Is Carnival's Infamous 'Poop Cruise' Still In Service? Here's The Gross Truth

When you think of a great cruise, you might think of luxurious ships, fantastic food, or private island resorts in the Caribbean. You know you took a wrong turn somewhere if you wind up on the "poop cruise." Back in February 2013, the 4,000 passengers and crew who stepped aboard the Carnival Triumph had no idea that their ship would be overflowing with vile semi-fluids before they arrived in port. They launched from Galveston, Texas, to Cozumel, Mexico, on an assumedly fecal-free, four-night sojourn when a fire started in diesel generator number six. The electricity went out, which meant the plumbing and air conditioning also went out. 

Cue the excrement-filled biohazard bags, urine-filled showers, and toilet paper layered over excremental heaps that one chef culinarily described as poop "lasagna," as the Daily Mail describes quotes the 2025 Netflix documentary "Train Wreck: Poop Cruise." The ship was eventually towed into port in Alabama on February 14, when passengers fled the ship's horrors and ran into the arms of loved ones who assumedly had clothespins on their noses.

One might guess that the Triumph was incinerated and committed to that great ocean beyond — but no. Citing the incident as a prime, "teachable moment for the entire cruise industry" (per Cruise Critic), Carnival Cruise Line vowed to undertake all requisite changes necessary to salvage their reputation (and ship). They spent $500 million implementing safety upgrades, recommitted themselves to their Health, Environmental, Safety, and Security (HESS) protocols, and spent a further $115 million scouring the soiled Triumph. Then, in 2019, the Triumph was re-launched under a name as symbolically fitting of a new, clean, and pristine day as you could imagine: the Carnival Sunrise. It's still in service to this day, with all of its stains smeared from sight, if not memory. 

In an attempt to distance itself from its pestilent past, Carnival didn't just scrub the Triumph's interior surfaces and call it a day. They totally overhauled and redesigned the 1999-launched ship with a bunch of extra amenities that cruisegoers have come to expect in the intervening decades. The upgraded, renamed, and 2019-launched Carnival Sunrise now comes equipped with more restaurants, an upgraded casino, and enhancements to the spa, water slides, and private cabins. Nowhere on the Sunrise's ship spec on the Carnival website is there a whisper of anything poop-related.  

But the question begs: Now that the poop cruise has returned to public consciousness thanks to the Netflix documentary, will cruisegoers still want to step aboard knowing what once occurred? Folks can always look to the CDC's Vessel Sanitation Program and use its Advanced Cruise Ship Inspection search tool to find the cleanliness details of a specific vessel. But, the Triumph's problem was mechanical. As CNN reported in 2013, only four of the Triumph's six generators were operational when it launched — something Carnival was completely aware of. A federal judge determined that the cruise was liable, and every passenger received a full refund, $500, free flights home, and so forth. 

None of that changes the stinky specter of the Sunrise's past, though, or the possibility of a similar flub in the future. For now, let's just hope that the most that Sunrise riders have to worry about is obnoxious passengers and some dastardly TikToker swapping out their water bottles for used ones (always check the cap, people).