A family from Blue Hill is among the more than 2,000 passengers who were temporarily stranded in Jamaica in the wake of a fire early Thursday morning that broke out on the giant cruise ship Princess Star as it sailed through the Caribbean, resulting in the death of one passenger and injuring 11 others.

“It was a frightening experience,” said Lynne Strasenburgh, who with her two teenage sons and elderly parents was staying in a hotel in Negril, Jamaica, Friday after the damaged ship docked in Montego Bay. The ship, which sailed from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., March 19, carried 2,690 passengers and 1,123 crew.

Strasenburgh, speaking by telephone Friday night, said the cabin she and her sons Eric and Tyler shared, as well as the adjoining cabin of her parents, Robert and Pat Bannister of Blue Hill, were located two decks below the blaze, which damaged 150 cabins. The fire was believed to have been caused by a cigarette smoldering in one of the cabins above, according to reports by The Associated Press.

“I woke up around 3:15 a.m. to this loud clanging and banging,” recalled Strasenburgh, who works as a caretaker for an estate in Blue Hill. “I got out of bed and opened the cabin door, and there was a man in the hall saying there was a fire two floors above us and we had to get the other passengers up and get out. I went back into the room, opened the curtains, and I could see flames and cinders and things falling on our balcony.”

After she roused her sons and her 78-year-old parents, they grabbed what clothing and belongings they could and eventually were guided to a muster station where they spent the next seven hours waiting with other passengers while the fire was extinguished.

“They stopped the boat and turned it around because of the wind direction, which was making the fire very hard to fight. They shut off all the air conditioning. Our muster station was in the computer lab. It got very hot. There were people lying on the floor,” Strasenburgh said, adding that at no time did she see anyone panic.

“The staff on the ship did a wonderful job keeping everyone calm. The captain gave us updates every half-hour on the intercom about how they were doing fighting the fire,” said Strasenburgh. The family had taken part in a mandatory drill soon after the cruise began to prepare them for an emergency, she noted.

Around 10:30 a.m. Thursday the passengers were able to get something to eat. Later, they were allowed to return with an escort to their rooms to retrieve belongings and, in the Bannisters’ case, medications.

“My father is a heart and cancer patient, so we had to get his medications from his room,” said Strasenburgh, adding that her parents were doing fine on Friday.

One passenger, Richard Liffridge, 72, of Locust Grove, Ga., died from what Princess Cruises said was cardiac arrest.

Once the $430 million ship, which is nearly three football fields long, docked in Montego Bay later Thursday, about 500 passengers whose cabins were affected by the fire and its aftermath were bused to hotels. The cruise line is paying all of their expenses. Strasenburgh said the family has been told planes have been chartered and they will likely fly out today or Sunday to return home.

Strasenburgh and her parents are cruise ship veterans, she said. She has been on nine cruises, including four on the Princess line. Her parents have taken eight cruises. Asked if this experience will prevent her from boarding a ship in the future, Strasenburgh said “absolutely not.”

“But I will say I believe there should be no smoking on ship, especially not in rooms. If you flick a cigarette off a balcony, with the wind, it comes right back onto the ship,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.