‘‘I appreciate the patience of our guests and their ability to cope with the situation. And I'd like to reiterate the apology I made earlier. I know the conditions on board were very poor,’’ he said. ‘‘We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case.’’

Passenger Ferguson said crew members tried to make the situation bearable.

‘‘They did their best to keep our spirits up,’’ she said.

Joseph and Cecilia Alvarez of San Antonio said some passengers passed the time by forming a Bible study group.

‘‘It was awesome,’’ he said. ‘‘It lifted up our souls and gave us hope that we would get back.’’

The company disputed the accounts of passengers who described the ship as filthy, saying employees were doing everything to ensure people were comfortable.

In a text message, Kalin Hill, of Houston, described deplorable conditions over the past few days.

‘‘The lower floors had it the worst, the floors ‘squish’ when you walk and lots of the lower rooms have flooding from above floors,’’ Hill wrote. ‘‘Half the bachelorette party was on two; the smell down there literally chokes you and hurts your eyes.’’

She said ‘‘there’s poop and urine all along the floor. The floor is flooded with sewer water ... and we had to poop in bags.’’

While the passengers are headed home, the Triumph will head to a Mobile shipyard for assessment. Carnival has canceled a dozen more planned voyages aboard the Triumph and acknowledged the crippled ship had been plagued by other mechanical problems in the weeks before the engine-room blaze. The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation.

Passengers were supposed to get a full refund and discounts on future cruises, and Carnival announced Wednesday they would each get an additional $500 in compensation.