Poop Cruise Clean-up Bill Was $766 Million Dollars

Carnival has responded to the viral Netflix documentary “Poop Cruise”.
The line referred to it as a “teachable moment” for the cruise industry.
The Netflix documentary covered the Carnival Triumph’s horror cruise when there were sewage leaks, total breakdowns in sanitation thanks to an engine fire.

The Netflix documentary “Trainwreck: the poop cruise” has spawned plenty of headlines this week that details the unfortunate events of a 2013 Carnival cruise

During this cruise, an engine fire led to a breakdown in the ship’s functioning, including sanitation systems. There were reports of leaking sewage, urine-stained floors, passengers having to defecate in biowaste bags, horrendous smells and more.

Carnival has responded to the documentary with a statement which puts a positive spin on the story, noting that the incident led to improved health and emergency standards across the fleet, and even the wider industry.

“The Carnival Triumph incident over 12 years ago was a teachable moment for the entire cruise industry. A thorough investigation following the incident revealed a design vulnerability which was corrected and led Carnival Cruise Line to invest more than $500 million across our entire fleet in comprehensive fire prevention and suppression, improved redundancy, and enhanced management systems, all in support of our commitment to robust safety standards.

“This is in addition to our vigorous Health, Environmental, Safety and Security (HESS) protocols that guide the entire Carnival Corporation fleet as we maintain our commitment to industry leadership in this area. We are proud of the fact that since 2013 over 53 million guests have enjoyed safe and memorable vacations with us, and we will continue to operate to these high standards.”

The statement highlights the actions that were taken afterwards, and doesn’t make any attempt to try and point out inaccuracies in the story, likely suggesting the documentary makers got it pretty spot on.

Some other people within the Carnival ecosystem took a little less kindly to the documentary, wishing that it showed more details of the cruise, but still didn’t deny any of what was presented.

Jaime Dee, a Carnival cruise director said: “I wish they had chosen more credible guest interviews. If someone skips the safety briefing for a drink, I’m not sure their commentary carries much weight.

“What the documentary really missed was the heart of the crew’s response. There were so many powerful moments during that stressful time, like the acoustic concert by team members at Lifeboat 11 that helped keep spirits up.”

The documentary is garnering all sorts of media attention, and bringing out more passengers to show their experiences.

Some even feel that the documentary didn’t go far enough in representing how grievous the events were.

The documentary arrived at the worst possible time

Before the documentary was released, Carnival was already having a PR problem. This is because the changes they made last week to their loyalty program have caused mass disappointment amongst Carnival cruisers, with 47% even saying they may no longer cruise with Carnival.

The brand’s social media, along with the wider online cruise community, continues to be inundated with complaints towards the new program.

While the poop cruise documentary is likely just piling on the bad news for Carnival, it could also be at least providing some sort of distraction from the negative PR the cruise line has been seeing due to the loyalty program changes.

However, this barrage of online voices doesn’t appear to be slowing down, and the dedicated and loyal cruisers that are affected by the change are unlikely to be distracted or deterred by the documentary. It does appear that the bad reaction to the loyalty programs, and maybe even the documentary, have created some kind of impact, with Carnival stocks dipping.