Water floods Carnival Cruise ship in Caribbean, as passengers evacuated from quarters

Social media showed scenes reminiscent of Titanic. Photo / Instagram @amantedosoceanos13

Just five days into a Caribbean cruise the Carnival Dream was struck by flooding, forcing passengers from their rooms and staff to bail them out.

On the evening of May 3, a break in the ship's fire extinguishing systems caused gallons of water to well up in the ship's interior.

Video from passengers' social media shows water pouring through hallways on passenger decks, in scenes reminiscent of Titanic.

Passenger, Marla DeAnn Haase's Facebook updates of the drama onboard received over one million views from an anxious online audience.

Her live coverage included a post reading: "Um....FB folks.....this is a rare moment of internet connection ....we are flooding on a cruise, we heard the violins and the silverware all came crashing down. What in the world....say a prayer for is [sic] all."

The flooding on Deck 9 caused 50 staterooms to fill with water. The displaced passengers of these waterlogged rooms were forced to spend the night on yoga mats while staff had to bail them out using plastic buckets.

"Our onboard teams began cleanup immediately related to this clean water from a fire suppression system," said a rep for Carnival cruises speaking to Fox News

Posted by Marla DeAnn Haase on Thursday, 3 May 2018

The statement issued by the cruise line praised the action of their crew members and apologised to their passengers, reading: "We appreciate our guests' understanding and sincerely apologise. We also thank our crew members for their quick action and hard work."

Carnival also said that passengers impacted by the water will be issued with a full refund and credit towards a future cruise, giving them the option to fly home the following day.

The Carnival Dream had been on its way from Cozumel from Belize when the incident happened and would continue with the remainder of its seven-day cruise, returning to its home port in New Orleans.

The ship, which first went into service for Carnival in 2009, is one of four Dream-class ships and is registered to the company in Panama.