Carnival Ship Fails Inspection: What Did The CDC Find On 'Fascination'?

A Carnival Cruise Lines ship failed a surprise yearly inspection by the Centers For Disease Control & Prevention. In order to stay compliant with Federal law, ships that dock in the United States must earn an 86 out of 100 on the United States Public Health Inspection.

2013 has not been a good year for Carnival, after the Carnival Triumph became disabled shortly after leaving port in the Gulf of Mexico, stranding passengers with stagnant toilets and stale food.

The Carnival Fascination earned an 84 on the inspection after CDC officials found flies hovering over unrefrigerated beef, a lack of a "sneeze-shield" at the Fascination's salad bar, and a roach nymph in a drain below a juice dispenser. Beneath a counter in the ship's galley, food waste was seeping from a leak in a sealant of the vessel holding the rubbish. The residue was found dried below the counter.

Carnival officials reported their ships have not failed a CDC inspection in five years. The average score for the fleet was said to be 97 out of 100 according to spokesman Vance Gulliksen. He later said that the discrepancies were solved within a day of the CDC inspection.

Not only has Carnival had issues with its fleet under its current brand name. Formerly rivals of each other, Cunard Lines and White Star Lines merged together and later became part of Carnival Corporation & PLC, or simply Carnival, the American cruise line based in Doral, Fla.

The Liverpool-based White Star Line was the operator of J. Bruce Ismay's RMS Titanic, which set off from Southampton, UK and later Cobh, Ireland this week in 1912, and famously met its end after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic shortly before Midnight local time on April 15, 1912. It of course never made it to its destination of New York City. Many of the Titanic survivors were rescued by rival Cunard's Carpathia.

In a famous twist of fate, Captain Stanley Lord, of the "Californian," was much closer to "Titanic" than "Carpathia" but he and his crew misinterpreted the emergency rockets set off by E.J. Smith and the crew of the "Titanic" as simply identification flares.