Last night a cruise passenger, @omasaid, tweeted that a fire may have broken out on the Carnival Paradise after the cruise ship left Cozumel.
Around 12:36 AM, he tweeted: “Keep us in ur prayers folks, white smoke maybe a fire is billowing from top of our cruise #carnival#paradise we r in the middle of ocean”
At 12:40 AM he tweeted: “Update #carnival #paradise still no A/C people appear to be calm, Captain stated we r proceeding to Tampa maybe cruise is shortened…”
At 1:29 AM, he left this final tweet: “Update: #carnival #paradise all systems appear to b stable. A/C is operational, although another carnival ship traveling oddly close to us”
This morning, we asked Carnival for an explanation. So far we have not received a response. We also asked @omasaid for another update.
Does anyone else on the Paradise have information to share?
Please leave a comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.
May 7 2014 Update:
We received this statement from Carnival this morning:
CARNIVAL PARADISE STATEMENT
May 7, 2014 – 9 a.m. EDT
“Earlier this morning while the Carnival Paradise was en route from Cozumel to its homeport of Tampa, an air conditioning compressor overheated causing some smoke in the forward section of the ship.
Shipboard personnel immediately responded and addressed the situation. All safety and hotel systems are operating normally and the ship is expected to arrive in Tampa Thursday morning as scheduled.
Announcements were made keeping guests apprised of the situation and the U.S. Coast Guard was notified as per standard protocol.
Carnival Paradise is currently operating a five-day cruise that departed Tampa on Saturday, part of its year-round four- and five-day schedule from that port.”
May 8 2014 Update:
The Paradise returned to Tampa this morning. We are waiting to hear from cruise passengers whether this was a minor event as Carnival suggests.
See comments below . . .
Photo Credit: Wikipedia / Beau Hudspeth – Digi-Gen Design Studios – Photography