Weary Triumph passengers who endured four long, filthy days at sea could do nothing but laugh as first the bus and then the plane that Carnival chartered to get them home Friday suffered mechanical failures.
Passengers were shaking their heads in disbelief as their bus broke down around 2:30 a.m. on an Alabama road, only to face another delay hours later at the New Orleans airport when their plane was grounded for about 90 minutes for an electrical failure.
"At a certain point, you get so tired that everything seems funny," said Jacob Combs, 30.
He was one of about 25 Triumph passengers who got off the Triumph late Thursday night in Mobile, Ala., and onto a bus to New Orleans — which ground to a halt about 45 minutes later.
The surprise stop had passengers groaning in frustration, until Combs and his buddy Clark Jones parodied a perky cruise director from Triumph named Jane.
"There was a little bit of unrest at first," he said. "But we jumped up and started cracking jokes. Jane used to make like 10 announcements a day, so we pretended to be her, like, 'Hello, this is Jane, and I just want to let you know we are broken down in the middle of nowhere and soon some tugboats are gonna come.' That got some people laughing."
Combs and Jones, 32, also took to Twitter and Instagram to share pictures of sour-faced passengers on the side of the road in Alabama — Combs tagged his photos "Nowhereville."
Carnival sent a replacement bus within about 45 minutes — but to add insult to injury, passengers had to shift their own bags to the new vehicle.
They thought the worst was over, but when Combs and his group finally got to the New Orleans airport around 8 a.m. to catch a charter flight to Houston, courtesy of Carnival, it was delayed until 9:45.
"It had an electrical failure," said Combs, who hadn't slept for about 30 hours.
At least one New Yorker was on board the ship — Trina Briggs, 52, from Staten Island. The former NYPD officer who left the force after 9/11 said the extreme conditions on the ship set off her post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I had to get shots every day to calm me down, but they took real good care of me," said Briggs, who slept on the deck with her family after the fire that knocked out Triumph's power.
"Everything started backing up within about eight hours. We never went back to our rooms after the fire — there was feces on the floor and everywhere," she said.
Friday's travels marked the end of an extended nightmare that began with the fire Feb. 10, three days into a four-day cruise from Galveston, Tex. to Cozumel, Mexico.
The powerless boat drifted northward, and 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crewmembers were stuck without hot water or working toilets.
The first of what could be many lawsuits against the company was filed Friday, citing the Triumph's "horrifying" conditions.
Cassie Terry of Brazoria County, Texas, alleged Carnival failed to provide a seaworthy vessel and sanitary conditions, according to court documents.
Terry suffered physical and emotional harm, including anxiety, nervousness and the loss of the enjoyment of life, according to the complaint filed in federal court in Miami.
Triumph's disaster is the second high-profile incident for a Carnival ship in a little more than a year. The company's Costa Concordia ran aground off Italy in January 2012, killing 32 people.
With News Wire Services
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