By: Staff Writer
May 27, 2022
The Carnival Freedom ship’s funnel caught fire off of the coast of Grand Turk Thursday morning. All guests are fine.
Carnival released a statement on the incident, which read: “On Thursday morning while in port at Grand Turk, Carnival Freedom’s emergency response team quickly activated and extinguished a fire inside the ship’s funnel. All guests and crew are safe, and all other ship, hotel, and guest services, along with safety equipment are fully functioning.
While the majority of Carnival Freedom’s guests went ashore in Grand Turk today, Carnival’s technical team completed an initial assessment of the funnel and related features, and the shoreside team completed a plan to get our guests back to Port Canaveral.
There are 2504 guests and 972 crew on board. Carnival Conquest’s next cruise, departing May 27 from Miami has been cancelled and that ship will be deployed to Grand Turk to transport Freedom guests back to Port Canaveral. Carnival Conquest will arrive to Grand Turk on Saturday, May 28 and guests aboard Carnival Freedom will transfer to Carnival Conquest for the voyage back to Port Canaveral, arriving on Monday, May 30. Carnival Conquest will then return to Miami, and her May 30 departure will be shortened by one day, with guests embarking on May 31.
Once guests are transferred from Carnival Freedom, the ship will proceed to Freeport for a repair to the funnel. The May 28 departure of Carnival Freedom from Port Canaveral has been cancelled. Guests booked on the impacted sailings on Carnival Conquest and Carnival Freedom voyages have been notified of these changes.
Carnival apologized to all those guests who are impacted and offered special thanks to the crew who handled the situation on the ship effectively and according to safety protocols.”
The road back to full sailing has been a rocky one, no one knows what caused the fire yet.