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American Morning

Norwegian Cruise Line Cancels Caribbean Cruise

Aired May 29, 2001 - 09:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: A Caribbean cruise has now been canceled. Two thousand guests of Norwegian Cruise Lines are being told they will not sail because of safety concerns.

CNN Miami bureau chief John Zarrella is, live, at the port. He's been there for quite a long time.

Hi, John.

JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN MIAMI BUREAU CHIEF: Hi, Kyra.

Well, you know when we talked yesterday the passengers were pretty happy. They were happy with the way that they were being accommodated by the cruise lines. And I can tell you, we talked to the ship's comedian about 15 minutes ago, he was getting off the ship, and he said that he went on last night at midnight, 10 minutes after they told the passengers that the cruise would not be going, and he said, surprisingly, everybody was great. There weren't any problems. Everybody seemed to understand what the realities were.

Now, behind me lined up now are all the buses that are lined up to take the passengers to Miami Airport. What had happened was that yesterday the cruise line was working feverishly to try and get repairs to 106 leaks in the ship's sprinkler system. When the Coast Guard went back yesterday evening to check those leaks, they found that there were still 26 new welds that were not up to snuff. And the Coast Guard said that because of that, it would not clear the ship to sail.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB LEBREC, U.S. COAST GUARD: The sprinkler system is the first line of defense for a fire. It's a major fire -- it's a major safety system on the ship. Yesterday, we felt that it was very important not to let the ship sail with passengers because we weren't sure that the system would perform as designed. We still don't feel that it -- we still can't be sure that it will.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZARRELLA: Now, there are passengers, as you can see, people still up on the deck this morning. And what the cruise line is saying is if the folks can't get out of Miami today or don't want to leave, they're going to leave the bar open, they're going to let the passengers stay on the ship again tonight. And NCL says it's doing everything it possibly can to accommodate the passengers.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

ANDY STUART, NORWEGIAN CRUISE LINES: We had a -- been working very closely with the Coast Guard and had agreed on a course of action which they had approved. And we had been working very closely towards that. We've really achieved a lot, but we had achieved about 80 percent of the repair. Unfortunately, as we got to this evening, it became clear that we were not able to complete the repair on schedule and as such, we were not able to offer the -- you know the exciting, attractive, but modified, itinerary that we had - that we had planned. So unfortunately, we took the decision this evening to cancel the cruise.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZARRELLA: NCL is telling its passengers they will get a full refund for this cruise. They will get another free seven-day cruise whenever they want it. The airfare back is being paid for - all their round-trip fares. Any incidentals are being paid for, and if they decide to stay in Miami on board the ship tonight, they're being taken on whatever excursions they would like.

Now, Norway is scheduled to depart again from Miami on Sunday on a seven-day cruise. And company officials are telling us that people who are booked on the cruise that leaves here Sunday don't have to worry. They expect to get these repairs completed, perhaps as early as today. They've flown in welders from as far away as Poland to get this job done.

This is John Zarrella, reporting live, from the Port of Miami.

PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks, John.

Not bad compensation.

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