The Carnival Corporation said Monday that it would repay the federal government an unspecified amount for responding to accidents on its Triumph and Splendor cruise ships, which left thousands of passengers stranded at sea. Carnival, the world's largest cruise line company, said that the payments were being made voluntarily and that no government agency had requested them. But Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, was highly critical last week of Carnival's indirect responses to his inquiries about its willingness to pay. Mr. Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, estimated the Coast Guard's costs in dealing with the crippled Triumph this year at nearly $780,000. The 2010 engine fire that left the Splendor adrift, he said, cost the Coast Guard and Navy about $3.4 million.
