THE COSTA ALLEGRA cruise ship finally limped into port yesterday, three days after a fire in the ship’s generator room left passengers without working toilets, running water or air conditioning in a region of the Indian Ocean where pirates are known to prowl.

“Things became very primitive,” passenger Gordon Bradwell said after the ship was towed into Victoria port in the Seychelles.

The blaze came just six weeks after another luxury liner, the Costa Concordia, capsized off Italy, leaving 32 people dead, a fact that was on many passengers’ minds. Both ships were operated by Costa Crociere SpA, which is owned by Florida-based Carnival Corp.

The average age of the 627 passengers on board was 55, said Guillaume Albert, head of Creole Travel Service. Many of the older passengers in particular had trouble with the sweltering heat.

After the first hours of chaos an emergency generator not involved in the fire also failed, leaving the ship with only six hours of battery power.

That brought an end to any semblance of the good cruise life. There were no more hot meals, only cold sandwiches. The water used to extinguish the fire flooded the galley between the first and second decks. The toilets couldn’t be flushed, blanketing the bathrooms in stench.

Cawan Finn summed up the bathroom situation using a British slang expression. “I haven’t had a whoopsie for about four days now,” the 65-year-old said.