Cruise ships have a lot to offer
for a great vacation but these passengers
learned the hard way all the things
that can go wrong at sea.
Overboard.
Oh my God.
This cruise ship hit a bad storm
that was anything but relaxing.
Being on a rollercoaster for 17 hours
in your room not even tied down.
45 degree angle, it was hell.
Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas
was headed to the Bahamas from New Jersey
when it got pummeled by high winds and rough seas.
We are actually at the moment
having over 100 knots of wind.
The ship eventually turned around
but passengers were afraid of the worst case scenario.
It was very, very scary.
We didn't think we were gonna get back home.
Terrifying.
The cruise line apologized for the experience
and refunded everyone's money for the washed out trip.
And how's this for washed out?
(water crashing)
Water filled the hallway of this Carnival cruise ship,
making it look like a scene out of the movie Titanic.
At that moment I had no idea what was going on.
We didn't know it was a water main.
We didn't know if all the other floors were filled.
Marla Hoss posted this video to social media
asking for prayers.
But it turns out the ship wasn't taking on water
from the ocean.
A burst pipe caused the flooding
and crew members banded together to bail it out.
And, a few hours later,
it looked like nothing ever happened.
Thank God nothing terrible happened to us all.
(water crashing)
This woman survived the unthinkable,
falling overboard on a cruise ship
in the middle of the night.
I felt hopeless.
Helpless and hopeless.
It was pitch black out there.
Sarah Kirby was celebrating her 30th birthday
with a Caribbean cruise on Carnival Destiny in 2012.
After a night of drinking,
she says she was leaning back on the balcony of a stateroom
when she fell into the water.
She tried to swim after the ship
but all she could do was watch it sail away.
I kept praying, praying to God,
"Please don't let me die out here.
"Please don't let something eat me like a shark."
Her travel companions begged the ship to go back
to look for her and she was found after 90 minutes.
Something similar happened to another woman
on a cruise to the Bahamas in 2018.
There's goes the lifeboat.
Passengers caught video of a rescue boat
going out to find her and they were relieved
when the captain made this announcement.
We found the person in the water
and she was picked up.
And she's now in the hospital so everything is good there.
But some cruise ships do leave people behind.
(ship horn blares)
No!
This couple was 45 minutes late
to get back to the cruise ship after an all-day excursion.
They may have thought they made it in time,
but as they got closer to the ship,
they had to watch it pull away from the dock.
That sucks.
It also happened to this woman
who was visibly distraught.
That is someone that has missed the boat!
It turned out her three children
were on the ship without her.
CBS travel editor, Peter Greenberg,
says cruisers need to respect the return times
given by the crew.
There are no repercussions to the cruise line.
It's in the cruise line's contract you can't be late.
The cruise line is going to sale.
No! But the rules are the rules.
You miss the ship, you're chasing it.
But this ship should have stayed
in dock a little longer.
(machine whirring)
The Norwegian Sun was still undergoing construction
when it set off in April of 2018.
Passengers had to hear things like this.
(equipment screeching)
At all hours of the day.
The work was also limiting the guests
from using some parts of the ship.
We were always hearing sanding and drilling.
Two thirds of the ship at one point was closed down
due to sanding, blasting, welding, jackhammering.
It was unbelievable what we had to go through.
Horrific, absolutely horrific.
(machine whirring)
The guests staged a mutiny
demanding answers from the captain.
Don't raise your voice to me, okay?
We are doing the best we can.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!
That is a bunch of baloney!
(passengers complaining)
Do it on your time!
But he was no match
for these disappointed vacationers
and was booed out of the room.
Norwegian apologized and admitted the cruise
did not meet the guests' expectations.
They also offered a free trip to all 2,000 passengers.
For InsideEdition.com, I'm Mara Montalbano.