Fiasco total: El crucero de la caca

They say it's not nice to laugh at other people's misfortunes, but sorry, I couldn't help but laugh.

In February 2013, everything was going fine on the Carnival Triumph luxury cruise ship until day four, when a fire knocked out the ship's electricity. This, in turn, disabled the toilets, leaving passengers with the option to do number ones in the shower and number twos in a red poop bag.

Most of the food had to be thrown away, thanks to no refrigeration, leaving passengers with crappy, unappealing sandwiches and not much else. A plan to give passengers free drinks didn't go well, as it seems drunk passengers on a broken cruise ship stuck in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico was a recipe for yet more disaster.

This is just day one; it gets worse, much worse. I felt bad for laughing, but I couldn't help it.

Eventually, the media got a whiff of the story, which is much better for them than the whiff of pee and poop being endured by the poor passengers and crew of the Carnival Triumph.

It turns out there were plenty of warning signs that this could happen. There had been several fires on Carnival's ships, and this fire was caused by a leak in a diesel engine's flexible fuel oil return line that spilt onto a hot surface and ignited. This was not the fault of the crew, who came across as guardian angels, thus saving Carnival Cruise Line a little bit of face, but not much.

This is the third of the Netflix Trainwreck series I've seen, and probably the best so far. Thankfully, nobody died in this disaster, but anyone watching will surely be glad they were not on that boat.

This documentary validates my fear of being in a crisis with a bunch of (stupid) people. Besides the face that I dont understand why you would rather clog the toilet than use a disposable bag, why on earth when you're stuck on a ship at sea, would you rip of the lights on your life jacket?! Just so you can see a little when you pee?! My biggest fear in this world is stupid humans! Amazed at the ignorance, arrogance and just plain stupid behaviour of the interviewed passengers. I have never felt such a lack of empathy for people before. Credits to the crew for putting up with them (but also why would you think it was a good idea to have an open bar amidst a crisis).

The Trainwreck series of Netflix documentaries has one underlying theme: Americans, if given free reign, can be as crass and depraved as anything featured in the notorious Penthouse-produced movie Caligula. As an American, I watch these documentaries with a mix of fascination and shock. If we still had a mental health care program in the United States, most of the people featured in these documentaries would probably wind up in wards.

This documentary's title is off putting, juvenile and like something from a National Enquirer tabloid headline. But I watched it anyway for the hell of it. At only an hour, it's not a long time investment. And it has its merits. The recreation of the bad conditions on the ship are engrossing. The most revealing interviews come from the staff of the Carnival ship - mainly Jen the "Julie McCoy" of the cruise, and the chef originally from India (I can't recall his name). An executive from Carnival is interviewed too, which is a surprise. Of course in typical executive form, he is mostly unapologetic, claims the "media" blew the disaster out of proportion (the horrible "fake news" media strikes again...), and all Carnival liners are subjected to rigorous inspections before they launch.

On the other side of the executive perspective, there are interviews with a maritime attorney who specializes in cases against luxury cruise ships. He reveals that at the time, all ticket purchasers of Carnival cruise lines had to agree to a clause, likely in very small print buried on page 5 of the text-heavy application, that passengers are basically on their own in the case of a disaster at sea...anything apparently from hitting an iceberg to a fire that causes the power to go and all of the toilets to stop working.

Thus, the "poop" angle of the documentary. Most passengers interviewed freaked out at the thought of (OMG) doing "number 2" in a red biohazard bag. It's not as if the ship had a shortage of biohazard canisters or toilet paper. So thus begins the American entitlement reveal. Three young women are interviewed prominently. Their only objective on the bachelorette party/cruise is to drink, day and night. They need to take an expensive cruise just to do THAT? They could have saved a ton of money by just spending a long weekend at a hotel next door to an Applebee's.

Other passengers include a young guy who traveled with his fiancé and her father, who seems to be auditioning for a movie most of the time. Besides the two Carnival staff interviewed, perhaps the most sympathetic subjects are a father and daughter duo from Lubbock, TX. But at the time the daughter was 13, and why the hell dad that it was a good idea to "relax" with her daughter (who was 13 at the time) on such a decadent cruise is anyone's guess.

Maybe this is being too critical of the subjects being interviewed. They experienced a horrible ordeal with at one time no end in sight. But whoever at Carnival made the decision to offer free alcohol on the third day of being stranded to these most likely sleep- and nutrition-deprived, hungry, frustrated, and delirious passengers should have his or her head examined. If they wanted total Roman Empire violence, sex, and debauchery, they sure got it, before a wiser employee shut the bar down.

The takeaway from all of this, for me at least, is that if I ever have an itch to take a cruise, it will be on a paddleboat on the Mississippi River. At least then, if anything goes haywire, we can swim to shore.

I watched Trainwreck: Poop Cruise as someone who lives on a boat and has also spent plenty of time off-grid, camping, living simply. So my reaction to the events on the Carnival Triumph was not what the filmmakers may have intended. Yes, the fire was serious. Yes, the loss of power was frightening. But what truly shocked me was not the mechanical failure - it was the passengers.

The documentary reveals something deeply unsettling about modern entitlement: a total inability to adapt when modern comforts disappear. When toilets failed, the crew handed out sanitary disposal bags - a practical, biosecure solution. Most passengers refused. The result? Unsanitary conditions, plumbing backups, and worsening chaos. This wasn't just a systems failure; it was a human failure.

What astonishes me is the genuine horror expressed at the idea of peeing in a shower or using a bag - things our species has done, in one form or another, for tens of thousands of years. Watching people recoil from such basic realities while drifting in the middle of the ocean was, frankly, more apocalyptic than the fire itself.

The film is well-paced and tightly edited, and Carnival deserves scrutiny for its disaster preparedness. But if there's a deeper message here, it's this: modern humans may not be ready to survive without flush toilets and air conditioning - and that should worry us far more than an engine room fire.

Stuff happens. Systems break. But survival requires mindset, not just amenities. If these people are representing the species, then we are doomed.

I didn't follow the story when it first happened, so this documentary was a wild, bizarre, and completely captivating surprise for me. I was hooked from start to finish.

But there's a great guilty pleasure in watching this when hearing the American women on a bachelorette cruise share their dramatic version of events, complaining about missing out on margaritas and beach time, while a crew member calmly explains that this kind of thing happens all the time in her country and doesn't shock anyone. It's both brilliant and embarrassing! 😂

I think this is the reason for the 1-star reviews, but it's a fascinating commentary on culture pulled from a story about poop flooding a ship. I say, well done!

Also, credit to the producers for keeping it under an hour. That was the perfect length.