What happens onboard, stays onboard – unless your vengeful ex-fiancé decides otherwise.
Picture this: you’ve finally booked your first ever cruise with your spouse, a well earned vacation away from work and the kids. Everything is falling into place – the flights are booked, the nanny is confirmed, and everything is paid for.
It is all smooth sailing until the storm hits all at once – the cruise line issues a refund and cancels the booking.
On February 17th, 2025 an excited soon-to-be cruise-goer posted about her cruise getting cancelled unexpectedly – and through the help of the comments was able to figure out what happened.
The initial post outlined how the cruise had been booked on January 3, 2025, with reservations for the Carnival Horizon made for June. At 133,500 gross tons, this vessel has a double occupancy of 3,974.
No email or contact was made about the cancellation – but an unexpected refund of $1900 was issued by Carnival Cruise Line. Leave it to a credit card statement to tip you off that something had gone wrong.
Upon checking their Carnival account, the reservation for the upcoming cruise was cancelled. Becoming frustrated lead to the decision to seek help by calling Carnival Cruise Line on February 17 to try to get some answers.
“I called this morning and they said our cruise was cancelled directly from our account at 9:30am on Thursday February 13th,” complained the poster.
The woman and her husband were at work during that time – and neither of them wanted to cancel the cruise. While attempting to re-book their original room, customer support provided some less-than stellar service.
“We informed carnival of this and they refuse to give us back our original room at the original price we paid,” the poster further explained.
During the first call with Carnival’s customer service, the only information provided about the cancellation was that the couple had cancelled the trips themselves, with the representative eventually hanging up out of frustration.
“So far I am NOT impressed with carnival cruise lines,” ended the post.
Since the cruise line could not re-book their initial room at the original price, they had to go with a downgrade to an interior cabin. The whole experience was turning sour – that was until one response changed everything.
“Maybe it was your ex. This does not seem like something carnival would do,” commented one user.
Upon reaching out to Carnival Cruise Line later in the day on February 17, a bizarre discovery was made about the cancellation.
The husband’s ex-fiancé – who had formerly been on one Carnival Cruise with him – was the emergency contact on their account. Somehow, she had been able to sign into the account with her email and cancelled the cruise.
After hours on the phone with the cruise line, the representative on the phone gifted the couple a room upgrade and a $300 on board credit that they are now planning to use on a snorkeling excursion.
Carnival’s Cancellation Policy
When it comes to Carnival Cruise Line’s reservations, emergency contacts have limited access and capabilities to alter anything – leaving one to wonder how this happened.
Carnival’s cancellation policy is pretty straightforward: if you cancel your booking prior to your final payment there is no penalty – unless you booked a specific promotion with a non-refundable deposit and/or cruise price.
Carnival Horizon only does 6+ day cruises, so final payments are due 91 days prior to sailing per Carnival’s policy. This Vista-class cruise ship does round-trip voyages out of PortMiami.
The post does not specify the exact date, but rather the month of June, 2025. The first cruise Carnival Horizon leaves for that month is on June 1, 90 days prior to March 3.
Though the cancellation was not made purposefully, it did fall outside of the range of penalty. It is important to take note of the penalty periods – which directly affect refund amounts.
From the final payment date to 56 days prior to the cruise, the penalty is the standard deposit amount.
Then from 55 days to 30 prior to the cruise, the penalty is 50% of the Total Fare or the standard deposit amount, whichever is greater. This jumps to 75% 29 to 15 days prior – and 100% 14 days to 1 day prior.
Finally, if you do not show up or cancel while the cruise has begun, no refund will be issued.
So is your emergency contact going to cancel your cruise? Probably not. Emergency contacts are added during passenger check-in for their cruise, which happens within 14 days prior to boarding.
The reason that Carnival needs emergency contact information is to be in a better position to help passengers in the unlikely event of an emergency.
Carnival’s policies do outline that they may communicate any person contacting them from the provided contact information concerning a guest’s reservation – regardless of it being the guest’s personal contact information or not.
It is important to make sure that your account has the most up to date contact information to avoid situations like this one.
If your ex is your emergency contact for cruises, you might just want to replace them with someone more trustworthy. After all, they are an ex for a reason!
