A Carnival Cruise Line ship will be taken to Freeport in the Bahamas after sustaining a fire to its funnel on Thursday while docked in Turks and Caicos.
As TradeWinds has reported, the blaze erupted off Grand Turk in one of two openings to the funnel to the 2,980-berth Carnival Freedom (built 2007), sending black smoke billowing into the sky.
“All guests and crew are safe, and all other ship, hotel, and guest services, along with safety equipment are fully functioning,” spokesman Matt Lupoli said.
Arnold Donald-led Carnival Corp has yet to determine what caused the fire.
Most of the ship’s 2,504 passengers and 972 crew members went ashore while the vessel’s technical team assessed the damage after an emergency response team extinguished the fire.
Carnival’s shoreside team made arrangements to transfer all of the ship’s passengers and crew to the cruise line’s 2,980-berth Carnival Conquest (built 2002) on Saturday to return them to Port Canaveral on Monday.
As a result, Carnival Conquest’s next cruise from Miami will depart on Tuesday instead of Monday and thus be shortened by one day, the cruise line said.
Once it is fully evacuated, Carnival Freedom will sail to Freeport to get the funnel repaired and then go to Port Canaveral to begin another cruise that will be delayed and shortened by one day.
“Carnival apologised to all those guests who are impacted and offered special thanks to the crew who handled the situation on the ship effectively and according to safety protocols,” Lupoli said.
Freeport is home to repair facility Grand Bahama Shipyard, in which Carnival Corp is a major shareholder.
