Travel Agent Central reports a hour ago about what appears to be a small fire which broke out aboard Carnival’s new cruise ship, the Carnival Breeze.
The publication states that shortly 2 PM (ship time), crew members from the “Alpha” fire team were summoned via the ship’s public address system to a forward portion of the crew area on Deck O where smoke was accumulating. Fire doors in the forward section of the ship closed as well.
The ship’s Master, Captain Vincenzo Alcaras, reportedly announced over the PA system the fire team 
arrived and observed the electrical system smoking. The team “extinguished it immediately” and the “ship is now continuing on as normal” to Dubrovnik. The article didn’t contain much of an explanation regarding the cause of the fire.
Cruise director, John Heald, himself a cruise celebrity blogger, also apparently spoke to the passengers in an effort to keep them calm.
It will be interesting to learn how a new ship would experience a fire, big or small, so soon.
Carnival public relations representatives tweeted 30 minutes after the fire but made no mention of the incident. Instead, @CarnivalPR tweeted a link to a promotional article on USA Today’s Cruise Log “A new look for industry leader Carnival Cruise? We’re reporting live from the cruise line’s new Carnival Breeze.”
Too bad that @CarnivalPR didn’t bother to tweet about the fire on its new ship.
June 20, 2012 Update:
Some other cruise media people on the cruise mentioned a small fire,such as @ExpertCruiser: “Small electrical fire on #CarnivalBreeze extinguished. Captain made announcement that everything is under control. Good job by crew.”
Where there’s smoke, there’s no fire?
Carnival Public Relations has stated that there was no fire, only smoke in the crew quarters due to overheated fan belt in an air conditioning unit. Here is the Carnival statement:
“A fan belt inside an AC unit in a crew area overheated and started generating smoke. There was not an actual fire and no smoke entered guest areas. The ship’s crew responded immediately and all is well. The Carnival Breeze is continuing on its voyage as normal.”
Thanks Carnival for clarifying matters . . .
My friend has a blog – Mikey’s Cruise Blog which contains a quote from cruise director Heald:
“It is a beautiful day here at sea. Blue skies, calm seas spoiled only by a burning smell on deck 0 ( crew deck ) forward that had alarms sounding, alpha team calls ( fire investigation) and my fat arse running up 6 flights of stairs to the bridge. All is well, there was an electrical fan belt which had produced the smell and there was no fire or smoke but a strong burning smell on the crew deck forward. So, 10 minutes later I let the guests know what had happened as I insist on always letting them know and especially as we had paged the fire teams over the PA system. Anyway, the ship is continuing on her way to Dubrovnik at full speed with all systems as normal, the guests are calm and having fun, the smell of smoke has dissapissatated (spelt correctly) and I now have to dispose of one ruined pair of Carnival Splendor flashback underpants.”