Carnival Fantasy struck by barge in Mississippi River

Saturday morning, a rice barge sideswiped Carnival Fantasy on the Mississippi River near New Orleans as it returned from a cruise. Nobody was hurt, but the incident left a 30-foot gash, thankfully above the waterline, on the vessel's port side. The ship then docked at its pier without further incident.

No ships' services were effected, and Carnival optimistically boarded the next group of passengers for their cruise departing later in the day, clearly expecting that repairs would be quick. Unfortunately that optimism was misplaced, as the passengers were told later Saturday that the trip would need to be cancelled.

The guests were invited to remain on board Saturday night with the planned full slate of dining and entertainment. Carnival provided a full refund, credit on a future cruise, and credit for airfare change fees, which is fair given that the whole mess wasn't remotely Carnival's fault.

Although Carnival doesn't cancel many cruises on the day of departure, as luck would have it we personally experienced another such example back in 2000 on the Carnival Destiny sailing from Boston. The ship had been experiencing propulsion difficulties which Carnival expected to resolve within hours. In the end, the problems proved intractable, and we spent two nights onboard the ship tied up to the pier in Boston, enjoying all the same activities if we'd been at sea. Now it wasn't the four-night Canada cruise we'd been expecting to enjoy, but given the circumstances, we thought Carnival made the best of the bad situation.