Passengers on the stricken Costa Allegra cruise ship are having to spend up to another 12 hours on board the powerless ship because of a row about who tows it into port.
A Seychelles government minister said a French vessel pulling the liner had refused to give way to tugboats from the islands.
Joel Morgan said the ship would probably have arrived in port on Wednesday night local time if the tugs had been allowed to take over.
It is now not due to arrive until mid-morning on Thursday - between 10 and 12 hours later.
Helicopters have been delivering fresh food supplies to the ship because those already on board have been rotting after fridges and cooking facilities lost power.
Mr Morgan, who is the transport minister, said the Seychelles is unhappy the financial objectives of the French boat were put ahead of passenger safety.
The French fishing boat is towing the liner to Mahe, the main island in the Seychelles.
An earlier plan to take the ship to Descroches was abandoned after it was decided it would not be safe for passengers to disembark there.
The ship, which is owned by the same company as the Costa Concordia , ran into trouble on Monday when a fire in the engine room disabled its main power supply.
This left it adrift with just over 1,000 people on board in notorious pirate waters in the Indian Ocean.
Somali pirates are active in the region but have not yet been sighted near the 28,597-ton ship, which has a group of armed marines on board.
There are 636 passengers on board, including 31 Britons and one Irish person, along with more than 400 crew members.
No one was hurt by the fire and it was quickly put out.
The Allegra was around 20 miles from Alphonse Island, one of the many atolls of the Seychelles, when the incident happened.
It left northern Madagascar on Saturday and had been heading for Mahe when the blaze started.
The Costa Concordia ran aground off the Italian coast in January. Some 25 people are known to have died in the tragedy and seven others are missing, presumed dead.
