SAN DIEGO - The food on the disabled cruise ship Carnival Splendor is cold and the lines to get it stretch for hours.
And with the pool and casinos closed and rooms pitch black and stuffy, the nearly 4,500 people and crew on board passed the time with live music, scavenger hunts and trivia contests as they are slowly towed toward San Diego.
The bar is also open and offering free drinks.
Two tugboats were pulling the 952-foot ship back to the U.S. The journey could take at least until late today.
The ship entered cell-phone range on Wednesday, and the crew set up a bank of eight Satellite phones, allowing passengers mostly cut off from communication since an engine fire disabled the vessel on Monday to finally reach loved ones - and provide the first details of the conditions on board.
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Among them was David Zambrano, who phoned his employer, Denver TV station 9NEWS, and said people were trying to keep their spirits up by singing, socializing and playing cards.
Rooms in the interior of the ship were dark, and passengers propped open their doors to let in air and emergency lighting from the hallways, Zambrano said.
"So really, all we're doing is just kind of hanging out on a boat waiting for the next mealtime," Zambrano said.
Mealtime requires a two-hour wait for cold food, he said. Navy helicopters flew in Spam, Pop Tarts and canned crab meat and other goods for the passengers and crew. "It's almost like a diet cruise because we've been eating salads and fruit and small sandwiches," Zambrano said.
Carnival CEO Gerry Cahill said the challenges on the cruise ship are unlike any others his company has faced in its 35-year history.
"The conditions on the ship have been challenging, and we are very, very sorry for the discomfort and the inconvenience that our guests have had to deal with in the past several days," Cahill said at a news conference in San Diego. "They signed up for a great cruise vacation and obviously that is not what they received."
The U.S. Navy resupplied the ship Tuesday with thousands of pounds of food and other items ferried by helicopter from the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier diverted from maneuvers nearby.
The ship was was expected to arrive this afternoon or evening if the weather remained good, U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Rick Foster said. No storms were forecast.
The journey hit more glitches when a second tugboat sent to help the first was forced to turn back because it wasn't powerful enough, and a third was hooked up Wednesday morning and pulling with no problem, Coast Guard officials said.
Carnival first planned to haul the ship to the Mexican port of Ensenada, not far from a movie studio complex used to film "Titanic," and bus passengers to the U.S. But the cruise line decided they would be more comfortable on board.
Zambrano said passengers were overjoyed to hear they were heading straight back to California and wouldn't have to go through the tedious customs process at the border.
"When they said they were towing us to San Diego instead of Ensenada, the cheer could be heard all the way around the boat," he said. "Everybody was screaming."
