What happens when a dream vacation turns into a floating disaster with no power, no plumbing, and loads of pissed-off passengers? Netflix’s new documentary Trainwreck: Poop Cruise dives headfirst into the infamous 2013 Carnival cruise debacle, and it’s every bit as jaw-dropping as the nickname suggests.
The story revisits the infamous four-day cruise that was supposed to be a normal voyage from Galveston, Texas, to Cozumel, Mexico. It turned out, of course, to be a nightmare for its more than 4,000 passengers and crew, and this documentary directed by James Ross digs into why it happened — doing so with tons of detail that can at times be pretty jaw-dropping.
Basically, after an engine room fire wiped out the ship’s power — which killed the air-conditioning and the ability to flush toilets, among other things — the situation quickly broke down. Raw sewage seeped into hallways, the food supply ran low, and passengers were forced to sleep on deck in sweltering heat. Netflix’s new doc immerses you in the slow-motion disaster that left viewers, and even some of the passengers themselves, wondering: Is this really happening?
“This looks funnier than the Fyre Festival doc,” one YouTube commenter said under the trailer. “It doesn’t take long for humans to deteriorate into savagery.” Another chimed in, “I’m low key obsessed with this story,” while someone else bluntly summed up the sentiment of anyone still on the fence about cruise vacations: “Another reason to add to my list of why I’ll never go on a cruise.”
Like the rest of the streaming giant’s Trainwreck series, Poop Cruise peels back the headlines to show the real people behind the viral story. It explores how quickly infrastructure and basic human civility can fall apart under stress, and the PR gymnastics that corporations perform when things go wrong in full view of the world.
Needless to say, the Trainwreck series, which launched with the explosive Woodstock ’99 doc in 2022, has become a favorite among Netflix documentary fans for its thoroughly reported deep dives into media circus moments. From the Astroworld tragedy to the rise and fall of American Apparel, each entry investigates what happened, and what it says about us.
“This can’t be real,” one YouTube commenter put it. But it is, and you can stream the whole story now on Netflix — just maybe not while you’re eating.
