The stranded Carnival Liberty passengers were flown home from St. Thomas on Tuesday as the U.S. Coast Guard did not give the cruise ship clearance to sail.
"Carnival Cruise Lines has decided to end the cruise early and assist passengers in returning to their home cities. One hundred seventy passengers took a charted flight to Barbados on Tuesday," West Indian Co. Ltd. President Joseph B. Boschulte said, according to CNN.
The ship - with 3,346 guests and 1,150 crew members on board - departed San Juan on Sunday for a seven-day Caribbean cruise. However, it got struck in St. Thomas on Monday after an engine fire, HNGN reported previously.
All passengers and the crew were evacuated to the Caribbean island following the engine fire. The ship is expected to return San Juan, Puerto Rico at the end of this week.
The Carnival Cruise Lines earlier had apologized to its guests for "unexpected disruption" of their vacation. Carnival said the guests would receive a full refund and a 50 percent discount on a future cruise.
"All guests will now be flown home from St. Thomas. Given the limited availability of commercial flights, guests will primarily be transported via chartered aircraft," Carnival Liberty said in a statement posted on its Facebook page on Tuesday.
"There were no injuries to guests or crew as a result of the fire which was extinguished by the ship's automated suppression system," the statement added.
