Carnival Cruise Ship Rescues 23 People in Gulf of Mexico

The Carnival Fantasy cruise ship rescued nearly two dozen people who were adrift in the Gulf of Mexico over the weekend.

According to ClickOrlando.com, the U.S. Coast Guard said 22 Cubans were traveling from Cuba to Mexico on a wooden boat when they lost power and drifted for three days. Officials said a Cuban-Mexican man brought the group aboard his sport fishing boat but the engines malfunctioned and they drifted for three more days.

A brother of one of the Cubans alerted the Coast Guard which then contacted the Carnival Fantasy. Within hours, the cruise ship had picked up all 23 people about 130 nautical miles off of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.

The Carnival Fantasy sails from Mobile, Alabama to the Caribbean and Panama Canal, offering voyages ranging from two to five days and 10-plus days.

Video taken by a passenger on board the Carnival Fantasy heading back to Mobile from Mexico today shows about 20 people being rescued from a small boat after the cruise ship received a distress call

Full story: https://t.co/KCTPIPU24H pic.twitter.com/61rginnflF

— NBC 15 News (@mynbc15) April 14, 2019

Last year, Royal Caribbean’s Empress of the Seas rescued two sailors who had been stranded at sea in the Caribbean for as many as 20 days.