Travelers aboard a Carnival Triumph cruise ship in February 2013 endured many cruisers’ worst nightmare: They were trapped on a ship at sea without basic necessities like electricity and plumbing. Netflix chronicled the saga in a 2025 documentary called “Trainwreck: Poop Cruise.”
Devin Marble was traveling with his family on the ill-fated Carnival Cruise Line ship and is featured in the Netflix documentary. Here’s what he learned from the experience and what essentials helped him and his family during the ordeal.
What happened on the ‘Poop Cruise’
The Carnival Triumph ship was returning to Galveston, Texas, from Cozumel, Mexico, when a fire in the engine room broke out. The fire turned what was supposed to be a four-night cruise into an ordeal that included several extra days of drifting at sea before the ship was towed into port in Mobile, Alabama.
An alarm and an announcement in all of the cabins in the middle of the night were the first signs that something was wrong.
“I would say that initially, when we heard, ‘Alpha Team, Alpha Team,’ I was nervous. We were woken up out of sleep, and when that happened, your first thought was, ‘Is this the Titanic?’” recalls Marble.
“I would say the first 30 or 40 minutes were really nerve-wracking for me until they notified us that the ship’s not sinking or anything like that. Everything’s under control. Go back to your normal lives,” Marble says, adding that he was less fearful after that announcement.
That feeling didn’t last. Soon, the ship’s power went off.
Marble and the other 3,142 passengers and 1,086 crew members endured several days with no electricity, stagnant air, occasionally unruly passengers and non-functioning toilets.
“We were not thinking about the sewage. None of us were, so that was the last thing on our minds,” Marble says about the initial reaction when the power went out.
As toilets began to overflow, passengers were directed to defecate into red biohazard bags and leave them in public spaces.
When contacted for comment about the incident, Carnival Cruise Line provided the following statement: