Angry passengers who had their cruise cancelled when the ship's toilets failed have returned home a week early.

The 500 remaining passengers on the 34,000-ton Thomson Celebration docked at Southampton complaining of overflowing toilets and bad smells after the trip to Lisbon and back.

They included Anthony Newburn, 65, and his wife, Jean, 63, who had travelled from their home in East Sussex to join the 14-day Iberian tour which was cancelled after six days.

They complained about the smell and accused staff on board of being disorganised.

Mr Newburn said: "We are disappointed about what has happened. We had two or three days when it was OK but it was a very disorganised ship and very amateurish.

"The public toilets were unusable so we had to go down to our cabin."

The ship left Southampton last Sunday but ran into difficulties with its plumbing straight away, some passengers claimed.

The liner docked at Bilbao where the problem affecting 250 of the 600 cabins on board was fixed.

But later the problem recurred and Thomson cancelled the voyage in Lisbon.

About 600 passengers flew home on Friday, while those whose cabins had toilets that worked remained on the ship.

Today there were several unhappy passengers and cruise spokesman Rachel O'Reilly said: "Thomson is sincerely sorry for the disappointment and inconvenience caused to its cruise customers.

"All customers will receive a full refund of their total holiday cost plus 25 per cent off their next Thomson cruise holiday "I would stress these types of incidents are isolated cases - the loos in most cabins did not overflow.

"At the start of the cruise there could possibly have been some toilets out of order but we did not know we would have a major problem with the plumbing system."

Some passengers said the smell had made them feel physically sick while others were not so badly affected.

Howard and Silvia Swain, from Brighton, said they were happy Thomson was giving them a full refund.

Mr Swain said: "It's obviously not an ideal situation but these are circumstances beyond their control."

Mrs Swain said she and her husband had not suffered as badly as many passengers.

She said: "When I saw the news I wondered whether these people were on the same cruise as us.

"I feel sorry for the people that had problems but we didn't have any and we didn't speak to anyone on the boat who did.

"The food was good, the entertainment was good and we were well looked after.

"It's a shame for people whose first cruise it was but this was our sixth and we are already thinking of going on another with Thomson in September."