In February this year, passengers were forced to spend nearly five days in the Gulf of Mexico aboard a stranded ship operated by Royal Caribbean rival Carnival after the ship was disabled by an engine-room fire.
In the biggest high-profile incident in the U.S. in recent years, more than 3, 000 passengers aboard the Carnival Splendor were towed to shore in 2010 by a Mexican tugboat after an engine-room fire cut off the ship's electricity.
That was followed less than two months later by an engine-room fire aboard the Costa Allegra, another Costa Crociere ship, which left it adrift and without power in the Indian Ocean.