Los Angeles:
It was a cruise from hell, meant to be a seven day luxury vacation off the American west coast, but it ended in disaster after its engine caught fire.
In an amateur video shot by a passenger, one can see what the passengers aboard the Carnival Splendour went through.
The 4,500 passengers and crew members faced backed-up toilets, stuffy cabins and canned food.
"The fact that the whole system was shut down, no electricity power's out, you can imagine 3,000 people all haven't used the bathroom and nothing getting sucked down, it got pretty bad, that's where a lot of people were sleeping in the hallways and stuff like that," said Jason Kirkish, a passenger.
Carnival said a crankcase split on one of the ship's six diesel engines, causing the fire.
"I got a look through our window through the peep hole on door and it was fire. Guys in fire uniforms and masks and boxes running down as fast as they could we opened the door and there was smoke going down the hallway and then you have all the kids it was tough we didn't want to wake them up and finally just had to leave the room and throw our stuff together and go upstairs and wait it out," said Jason Hammond, another passenger.
Passengers on lower decks had to climb as many as nine flights of stairs to get to the cafeteria only to meet long lines that stretched on for hours. For some getting by without working toilets on the first day was the biggest challenge.
"Well it wasn't easy, first of all we haven't had a hot meal five days, we had no lights, no electricity, we had not flashlight, we couldn't find the toilet, it was very, very difficult, it wasn't easy," said Raymond Kissack, passenger.
To kill time, passengers sat on the deck and watched the rescue helicopters at work. At night, they sang in the dark or resigned themselves to early bedtimes. The incident will be costly for Carnival, because they are giving passengers a refund, including airfare, and a free cruise.