Video: Disabled cruise ship Carnival Triumph limps home The 893-foot (272 meter) vessel, notorious for reports of raw sewage from overflowing lavatories, has been without propulsion and running on emergency generator power since Sunday, when an engine room fire left it adrift in the Gulf of Mexico. The ship is operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, the flagship brand of global cruise ship giant Carnival Corp. It left Galveston, Texas, last Thursday carrying 3,143 passengers and 1,086 crew and had originally been due to return there on Monday Four tugs are towing the vessel. Passengers have described dismal, filthy conditions on-board, but the company has disputed the accounts and says employees are doing everything to ensure people are comfortable. Earlier this week, some passengers reported on the poor conditions on the Triumph when they contacted relatives and media before their cellphone batteries died. They said people were getting sick from gut-wrenching odours aboard the sweltering ship, which had no working air conditioning, and said passengers had been told to use plastic "biohazard" bags as makeshift lavatories. In a statement late on Wednesday, Carnival Cruise Lines President and Chief Executive Gerry Cahill said the company had decided to add further payment of $500 per person to help compensate passengers for "very challenging circumstances" aboard the ship. The troubles on the Carnival Triumph occurred a little more than a year after 32 people were killed when the Costa Concordia, a luxury cruise ship operated by Carnival Corp's Costa Cruises brand, was grounded on rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio in Italy. Carnival said it had initially planned to tow the Triumph into Progreso in Mexico, the closest port to its location early on Sunday when the engine room fire occurred. But the ship drifted about 90 nautical miles north, due to strong currents, before the towing got under way, and that left it stranded roughly midway between Progreso and Mobile.