A Carnival Spirit passenger jumped overboard yesterday into the Pacific Ocean and was quickly rescued by the ship's crew.

In a statement provided to Cruise Critic, Carnival said witnesses saw a 28-year-old man jumping off the ship as it steamed for Hawaii on the fourth day of a 15-night cruise. Search-and-rescue operations were initiated and the passenger was located and brought back on board, where he received treatment at Spirit's medical center. 

Carnival's CareTeam is providing support to the guest and his family, said the line. 

Cruise Critic readers on board the ship provided additional reporting of the dramatic rescue.

"Shortly after Captain Volpi announced we were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and had passed the point of no return, the man jumped overboard," wrote member cruisingcouple2008 on his Facebook page. "We immediately heard the BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO PORTSIDE alert and the ship came to a quick slowdown from 23 knots to about 4 knots. We turned around and the lifeboats were lowered. Within moments, the man was located and the quick work of the staff of the Spirit rescued the man alive." 

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Smarks, who is also on board, said on the message boards that the man jumped from Spirit's adults-only Serenity Deck. 

The majority of man overboard scenarios don't end in a rescue — but it does happen. In February, fast-acting crew members rescued a crew member who jumped off of Carnival Magic. Last October, a man who jumped overboard from P&O's Ventura was pulled out of the water alive. More strangely, a Carnival Inspiration passenger who went overboard in June 2009 was rescued when he was found hugging a pilot marker in a shipping channel near Tampa. The man told authorities that he climbed up on a railing to get a better view of the pilot boat when he slipped and fell overboard. 

 Carnival Spirit is in the midst of a 15-day Hawaii cruise that departed San Diego on Friday and will return to San Diego on April 28.

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A Dutch polar expedition ship carrying 73 passengers and 42 crew is stranded at a South Atlantic island after suffering a partial engine failure.

The Plancius, an ice-class vessel operated by the Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions, is anchored in a bay outside South Georgia's Grytviken, a "former whaling station and now a popular stop-off spot for cruise ships visiting Antarctica," reports Agence France-Presse.

A press release issued Thursday by Oceanwide says all passengers and crew are "safe and sound" and that there is no threat to the environment. The "Atlantic Odyssey," a 32-night Ushuaia-to-Cape Verdes Islands voyage that began March 29, was interrupted on April 9 when the Plancius experienced a "mechanical dysfunction of the main propulsion system causing a reduced propulsion power." As a result, the ship can sail at a maximum of 4 to 5 knots in calm conditions, said the line. That means it won't be able maintain course in the rough seas of the open ocean.

All passengers -- mostly Dutch and American -- will be taken to Montevideo, Uruguay, on the chartered passenger vessel m/v Ushuaia, which is scheduled to depart from Grytviken on April 18. The m/v Ushuaia should reach Montevideo on April 24, at which point passengers will be flown home. In the meantime, the line called onboard spirits good ("given the circumstances") and said passengers are embarking on walks as part of a makeshift excursion program organized by expedition staff.

After passengers are transferred to the m/v Ushuaia, a tug boat will help tow Plancius to a port equipped to make repairs. Oceanwide has not said where Plancius will be fixed. We've reached out to the company by e-mail to see what the passenger compensation will be.

According to Oceanwide's Web site, Plancius was built in 1976 as an oceanographic research vessel for the Royal Dutch Navy and was named "Hr. Ms. Tydeman." The ship sailed for the Dutch Navy until June 2004 and was eventually purchased by Oceanwide.

This incident is just the latest in a string of recent cruise ship engine failures. In March, Azamara Quest suffered an engine room fire that injured five crewmembers and left the ship adrift off the southern Philippines coast. In February, an engine fire left Costa Allegra inert in the Indian Ocean. Cunard's flagship, Queen Mary 2, has also been plagued with engine troubles over the past year.

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Chris Helgren / Reuters

An Irish Coast Guard helicopter evacuates an ill passenger from the Titanic Memorial Cruise ship MS Balmoral on April 10 in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Ireland.

It's more rough waters for a cruise ship retracing the Titanic's doomed voyage 100 years ago this month.

One day after the MS Balmoral arrived late for planned festivities on Ireland's coast, the ship was forced to turn back Tuesday due to a medical emergency on board.

Rachael Jackson, public relations manager for Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, which operates the Balmoral, told msnbc.com that a passenger had fallen ill.

"The ship is turning around and heading approximately 20 nautical miles east to bring it nearer to the coast and within reach of a helicopter," the cruise line said in a statement. "Fred. Olsen and Titanic Memorial Cruises are working with the Irish Coastguard to co-ordinate the relevant arrangements, and making sure that all agencies involved are being kept informed." 

Miles Morgan, Managing Director of Miles Morgan Travel which chartered the journey, told Reuters that "the passenger's condition is not thought to be life-threatening."

The ship, which departed Southampton, England, on Sunday, is currently traveling to New York. After a brief port call in Cobh on Ireland's south coast, the Balmoral sailed again late Monday night.

The ship is carrying 1,309 passengers on a 12-night cruise. Among them are relatives of those who lost their lives, relatives of survivors and historians.

The Balmoral's itinerary includes a memorial service at the spot where the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, in international waters in the North Atlantic. More than 1,500 people aboard perished.

Related: Titanic's wealthiest passenger built NYC hotel

Also on Tuesday, the cruise ship Journey, carrying 440 passengers, left a New York City pier for Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Titanic Memorial Cruise, which arranged the cruises on both the Balmoral and the Journey, says the passengers will visit a cemetery where 150 victims of the Titanic are buried. The ship also will feature lectures about life on board the doomed ocean liner and will hold a memorial service at sea.

Ticket prices dropped in recent weeks from about $5,000 per person to $1,000 per person. 

Meanwhile, the Balmoral continued to be plagued by bad weather on Tuesday afternoon, forcing the cancellation of a floor show due to safety concerns for the performers. 

The memorial cruise has been five years in the making and organizers have tried to make it as authentic to the era as possible. 

Related: Who gets Titanic's treasures? Stay tuned

Passengers from 28 countries, who have paid between around 2,600 pounds ($4,100) and 8,000 pounds each, are being offered dishes served on the Titanic and on-board lectures about the famous ship. 

The Balmoral was set to resume its voyage once the passenger was evacuated.

Like the Balmoral, the Titanic also experienced several delays, Jeff Jensen of Living Titanic Lectures told msnbc.com. After the Titanic's sister ship, the Olympic, collided with a ship in New York's harbor in 1911, workers were pulled off the Titanic to make repairs, which postponed the Titanic's maiden voyage by three to four months.

“Even the morning it left, there was a two-hour delay,” Jensen said, referring to an incident in which the force of the Titanic's engines snapped the mooring lines of the liner New York in Southampton’s harbor, resulting in a near collision between the two ships.

While at sea, the Titanic's radio broke down on the day before the ship's fateful collision with an iceberg, Jensen said. As operators tried to catch up on a communications backlog, they neglected to deliver ice warnings to the captain. “Right up until the day of the disaster, they were still feeling the effects of some of the delays.”

Despite the current holdups aboard the Balmoral, Jensen said he hopes the ship will soon be able to get back on course and stay true to its its focus: "to remember and honor the Titanic."

Information from the Associated Press and Reuters was included in this report.

More on Overhead Bin

• Titanic cruise delayed due to strong winds
• Cruise ships commemorate Titanic's voyage
• Events mark 100th anniversary of Titanic's sinking 
• Ghostly new images of the Titanic revealed 
• Full Titanic wreck site mapped for the first time

Chris Helgren / Reuters

Tormod Gaasbakk, left, and Anne Isabel Udbye of Trondheim, Norway, sit in a hot tub on a Titanic Memorial Cruise aboard the MS Balmoral as it navigates high winds April 9 on its sailing to Cobh.

It's been a stormy beginning for a cruise ship retracing the maiden voyage of the doomed Titanic.

The MS Balmoral, with 1,309 passengers aboard, was delayed on its first day at sea due to strong winds, the Guardian reports. The ship set sail Sunday from Southampton — as the Titanic did on its maiden voyage 100 years ago — on a 12-night cruise commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking.

After being slowed by strong winds, the Balmoral reached Cobh on Ireland's southern coast late Monday, the BBC reports.

The ship originally had been due to arrive in Cobh at 2:30 p.m. local time, according to the Guardian, forcing a civic reception to be postponed for several hours. The Balmoral arrived shortly before 6 p.m. and was greeted by thousands of well-wishers, Rachael Jackson, public relations manager for Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, which operates the Balmoral, told msnbc.com.

The town of Cobh, formerly known as Queenstown, was the Titanic's last port of call before it crossed the Atlantic almost a century ago. The ship will follow the same route as the Titanic, though since it is a smaller ship, the Balmoral had to leave Southampton two days earlier than the Titanic.

The parent company of Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines, Harland and Wolff, built the Titanic in Belfast. It has been chartered for the event by Miles Morgan Travel, which specializes in tailor-made holidays.

Slideshow: Titanic Belfast

David Moir / Reuters

The Titanic Belfast Experience is a new visitor attraction location in Belfast's Titanic Quarter, on the original site of the Harland and Wolff shipyard -  birthplace of RMS Titanic.

Launch slideshow

Rachel O'Reilly, a spokeswoman for Miles Morgan Travel, told the Guardian that the ship was running late. "But I have spoken to Miles Morgan himself, who is on board, and he tells me the ship will categorically not be delayed leaving Cobh this evening."

Alastair Grant / AP

Mary Beth Crocker Dearing and her husband, Tom Dearing, from Newport, Ky., pose for the media in period costume as they wait to board the MS Balmoral cruise ship April 8 in Southampton, England.

The organizers are trying to recreate the onboard experience — minus the disaster — including the food and a live band playing music from that era, in a tribute to Titanic's musicians who reportedly played their instruments until the ship sank.

People from 28 countries have booked passage, organizers said, including relatives of some of the more than 1,500 people who died when the Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank on April 15, 1912, in international waters in the North Atlantic. Other passengers include relatives of the around 700 survivors, along with authors and historians.

The tickets varied in cost from 2,799 pounds ($4,445) to 5,995 pounds ($9,520).

Over the course of the voyage, passengers will attend lectures by Titanic experts such as Philip Littlejohn, grandson of a Titanic survivor. Littlejohn said he is sure his grandfather would be proud to know his story would be shared with passengers on the Titanic Memorial Cruise.

"It will be an emotional moment when we are over the wreck site, where I dived in 2001 and where my grandfather left Titanic rowing Lifeboat 13," he said.

While on board, passengers also will dine on meals based around dishes served in April 1912, with a formal dinner on April 13 made up entirely of dishes served aboard the Titanic.

Cruise organizers have set up a special memorial service on April 14 to start at 11:40 p.m. to mark the moment Titanic hit the iceberg, and later at the exact moment when the ship sank.

The cruise is among an abundance of commemorations and memorials to the reputedly unsinkable ship that have sprung up to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's doomed voyage.

Information from the Associated Press was included in this report.

More on Overhead Bin

• Cruise ships commemorate Titanic's voyage
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• Ghostly new images of the Titanic revealed 
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The world's largest cruise ship picked up 23 Cuban refugees in the Caribbean Sea on Wednesday.

Royal Caribbean's 225,282-ton, 5,400-passenger Oasis of the Seas was sailing from Falmouth, Jamaica, to Cozumel, Mexico, when it spotted a small boat, said the line in a statement. Oasis approached the boat and picked up 23 refugees, including 19 men and four women. (Thanks to Cruise Critic member bajathree, who's onboard, for the tip.) 

Once onboard, the refugees received food, water and medical treatment, said the line. Royal Caribbean spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez told Cruise Critic that the new passengers were housed in Oasis' conference room with a few crewmembers until the ship arrived in Cozumel this morning.

According to Royal Caribbean, the U.S. Coast Guard was notified, as is the line's standard practice when dealing with distressed mariners. At the direction of the U.S.C.G, the 23 Cuban citizens were disembarked in Cozumel, where they were handed over to the Mexican authorities. 

Passenger and youtuber Spensaf1 posted a video of the refugees being handed life jackets and then transferred from their makeshift craft to a yellow boat. One of the onlookers can be heard saying, "it's lobster night tonight. Going to be eating pretty well tonight."

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A new magazine article on the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship details a series of blunders and errors on the part of her captain that led to the deaths of at least 32 people and the largest shipwreck in maritime history.

The shipwreck in January off the coast of Italy precipitated a nightmarish scene of almost unimaginable chaos after the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, delayed calling for rescue aid after his navigation blunders forced the cruise ship onto rocks, according to the story.

Journalist Bryan Burrough, writing in the May Vanity Fair magazine, paints an unsparing portrait of that chaos in which passengers — given almost no information about the calamity that had befallen the ship — fought to find their children and other family members, free themselves in darkness from under deck as the ship tipped onto its side and attempted to reach life boats. 

Burrough, who interviewed dozens of witnesses, also details previously unsung heroes from some crew members to rescue divers and Italian Coast Guard officers and even the deputy mayor from the small town overlooking the wreck who combined forces to save most of the ship’s 4,200 passengers.

The story is damning in its details of Schettino’s actions, many reported for the first time. They include:

• One passenger’s claim, though it is elsewhere unconfirmed, that he saw the captain and a friend “polish off a decanter of red wine while eating” prior to the catastrophe.
• That the captain was going too fast for the conditions and seemed to be navigating by eyesight rather than with the aid of maps and radar, when he saw a set of rocks off the Tuscan coast prior to the crash. “What he failed to notice was another rock, nearer to the ship,” that was largely underwater, the story says. “An officer later told investigators he heard the captain say, ‘(expletive)…I didn’t see it!’ ”
• The captain, who was casually talking on the phone when the ship approached the rocks, wrongly ordered the ship to turn to starboard, rather than port, to avoid the mostly submerged rock when he finally did see it. That caused the ship’s stern to swing around and slam into it, ripping open a 230-foot-long gash below the waterline.
• When crew members spoke with the Coast Guard, Schettino ordered them to say that there was only a blackout on board and they did not need any immediate assistance. Schettino’s apparent refusal to “promptly admit the Concordia’s plight — to lie about it, according to the Italian Coast Guard — was not only a violation of Italian maritime law but cost precious time, delaying the arrival of rescue workers by as much as 45 minutes,” the story says.
• When the ship began listing to starboard, the captain dropped its massive anchors to prevent it from tipping further, but played out too much line — so the anchors never caught and were of no help. It was a “jaw-droppingly stupid mistake,” according to a veteran American captain and nautical analyst, John Konrad, quoted in the story.
• The captain, who made it ashore in a lifeboat he claims to have fallen into, begged in a phone call with a Coast Guard officer not to be sent back to the ship to look for survivors. That shocked the officer, who in return threatened Schettino by saying, “Tell me how many people are still on board and what they need. Is that clear? ... I’m going to make sure you get in trouble. I’m going to make you pay for this.”

In one of the few lighter reported details in the story, the ship’s hotel director survived for more than a day inside the tipped ship, trapped on a table above flooding waters, by drinking cans of Coke and bottles of Cognac he found floating by.

The ship remains on its side, and will take more than 10 to 12 months to remove, according to the story. As for the Schettino, he could face charges of manslaughter and illegally abandoning his ship. “Several survivors remarked on afterward, that amazingly, in a world of satellites and laser-guided weapons and instant communications almost anywhere on earth, ships could still sink,” the story says.

Read an excerpt of the article at Vanity Fair.

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• 5 more bodies found in Costa Concordia wreckage
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A teenage girl is suing Carnival Cruise Lines and three of its employees, claiming she was interrogated, strip-searched and forced to urinate under the employees’ observation during a cruise last year.

The alleged incident is not only another potential black eye for the industry but also raises the question of what rights passengers have when at sea.

The case in question involves an 18-year-old girl, identified only as “J.G.,” who sailed on the Carnival Sensation with her family last April. After a stop in Nassau, Bahamas, security guards detained the then-17-year-old girl on suspicion of possessing marijuana.

According to the complaint, the agents “threatened, coerced and required J.G. to remove her panties, lift her dress to her waist and expose her nakedness to all agents in the cabin.”

She was then allegedly forced to urinate in front of employees, who also requested she remove a tampon. J.G. claims she was subjected to a genital cavity search before being booked and escorted off the ship. The suit alleges that J.G. was placed in an adult cell in the Bahamas and subsequently assaulted.

The cruise line vigorously disputes J.G.'s claim that she was interrogated, strip-searched and subjected to a cavity search. “Carnival does not typically comment on pending litigation but feels compelled to do so given the far-fetched claims made in this lawsuit,” spokesman Vance Gulliksen told msnbc.com.

“The claim that the plaintiff was strip searched is patently false and obviously made in retaliation for the cruise line having disembarked the plaintiff and her mother part-way through the voyage in Nassau where the plaintiff was taken into custody by the Bahamian police.”

Specific allegations aside, the case highlights the murky nature of jurisdiction and passenger rights on the high seas. According to legal experts, U.S. passengers are protected by U.S. laws but also subject to international maritime laws and the legally-binding contracts of their passenger tickets.

“When you go on a cruise ship, you are in the territory of the flag of the country the ship is registered in,” said Miami-based maritime attorney Michael Winkleman of Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman. “But where you have a possible criminal case, different types of intervening jurisdictions can apply — the Coast Guard, the FBI — although the only real authority on the ship is the cruise line itself.”

Story: How safe is that cruise ship anyway?

And those tickets/contracts do give cruise lines the authority to search guests and their belongings, confiscate prohibited items and deny boarding or reboarding to passengers who refuse to comply.

As the Carnival contract states, “All Guests agree Carnival has, at all times with or without notice, the right to enter and search Guest's stateroom, personal safe or storage spaces, or to search or screen any Guest, and/or personal effects, at any location, to ensure compliance with any of the restrictions set forth in this agreement.”

“You’re implicitly agreeing to give them a certain authority over you,” said Winkleman, “but the question is what’s reasonable?”

“The short answer is that, irrespective of the law of the flag, cruise lines have a responsibility to treat passengers reasonably,” said maritime lawyer Jim Walker of Walker & O’Neill in Miami. “My view is that it’s unreasonable to subject a minor to any of the conduct that’s alleged in this incident.”

Furthermore, passengers maintain the right to object to any type of search or interrogation, he says, although there are consequences for doing so, which include refusing passengers boarding and bringing in local authorities.

While neither Winkleman nor Walker are involved in the current litigation, both suggest that no cruise line operates under the premise that it has the right to conduct strip and cavity searches of passengers. Rather, they say, such incidents arise from the gray area of conflicting jurisdictions and the multi-cultural environment that constitutes the typical cruise.

In fact, since all but a handful of cruise ships sail under foreign flags, the majority of onboard personnel are from foreign countries. Along with waiters, housekeepers and maintenance crews, security agents are often recruited during job fairs, conducted both in the U.S. and overseas and by both the cruise lines themselves and third-party companies.

The nationality of the employees in the current case — Mayank Thapa, a security agent; Redentor Yuzon, an assistant housekeeping manager, and a female employee referred to only as “Leticia” — is not stated in the complaint. The suit cites the case’s “diversity of citizenship” as one reason for filing in U.S. District Court.

“When you have a security agent from a country outside the U.S. that doesn’t recognize these types of legal protections, they’re going to act according to their own cultural values and beliefs,” Walker said. “That’s where you have the collision between the theoretical rights Americans enjoy and the actual circumstances that are presented on board a ship. That’s why these things happen.”

Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.

Related stories:

• Video: New details on Costa Concordia captain's blunders
• How safe is that cruise ship anyway? 
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Updated April 1, 9:32 a.m. ET:

A luxury cruise ship stranded at sea for 24 hours because of a fire has safely reached a Malaysian port.

The Azamara Quest was adrift off the southern Philippines for 24 hours with 1,000 people aboard after flames engulfed one of its engine rooms Friday night.

It restored propulsion the next night and reached the harbor of Sandakan city in Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah on Borneo island late Sunday.

Police and buses were waiting at the port to take the passengers to a hotel.

A fire broke out in the engine room of the luxury cruise liner as the ship was steaming for Malaysia Friday, disabling its engines and leaving it drifting off the coast of Borneo in Indonesia. Five crew members were injured.

According to a statement from Azamara Club Cruises posted on its Facebook page, the blaze started at approximately 8:19 p.m. ship's time (8:19 a.m. EDT) while Quest was en route from Manila, Philippines, to Sandakan, Malaysia.

Crew members suffered smoke inhalation and were being treated in the ship's medical facility, a statement late Friday said. One crew member was in serious condition.

Azamara Club Cruises said the fire was contained to the engine room and was quickly extinguished.

Royal Caribbean International said there were approximately 300 Americans on board out of a total of 617 guests, NBC reported. Azamara Club Cruises is a member of the Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. There are no reported passenger injuries, and Azamara had described the mood onboard as "calm."

Late Friday, the cruise line said engineers aboard the ship had restored power to one of the ship's engines. "This additional power has permitted the ship to re-establish air conditioning, running water, plumbing, refrigeration and food preparation onboard for the comfort of our guests and crew," a statement said.

Quest was on a 17-night sailing that departed Hong Kong, China, on Monday, March 26, and included port calls to Manila, Philippines; Sandakan (Sabah), Malaysia; Palapo (Sulawesi), Benoa (Bali), Semarang and Komodo, Indonesia and was meant to conclude in Singapore on Thursday, April 12.

The remainder of the cruise has been cancelled, and Azamara is offering guests on the stricken ship a full refund for the cruise and a certificate for a future cruise worth 100 percent of the cruise fare paid for their Azamara Quest sailing.

The company's president and CEO Larry Pimentel was planning to fly to Sandakan to meet passengers personally.

The Azamara fire was the latest in a series of accidents hitting luxury cruise liners since January, when the Costa Concordia capsized off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people.

NBC News, the Associated Press and Dan Askin of Cruise Critic contributed to this report.

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