Cruisers upset as Carnival starts cancelling 100s of cruises after accidentally offering prices “far below any reasonable fare”

• An extraordinary sale was offered to Australian Carnival cruisers, with cruises as cheap as $55 per night up for grabs .
• Some cruisers managed to grab a cabin, however, there are conflicting reports on whether this was a legitimate sale, or some kind of system failure.
• This leaves a group of cruisers unsure if their prices will be honoured or not, with all eyes on Carnival to see how they will handle the situation. However, many cruisers, particularly in the USA, are already seeing their cruises cancelled.

Update: Carnival appears to have begun mass cancelling the bookings of cruisers who snapped up extraordinary bargains that were sent to cruisers or shown on Carnival’s website as part of a system glitch. While Carnival is still yet to release a statement, American guests and some Australian guests have reported receiving an email saying that the fares were an accident and will be refunded.

Carnival called the fares, which for Aussies went as low as about AUD$50 per night, were “far below any reasonable promotional fare”.

The statement reads: “Following a planned IT maintenance project this past weekend, some guests saw a random display of prices that were far below any reasonable promotional fare. The reservation you made was one of them.

“We regret to inform you that we will not be able to honour your reservation request. The reservation has been cancelled and any monies paid will be credited to your original form of payment. Since you travel plans were just made with us, we hope you will find another itinerary that suits your vacation needs.

“As a gesture of our appreciation, a non-transferable onboard credit of US$100, per stateroom, will be applied to your future booking if made by August 31, 2026.”

Screenshots of these emails are being shared by American cruisers across the internet and Aussies are of course fearing that they’re next, and that they’ll also lose out on the cut-price holiday they thought they grabbed.

Carnival’s delayed response in clarifying the situation for all cruisers appears to already be causing problems, for example, a cruiser who posted to Reddit says that they had already booked flights go with their cruise.

Writing: “I booked myself a little trip as a birthday present to myself. Found a great deal! Paid in full for a balcony & booked flights, only to get this email today. Now the same cruise is selling interior rooms for twice what I paid.

“And what are they offering? $100 OBC if I rebook before August. Cancelling a paid reservation just because they sold it at a discount shouldn’t be legal. Absolutely ridiculous.”

It appears Carnival has stumbled into a tricky PR situation, and a rapid clarification would be their best bet at appeasing cruisers, particularly Aussies, many of which aren’t sure if their cruise is going ahead or not.

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May 12: On-the-ball Carnival cruise fans in Australia have snapped up incredible deals for as little as $55 a night, but they’re now now anxiously waiting to find out whether the cruise line will honour the bookings or cancel them if they were the result of a website glitch.

The deals offered to Carnival VIFP members were perhaps for some of the cheapest cruises ever offered in Australia, with many as cheap as $55 per night. Deals include a 14-day Fiji cruise out of Sydney from just $758, an eight-day Great Barrier Reef cruise starting from $452, a 10-day South Pacific cruise starting from $554, and more.

While Carnival can be known to run great sales, it is not clear whether these incredible price drops as low as $55 per night, were an intended sale or some kind of website glitch. Unsurprisingly these cruises were booked rapidly and the cheap cabins have now been exhausted. However, cruisers are unsure if they’ve secured the deal or if these prices were accidents and will be refunded.

Many cruisers report successfully managing to book one of these cut-price cruises, and even receiving book confirmation via email from Carnival.

Conflicting reports have been coming from cruisers who say that they’ve called Carnival. Some have said they’ve been told the prices would be honoured, and others have reported that they were told there was a website glitch and these cruise fares will be refunded or reverted to the actual pricing.

One cruiser shared in an online cruise forum: “Just spoke to Carnival regarding these cheap cruises. It was a system error that happened during upgrades over the weekend. They are not sure if the prices will be honoured or refunded but will make an announcement either way tomorrow as it’s 3am in the morning in the US.”

Another cruiser who managed to snag an extraordinary deal is also unsure what’s going to happen: “I was one of the lucky ones and booked a bargain cruise for $500 for 9 nights for a balcony. My booking was confirmed by email – though it looks like we may well get a refund now due to it being a glitch in the system – not an actual sale.”

Cruisers who managed to get a cabin are now waiting tensely to see what comes next, one cruiser wrote that the deal “better be honoured or I will never cruise with them again”.

Carnival is now left very much in the hot seat, with people likely to be upset whatever they decide. Those who managed to make a booking will of course be upset if they’re told that their cruise is no longer confirmed at the price they paid, meanwhile other cruisers will be upset to have missed out on such cheap cruises if they are honoured.

The extreme drop in prices do suggest that it was some sort of system glitch, or potentially casino offers that were given to regular passengers, and it will be up to Carnival to decide how to handle the situation.

Carnival has been contacted for comment to give clarity on whether cruisers who booked a cabin will have their cruise price honoured or not.

Carnival flagged last week that the website would be down for maintenance over the weekend. “In efforts to better support you and help you plan in advance, please be advised our reservation systems will be undergoing maintenance and will be temporarily unavailable,” it said in a statement ahead of the outage.