Family’s $15,000 Cruise Ship Vacation Canceled Two Days Before After Making Brutal Mistake In Social Media Post

Talk about a vacation nightmare... A Kentucky family’s holiday turned into a disaster, all because of a simple mistake they made.

Tiffany Banks was looking forward to a relaxing Carnival Cruise with her husband and four kids, but things quickly went south.

In a series of TikTok videos, Banks shared her disbelief at what unfolded.

Just two days before they were supposed to head to Florida and hop on the cruise ship, she found out that their booking was mysteriously canceled.

To add insult to injury, they had already paid for the whole trip. That’s got to hurt.

Banks received an email about canceled off-ship excursions and called the company to find out what was going on.

She was informed by a customer service rep that she supposedly canceled their $12,000 reservation for the Excel Presidential Suite, the ship’s most luxurious room, through the online booking system.

Understandably, Banks freaked out, trying to piece together how this could have happened.

On her TikTok account, thathippiedoc, she mentioned that she and her kids were devastated and cried over the mix-up.

A representative told her that she had cancelled the $12,000 reservation for the ship’s largest room, the Excel Presidential Suite, through the online system. (thathippiedoc/TikTok)

She detailed the finances involved: "We have nearly $15,000 tied up in for 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."

She was adamant that she didn’t cancel the booking and clung to the hope that it was just a system error.

However, Carnival informed her that the room was already rebooked by someone else and only offered her the cheapest room on the ship as an alternative, which Banks felt was totally inadequate.

The company also turned down her request for a refund, citing their policy which does not allow refunds within 15 days or less of the cruise date.

Despite the setback, the family traveled to Miami, hoping they could still get on the ship, but they were left stranded as the cruise left without them.

Later, Banks found out she had been a victim of identity theft.

She and her husband had accidentally shared their cruise booking reference number on Facebook by posting a screenshot of an email a few weeks earlier.

Explaining on a series of TikTok videos, Banks explained her shock at finding what went wrong. (TikTok/thathippiedoc)

The day they posted it, someone created a Carnival account, added the reference number to their profile, and canceled the booking just two days before departure.

The culprit remains unidentified.  Even though Carnival offered them another trip, Banks stated that she and her family will never use the cruise line again.

A Carnival Cruise spokesperson told LADbible Group: 

"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 identify thief to use that information in inappropriate or even illegal ways."