Carnival’s Poop Cruise: All Aboard The Worst Vacation Ever
On Friday night, Bill and I watched the Netflix documentary Trainwreck: Poop Cruise. Have you seen it? If not, cancel your tropical cruise vacation now. Ha ha! Just kidding. However, you may consider hoarding snacks and toilet paper in your cabin, just in case.
Poop Cruise tells the story of the 2013 Carnival Triumph disaster when 4,200 passengers and crew were stranded in the Gulf of Mexico for five sweltering, toiletless, borderline-apocalyptic days after an engine fire knocked out power mid-cruise. No air conditioning, two-hour waits for spoiled food, people sleeping and having sex in public, overflowing sewage, and the kind of heat that makes satan uncomfortable.
The documentary uses archival news clips and interviews with survivors. There’s Larry and his daughter trying to bond post-divorce, Devon (who was obsessed with NOT POOPING IN THE RED BAG!) and his fiancée plus her entire family, cruise director Jen, bartender Hannah, a group of bridesmaids, and my personal favorite—Abhi, the chef who responds to nearly every memory in the documentary with a disgusted, “What the f*ck?”
Twelve years later, not one of them seems over it. Poor Jen had to go on the ship’s PA system to calmly explain that “number ones” could go down the shower drain, while “number twos” had to be deposited in red biohazard bags. Devon immediately vowed that he would not, under any circumstances, use a red poop bag. Ashley guzzled Imodium like it was champagne, and Abhi describes the unusable toilets as being filled with layers of human waste and toilet paper “like lasagna,” and has permanently ruined lasagna for me because even though I didn’t actually see the poop lasagna, my brain has concocted an image that I will never unsee.
At one point, someone decided to open a free bar on day two - because nothing says luxury quite like raw sewage and tequila - and I agreed 100 percent when cruise director Jen came out against it. Drunk people and red poop filled bio-hazard bags turned out to be a bad idea. A very bad idea.
When you think it can’t get worse, tugboats arrive to tow the ship, causing it to tilt, sending backed-up sewage spilling down hallways and walls.
The only person enjoying himself in the entire documentary was Frank Spagnoletti, a Texas-based cigar-wielding maritime lawyer who watched the disaster unfold on TV. “Obviously, my antenna was piqued,” he says gleefully.
I won’t spoil the legal shocker that follows, but here’s my advice: always read the fine print on your cruise tickets. There are some truly shitty (pun intended) clauses buried in the fine print.
The good news? The mix of horror, shock, and humor made for good Friday night entertainment, and Bill and I were in and out of the nightmare in under an hour. I definitely can’t say the same for anyone who had to live through it.
Trainwreck: Poop Cruise is the third episode in Netflix's Trainwreck series. It follows the infamous 2013 Carnival Triumph disaster, in which over 4,000 passengers were stranded at sea for nearly a week without power, plumbing, or air conditioning. You can stream it right now on Netflix.