The Upsetting Social Media Mistake That Will Ruin Your Entire Cruise

As innocent as it might seem, posting too much personal information about your cruise on social media in advance can ruin your vacation and potentially cost you a lot of money. In May of 2024, Tiffany Banks (@thathippiedoc) posted on TikTok that her family's Carnival Cruise, which they had been planning for months and was due to set sail in just a few days, had been unexpectedly canceled without her knowledge. When Banks first posted, she believed she must be experiencing some kind of glitch in the booking system that had accidentally canceled her booking, but the truth was even stranger. The cruise had been canceled by somebody else. A few weeks before the cruise was due to set sail, Banks and her husband had enthusiastically posted about it on Facebook — and they accidentally included their booking number.

According to a follow up post from Banks, because of the social media post, someone else had been able to use her booking number to cancel her cruise. Not only did that mean that her family missed out on the trip, as the suites had already been given away by the time the mistake was found, Banks also revealed that it cost them a lot of money. She had originally booked the Excel Presidential Suite, making the cost of the trip upwards of $15,000. Carnival told her was not eligible for a refund because of how close to the departure date the cancellation had occurred.

While Carnival is aware of the issue, in Tiffany Banks' case, it has not yet been possible to get any kind of refund from the company. They have offered a few perks, though. According to Banks, a Carnival Cruise line associate explained to her that although the company is now aware that Banks and her family never intended to cancel their rooms, they are still holding them to their cancellation policy, which states that if you cancel your cruise within 2 weeks of departure, you can't get any of your money back. While they weren't able to get their money back from the company, according to Banks, Carnival offered her and her family two interior cabins on the same cruise, instead. While they can be a nice budget pick, interior cruise cabins are far from the luxurious suite Banks paid for.

Banks also stated that the company offered her a $10,000 credit to use onboard one of their cruises — but to get it, she would have to post on social media that the issue had been resolved. Of course, she and her family would also have to pay for another cruise to use it, something which she isn't interested in, as she will certainly avoid taking a cruise with them in the future.

While it's exciting to plan your dream cruise, the most important thing you can do to ensure things go as planned might be to keep your private information private — online and in person. According to clips shared by Banks, a Carnival Cruise lead explained to her that what had happened was a kind of identity theft. When Banks and her husband shared their booking number on Facebook, someone added it to a fake profile through Carnival's website. While this happened to Tiffany Banks with Carnival, there's no reason to think that it couldn't happen on any other cruise line, so don't think it's safe to share your booking number just because you're planning to sail with a different company.

While this sounds like a scam, the perpetrator was likely looking to destroy the vacation rather than get money. The booking was added as soon as Banks made the post, but not canceled until two days before the cruise, well outside of the range for a refund. If your booking information is available, anyone who wants to ruin your trip has the power to do that. Not sharing this sensitive information on social media is the first step, but according to one user on Reddit, that's not the only way this can happen. This unfortunate Redditor booked a Royal Caribbean cruise, only to have it canceled by a vindictive ex-partner who still had access to the booking information.