Greeley Woman Among 4,000 Stranded Cruise Ship Passengers
GREELEY, Colo. (CBS4)- A Greeley woman is among the 4,000 stranded passengers aboard the disabled Carnival Cruise Ship making its way toward the port at Mobile, Ala.
Cheryl Palmer is aboard the Triumph waiting to dock to get off the ship that is expected to arrive at the cruise terminal late Thursday.
The cruise ship has been at sea for a week. An engine-room fire Sunday left the ship powerless. More than 4,000 people are on board the Triumph, and passengers face long bus rides or other travel hassles to get home once they arrive in Alabama.
Palmer works at the Weld County Courthouse as a court reporter. She left last week for what she thought would be a fun getaway with some of her high school girlfriends to celebrate their 50th birthdays. They had no idea they would be in the middle of a catastrophe.
"My biggest fear is that we'd run out of water because we were told throughout different times of the day that, sorry, no more water," said Palmer.
Palmer said conditions have improved because now they have bathrooms that are working. But at the beginning they had been living in grotesque living conditions, like using garbage cans for toilets.
"We've had to use toilets - we'd have to search all over for them - they'd be working parts of the day, parts of the day there wouldn't be any working," said Palmer.
Palmer and other passengers had to sleep on the deck because their cabins were too hot since the ventilation was not working.
"I see a lot of people that are trying to be very positive and thankful that it's not worse and be appreciative to the staff members because they worked so hard," said Palmer.
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When asked if she would be going on a cruise again, Palmer replied, "No, not right now. I don't think I will be. I don't know if I'll change my mind about that or not."
Palmer said Carnival will be reissuing free cruises to those impacted along with charter flights to return home with as little hassle as possible. Palmer hopes to be back in Colorado on Friday.
Other Carnival ships delivered supplies to them including a backup generator so they were able to finally restore power to parts of the ship.
There are other people from Colorado on board the ship including Don and Arlene Snover from Lamar.
The Snovers are on their honeymoon.
