A Carnival cruise ship tipped on its side just hours after leaving port this past Sunday night, leaving passengers fearing the worst. 

News 10 spoke to two local women who were aboard the ship when it happened.

“You felt helpless. You felt like your life was going to end that night,” said Catherine St. Julien of Opelousas.

“That’s nothing that I’d like to experience again. I wouldn’t want anyone to experience that,” added Belinda James.

St. Julien and James boarded the the Carnival Sunshine on Sunday with a group of friends. They say they were at dinner when the ship started to tilt.

“It just felt off, for some reason,” said James, “The water was calm and the boat began to tilt on its side. And we’re like ‘ok this doesn’t seem normal, surely it’s going to retract.’ But it didn’t. It continued to tilt.”

She says what followed seemed like a movie.

“Dishes started falling off the tables, glasses started falling off the tables, food. People started panicking. They were screaming, crying, praying, running. It was just total chaos.”

James and St. Julien say the incident only lasted a few minutes, but they didn’t get an explanation from the captain until the next morning.

He sent out a letter to all passengers saying an electrical switchboard malfunction affected the use of the fin stabilizers. Along with the explanation, passengers also received a $50 on-board credit each to make up for their inconvenience.

James says, while the rest of their trip went smoothly, they were still fearful of the ship tipping again.

“We did have a good time, but on the back of your mind you’ve got ‘ok is this going to happen again?’ And with the least little bit of tilting or rocking of the boat, you’re like ‘is this gonna happen again? Are we going to tilt over again?'”