Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Catches Fire, Toilets Continue To Work

If you had been considering a cruise vacation because nothing has gone terribly wrong on any major ships in at least a couple of weeks, maybe you should reconsider. Passengers on their third day of a Royal Caribbean cruise were dragged out of bed in the wee hours of the morning and told to put their life vests on because of a fire on board.

That’s the actual ship in question in the photo accompanying this article, the Grandeur of the Seas. Check out the damage to the exterior of the ship. Fortunately, no crew or passengers were harmed, but they certainly were terrified. “Before we went to bed there was a really bad storm and and the ship was really rocking, so our first thought was that we were sinking,” one passenger told CBS Baltimore.

The now-infamous Carnival Poop Cruise also experienced a fire, but that one was in the engine room, knocking out essential systems and stranding the ship. The damage to Grandeur of the Seas is a lot scarier-looking, but the biggest loss of creature comforts was that air conditioning was shut down for a period, and passengers spent a few hours at their muster stations instead of snuggled into their beds. Bunks.

Sure, it costs less per night to take a cruise than it does to book a room at a Motel 6, but is that enough to coax passengers back on boats?

Fire breaks out aboard Royal Caribbean cruise ship [AP]

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