A Kentucky family faced one of the most disappointing vacations imaginable due to an unexpected error.
With much excitement, Tiffany Banks and her family planned a Carnival Cruise trip. Yet, things took a turn for the worse.
In a series of TikTok videos, Tiffany shared the family’s ordeal.
Only two days before their flight to Florida, where they were set to embark on the cruise, their booking was surprisingly canceled unbeknownst to them, even though everything was fully paid.
An email about canceled off-ship excursions prompted Tiffany to contact the cruise line. She was informed that the $12,000 reservation for the Excel Presidential Suite had supposedly been canceled by her through the online system.
Tiffany, alarmed and confused, took to her TikTok account, @thathippiedoc.
She expressed how devastated she and her children were, saying, “We have nearly $15,000 tied up in this vacation, including excursions. The room itself was I think $12,000 or $13,000, and then we’ve got a few grand tied up in excursions, and actually with almost $2,000 for flights.”
Determined to resolve the issue, she explained to Carnival that she hadn’t canceled the reservation, hoping it was merely a system malfunction. However, Carnival informed her the room had been reassigned to another customer. They offered her the cheapest available room, which she found unacceptable.
No refund was provided, as it violated their policy against refunds within 15 days or less of the cruise date.
With hope, the family still traveled to Miami, only to watch the cruise ship depart without them.
Later, Tiffany realized they had fallen victim to identity theft. A simple mistake occurred when she accidentally shared their cruise booking reference number on Facebook, alongside a screenshot of an email.
On that same day, someone used the booking number to create a Carnival account, proceeding to cancel the cruise shortly before the trip.
Sadly, the individual responsible remains unidentified. Though Carnival offered another trip as compensation, Tiffany’s trust was broken, and she declared her family would never use the cruise line again.
Responding to the incident, a Carnival Cruise spokesperson remarked, “While we are not going to comment on any specific guest complaint or incident, it is never a good idea to post personal information about your travel plans, including a confirmation number for a booking, which could allow a bad actor or identity thief to use that information in inappropriate or even illegal ways.”
