Like a scene out of the film 'Titanic,' chaos consumed listing ship

• NEW: Clinging families were separated when crew said, "Women and children first"
• The tilting ship and rising water evoked the film "Titanic," a crew member says
• There was chaos on board as passengers tried to find lifeboats in darkness
• The luxury cruise ship was designed to appeal to young couples and families

Porto Santo Stefano, Italy (CNN) -- The 3,200 passengers aboard the Costa Concordia cruise liner were enjoying a night of entertainment and relaxation off Italy's Mediterranean coast.

Then, at about dinnertime, the lights went out, an ominous scraping sound moaned through the hull, and the ship tilted to one side.

The 1,500-cabin luxury vessel, which was also carrying about 1,000 crew, ran aground on a rocky sandbar off the tiny island of Giglio.

Chaos overwhelmed passengers and crew alike when, as the ship listed and water rose as if it were a scene from "Titanic," everyone realized that only one side of the ship's lifeboats and rafts were reachable.

Amid screams, no one seemed in charge, and at times, the crew appeared helpless, said one passenger who had to make a ladder of rope to save himself and his wife.

"It was the Marx brothers watching these guys trying to figure out how to work the boat," said Benji Smith, who with his wife, Emily, were on the Concordia for their honeymoon. The couple live in Boston.

"I felt like the disaster itself was manageable," Smith added, referring to the grounding and tilting of the ship, "but I felt like the crew was going to kill us."

The worst part came when a lifeboat crew member told everyone, "Women and children first," Smith said. "All these families who were clinging to each other had to be separated," he added.

After helping passengers, some crew members jumped overboard and swam ashore.

Search continues for missing passengers

At least three lifeboats apparently malfunctioned due to technical or crew error, Smith said.

Life rafts were "twisting and turning," and the crew pulled in some rafts and put the people back on the ship, but the crew never returned for them, Smith said.

"We scrambled around the ship looking for the best way to go," Smith said.

With the ship's staircases flooded, "we made ladders out of ropes to climb down from the outer fourth deck to the third deck," Smith said.

"We waited clinging to those rope ladders for 3? hours" before being picked up by a lifeboat that returned from dropping passengers onshore, he said.

"The people manning these boats were just cooks and shopkeepers," Smith said.

Smith said he and his wife never heard from any of the officers or captain during the incident.

The mustering of survivors on land was confusing, too. Passengers weren't told of what to do, Smith said.

The couple was eventually transported by bus to a hotel in Rome.

"I've been awake for 40 hours -- I still have never spoken to a person from Costa," he said, adding that no food, clothes, or money were provided by the cruise line.

"We are stranded. We have nothing," Smith said.

Many passengers complained about how the cruise ship staff handled the crisis and asked why they had not yet received an obligatory safety briefing when disaster struck, only hours into their journey.

"We attended a safety presentation on the first day," but he says it didn't turn out to have any safety information, he said. "It was only a sales pitch" for shore excursions, Smith said.

He said he and his wife read evacuation and safety information from a packet that was in their cabin.

"The orders were contradictory" during the call to abandon ship, he said. People were sliding on slippery decks, landing on broken glass, he said.

Rosalyn Rincon, a member of the cruise ship staff who worked as a dancer, was in the middle of a magician's act when the ship ran aground. She was inside a box during a magic show when, she said, "I realized that everything stopped. The music stopped," she said.

Everything on the stage fell on top of people because the ship listed dramatically, said Rincon, 30, of Blackpool, England.

"There was no signal as to what was going on until about 30 minutes into it," Rincon told CNN.

Her boyfriend, an Italian engineer officer on the vessel, told her that there was a blackout and the ship crashed into something.

"They told us there was a fire," she said.

Then another blackout occurred, and the ship went into darkness, she said. She put on her life vest in her cabin, she said.

About 15 minutes later, "the captain of the ship told us it was an electrical problem," Rincon said.

Rincon thought to herself: "If it was an electrical problem, why were we tilting," she said.

Several minutes later, "we were told to abandon ship," Rincon said.

Then panic set in, she said.

"The life rafts weren't opening," she said. "We had to let the passengers go first."

The ship was taking on water -- like in the movie "Titanic," Rincon said.

"The ship was going down. The water was rising. And I just thought there was only one thing to do was jump and swim, and there was mountains nearby that we could get to," she said.

"This is the problem: You've got 3,000 passengers, you've got 2,000 crew members, and you got only one side of useage of lifeboats and life rafts" because the ship was resting on one side, Rincon said in a telephone interview from her Italian hotel.

Rincon realized there was going to be a shortage of lifesaving watercraft, she said.

"You were going higher and higher, and you were on a vertical position. I was holding on to the railing. All you could see was noise and creaks. It was very, very scary," Rincon said.

"It was just chaos," she added. "The water coming up, there's obviously nothing you can do."

Many passengers had to be carried to the lifeboats. Some had fainted. Others had injuries to their face or body, Rincon said.

Some crew were faced with a choice of jumping into the water and trying to swim ashore -- or risk waiting for a rescue boat.

Rincon was able to get into a rescue boat -- after all the passengers were put on lifeboats or life rafts, she said.

"We were literally thrown into the boat," Rincon said.

Several crew members did jump overboard and swam to the mountain shore, she said. One friend was rescued by helicopter from the top of the ship, Rincon said.

"At first, I was scared and I was shocked," Rincon said about surviving the grounding. "I'm pretty much angry, and I want to know why we were so close to the coast."

She had sailed that itinerary the past three months, she said.

"I've never thought something like this could happen," Rincon added.

When the ordeal was over, some survivors found themselves without shoes or some clothing, Rincon said.

Passenger Laurie Willits from Ontario, Canada, who was watching the magic show with her husband, told CNN: "All of a sudden the lights flashed, and the boat tipped like it was turning, but it didn't return to level.

Emergency announcements in English and other languages were hard to hear, Willits said. "We had very sketchy information," she said. "We couldn't really hear because of the chaos and talking."

Panic spread as people scrambled to find lifeboats in the dark as the ship quickly leaned to one side.

Lifeboats on the higher side got stuck, Willits said, leaving some people suspended mid-air for a long time. The sounds of children crying and screaming could be heard.

Willits and her husband managed to get into a lifeboat about an hour to 90 minutes after the alarm was raised, and were among the first to be taken to land.

The Willitses watched from a pier on the island as the ship slowly keeled over until it was at an almost 90-degree angle in the water.

Divers were searching the areas of the vessel that remain under water, amid reports that 50 or more people may be missing.

Designed to appeal to young couples and families, according to cruise reviewers, the ship housed five restaurants and 13 bars, as well as a huge spa area with a gym, sauna, Turkish bath and solarium.

The Mediterranean cruise ship started in Civitavecchia, a port 50 miles from Rome, and it was supposed to sail to Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.

At reception centers set up on shore Saturday, some passengers were still wearing pajamas, slippers or housecoats from when the alarm was first raised on the ship. Most were without their money, phones and valuables.

Sirens blared as some of the injured were taken to hospital. Helicopters lifted some people from the badly listing ship.

Rescue officials said their operation peaked between midnight and 3 a.m. Saturday, and calm seas prevented greater loss of life. Three people were confirmed dead and 20 injured.

Many people spent the night in small churches and other buildings around the island before being ferried to the mainland to make their way home.

The Italian cruise company, Costa Cruises, said it would help passengers return home. Costa is owned by parent company Carnival Corp.

An investigation into the cause of the disaster is under way, officials said.

The timing of the accident, coming three months to the day before the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's fateful collision with an iceberg, was noted on Twitter.

CNN's Livia Borghese in Rome, Laura Smith-Spark in London, journalist Barbie Nadeau in Porto Santo Stefano and Michael Martinez in Los Angeles contributed to this report.