Lights Out on Cruise Ship; Passengers in the Dark

The Island Star cruise ship, a ship which until last year sailed as the Celebrity Horizon, lost all power for a time last week somewhere off of the coast of France. The entire ship was plunged into darkness. The captain said that the cruise line was flying technicians to the ship for repairs. After the technicians arrived, they apparently repaired the problems for a while. Then less than a day later the same thing happened. Then the captain declared that the cruise was over and called for the 1476 passengers and an undisclosed number of crew to abandon ship. After all of the fear and anguish by the passengers that meant to get into the life boats with their luggage and be ferried to shore. Many of the passengers were elderly. At least two collapsed in the process of abandoning ship.

Island Star cruises is a joint venture between Royal Caribbean Cruise Line and First Choice Holdings. Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines owns Celebrity Cruise Lines. That means that the ship went from one arm of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (Celebrity) to another (the joint venture).