A fire that caused damage to the funnel on CCL-Carnival Cruise Line‘s ship Carnival Freedom on Thursday, May 26, has been extinguished.
There are no reported injuries, according to the cruise line.
In a statement, CCL said the fire had broken out in the ship’s funnel (“whale tail”) while the liner had been docked at Grand Turk (Cockburn Town, Turks and Caicos), a port the company developed specifically for use by passengers.
“All guests and crew are safe, and the ship’s guests were cleared by local authorities to go ashore.
“We continue to assess the situation.”
There has been no official statement yet on what caused the blaze.
CCL has not announced whether the current cruise, a 5-day sailing from Port Canaveral that departed on May 23, will continue or whether subsequent voyages will be affected.
CruiseMapper's schedule and our satellite AIS show that Carnival Freedom departed from homeport Port Canaveral (Orlando, Florida) on May 23, and on May 25th visited Amber Cove Dominicana. Freedom is scheduled to return to homeport on Saturday, May 28th.
UPDATE MAY 27th: On May 27th, from Miami (where is CCL's Fleet Operations Center) to Grand Turk was flown a technical team for a damage assessment and to plan for the repairs as Freedom was booked for wetdocking at Grand Bahama Shipyard in Freeport Bahamas.
On May 27th, CCL also sent as a replacement ship Carnival Conquest to pick up Freedom's passengers in Grand Turk, with estimated arrival on May 28th at 4 pm. Due to the replacement, Conquest's May 27th cruise from PortMiami (3-day to Nassau) was canceled.
As compensation, Carnival Freedom passengers with purchased WiFi and drink packages received complimentary extended packages, while all passengers received US$100 per cabin in OBC/onboard credit and 50% in FCC/future cruise credit. Extended parking fees (at Port Canaveral) were waived. Reimbursement of max US$200 per person was offered to affected passengers with independently booked non-refundable flights for airline change fees.
For more Carnival Freedom incidents and accidents see the ship's CruiseMinus page.