Broken water pipe results in 500 missing Serenade of the Seas cruise (updated)

Royal Caribbean International's Serenade of the Seas was delayed sailing from New Orleans over the weekend after a water pipe broke and flooded some electrical equipment on board. This necessitated canceling about 500 reservations, a company spokeswoman told Seatrade Insider, after staterooms were impacted by the resulting power outage.

The incident occurred Friday and instead of turning around on Saturday as scheduled, the ship's departure was delayed until Sunday at approximately 12:15 Central time.

Royal Caribbean said all of the ship’s critical systems, including navigation, were operational. However, a few areas were without power, including the main theater, medical facility, gym and the television in passenger staterooms. The company said crew worked to restore power to these areas as quickly as possible.

Because a number of staterooms were affected by the power outage, Royal Caribbean said it was necessary to cancel some guests' reservations. They are getting a full refund of their cruise fare and a future cruise certificate for 100% of the fare paid for their sailing.

Serenade of the Seas will still visit all scheduled ports of call—Nassau, CocoCay and Key West—but in a different order.

The 2003-built ship has double occupancy capacity for 2,100 and can carry up to about 2,500 passengers.