It can be very exciting to be planning and reserving exclusive activities for your upcoming cruise vacation. But what about when the activities you want to do most are already sold out or fully booked months before your sailing date, or even more than a year before?
Fortunately for Carnival cruise guests, some information that shows sold out options or unusual tour times for the most popular activities is just a website glitch that the cruise line is working to fix.
Timing Glitch for Popular Tour
The glitch in timing is affecting the listing for Carnival’s wildly popular “Behind the Fun” tour which takes guests into exclusive areas including the ship’s bridge, the engine control room, laundry facilities, and crew-only areas.
When trying to pre-book this tour, however, guests are seeing that the timing of the activity is listed as embarkation day at noon. This is not always possible for guests to use if they are arriving to the ship later in the afternoon.
That timing, however, is a glitch and should be disregarded.
“This brilliant look behind the crew only door is fabulous but when people are purchasing these tickets from our website it states that the excursion will be leaving on embarkation day at noon,” John Heald, Carnival’s official Brand Ambassador, confirmed.
“This of course understandably has people in a panic wondering if they will be on board on time. My apologies, this is a glitch or whatever the proper word is. The Behind The Fun Excursion is scheduled for the LAST [sea] day of the cruise. The tickets and information you will receive in the cabin will reflect this.”
As with any shore tour, guests will receive tickets for the Behind the Fun tour once they are onboard and do not need to worry about rushing through the chaos of embarkation day to take the tour. Heald reached out to his Facebook fans with reassurance about the timing so any interested guest can still purchase the tour.
“I wanted to share this here [on Facebook] because some have said they have been put off from purchasing this so I wanted to make sure I let everyone know,” he said.
The Behind the Fun tour is offered aboard every Carnival cruise ship as operational needs permit. Guests should review the tour’s requirements – closed toed shoes, no cameras, no skirts, minimum age of 8 years, etc. – to be sure the activity is right for them.
To book the tour, guests do need to choose from shore excursions available on day one of their sailing, where they will find Behind the Fun listed. The tour can be booked from Carnival’s website or via the Carnival Hub app.
Specialty Dining Reservations Sold Out – A Wording Problem
Another website “glitch” booked guests are finding for their future Carnival cruise sailings is that many specialty dining reservations and dining-related events appear to be sold out, even more than a year in advance.
This includes reservations to the Fahrenheit 555 steakhouse, Rudi’s Seagrill, Bonsai Teppanyaki, JiJi Asian Kitchen, the popular Chef’s Table dining event, the whimsical Thing 1 & Thing 2 Birthday Breakfast, and more.
What is actually true, however, is not that these options are already sold out, but that they haven’t been made available for sailings so far in the future.
Read Also: Carnival Cruise Dining Options Worth Paying For
“I know some are trying to purchase a specialty dining time for 2026 and that everything says ‘SOLD OUT’ – nothing is actually sold out and it is just that we have not opened up bookings for 2026,” Heald explained. “I have asked for the beards to change the wording.”
Bookings for these events are typically released several months before a sailing, but the timing can vary. Some of the exclusive events do sell out quickly once they are available.
Booked guests should continue to check the website for when the reservations are opened to ensure they can secure their favorite option at the time they prefer.
