PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. — Passengers on a Carnival cruise ship that caught fire over the weekend disembarked at Port Canaveral on Monday.
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Videos sent to Ch. 9 show dark smoke and flames coming from the Carnival Freedom’s exhaust funnel on Saturday.
Carnival says lightning may be to blame.
In response to this fire, the next two cruises on the ship have been canceled.
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The ship was scheduled to depart from Port Canaveral on Monday, and then again on Friday.
The fire was reported while the ship was near the Bahamas.
Passengers reported seeing lightning strike the boat, but the investigation is still underway.
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Carnival Cruise Lines released the following statement:
Carnival Freedom experienced a fire in the port side of the exhaust funnel on Saturday. Our onboard team acted quickly to contain and put out the fire. While we continue to investigate multiple eyewitness reports of a lightning strike, our technical team completed a thorough assessment during the ship’s visit to Freeport today. Regrettably, the damage is more than we first thought and will require an immediate repair to stabilize the funnel, resulting in the cancellation of the March 25 and March 29 cruises from Port Canaveral.
The funnel has been stabilized for the ship’s return to Port Canaveral overnight to disembark guests, and then it will go to the Freeport shipyard on Monday afternoon to begin the required repairs.
We sincerely regret the impact to our embarking guests, as we know they have been looking forward to their spring break vacation. We are providing all guests on both cancelled cruises a full refund and a 100% future cruise credit so they can come back and enjoy a future cruise with us. We also greatly appreciate the terrific guests who are currently sailing with us, for their outstanding cooperation and support.
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