Triumph Comes Home

Friday February 15, 10:24 a.m.

The above is a promotional video of the now-notorious cruise ship Triumph that was taped in 2011. Lots of panoramic shots of what to look forward to when passengers plunk down the big money for an opportunity to sail the Caribbean in relative luxury.

Of course, that final voyage was anything but for those passengers.

The comments by the unbelievably exhausted, frustrated and disgusted customers are definitely not something the management wanted to hear: "I'm just so glad to be off the ship". As someone who was on his first cruise aboard The Oasis of the Seas via Royal Caribbean last year, I can't even imagine the hell these poor folks went through. They paid for something high-class; instead they got an experience in what abject poverty is like in a number of developing countries. Sewage in the corridors and on the walls? I couldn't even imagine what my family would have done if something similar had befallen The Oasis.

Nothing compared to the Triumph, but I had a small similar taste of what those passengers had been force-fed several years ago. I was on a Northwest Airlines trip coming from Tokyo to Detroit to Toronto when the toilets stopped working over the Pacific for about 6 hours. And this happened just after we got our lunch service. Toilets were almost overflowing and looked pretty bad. Just before getting the good news, I had been looking at my paper cup with some desperation.