's Grandeur of the Seas. "We were just panicking and running upstairs." Another passenger who goes by the online handle Dharma517 wrote on the message boards at cruise fan site CruiseCritic.com that the lifeboats at muster stations were lowered and opened as passengers had to stand in place for over four hours. "Passengers were ill, passing out and vomiting," she says, adding that crew could be seen running through the ship with fire hoses. "This was scary." RELATED: Fire breaks out on Royal Caribbean ship PHOTO TOUR: Inside a Royal Caribbean ship Royal Caribbean says medical staff on the ship responded to several calls after the fire but had no medical emergencies. Medical issues included fainting, reports of high blood pressure and an ankle sprain, the line says. Royal Caribbean has not said what caused the blaze, which began in a mooring area at the back of the vessel and was doused in about two hours later. Photos show fire damage extending across at least four decks. Based in Baltimore, Grandeur of the Seas was on the way to Royal Caribbean's private island in the Bahamas, CocoCay, when the fire broke out. The ship never lost power during the incident and was able to reach Freeport, Bahamas about seven hours after the fire started. Royal Caribbean is flying passengers back to Baltimore from Freeport today after canceling the rest of the current cruise and a subsequent trip scheduled to begin on May 31. Built in 1996, Grandeur of the Seas is one of the oldest ships in the Royal Caribbean fleet, although it had recently been refurbished in a major overhaul. At 73,817 tons, it's also one of the smallest Royal Caribbean ships. The fire is the latest in a series of serious incidents on cruise ships that have shaken the industry, and it comes just four after a fire left a Carnival ship dead in the water in the Gulf of Mexico. In addition to power for propulsion, the February blaze in an engine room of the Carnival Triumph knocked out power for essential services such as food preparation and, for a time, running water. Toilets stopped working, as did air conditioning and lighting. The vessel eventually was towed to Mobile, Ala., but not before passengers had to spend four days on board in what was described as miserable conditions.


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