A family vacation turned into a disaster after this awful move by a cruise line

A family’s vacation on a cruise was supposed to be a chance to relax. 

But they found themselves dealing with a nightmare. 

And a family vacation turned into a disaster after this awful move by a cruise line. 

A family’s vacation is ruined after a cruise would not let them board 

Shannon Nutting and her four children had been looking forward to going on a Royal Caribbean cruise for years. 

The teacher from Pembroke, North Carolina, thought that she had everything in place for her big vacation. 

“I started planning in November of 2023 and making payments then, and finally paid it off, I believe in April of last year,” Nutting said. 

Nutting and the children were overjoyed to go on the cruise after years of saving for it. 

She even brought the family babysitter on the trip to help with the kids. 

“My 9-year-old was so excited, she was speechless and started crying,” Nutting recalled as they pulled up to the cruise terminal. 

The family went to board the cruise ship in Port Canaveral, Florida, but her 16-year-old son was not allowed to board. 

“It was a surprise for the kids,” Nutting stated. 

The security officials rejected the student ID that her 16-year-old son tried to use. 

“He said, unfortunately, you’re not going to be able to board today because the school ID is not acceptable,” Nutting explained. “So, I explained to him that we had talked to Royal Caribbean, and they had assured us that the school ID was valid, and I was upset by that point, crying, so I asked could I speak to a supervisor.”

The dream vacation is halted by a bureaucratic snafu 

Nutting tried to plead her case with the Royal Caribbean supervisor. 

“[I] explained to her that my son has special needs,” Nutting stated. “That’s one of the reasons he did not yet have a state-issued ID, and that I called to make sure he could board without it. She said she didn’t care what he had, and we couldn’t board, and she just walked away.” 

The vacation the family spent years planning and saving for was off because of a mix-up about a teenager’s ID. 

Nutting and her kids watched the cruise ship sail away without them. 

“All that year of saving and paying on it, everybody was just heartbroken and devastated. Everybody was exhausted,” Nutting recalled. “I did not want to get on the road for eight hours and travel back I-95 with four kids by myself and my babysitter.”

She called her travel agent to try and salvage the vacation. 

“They told her that we should have been able to book. At that point they wanted us to fly to Cozumel. For us to pay to fly to Cozumel and board the ship two days later,” Nutting stated. 

Nutting refused to pay for flights to Mexico, so she and her family spent a few days in Florida. 

A Royal Caribbean official eventually apologized to Nutting over the snafu. 

The cruise line offered a refund that could be applied to a future cruise and a $700 credit, a full refund, or a refund and a 25% credit for a future cruise. 

“We wanted the money for the cruise back and the expenses. The expenses that we had for traveling to Florida while we were there for meals, gas, the lodging, and all of that,” Nutting said. 

Royal Caribbean refused to cover her expenses. 

She noted that she did everything the cruise line asked her to do. 

An exasperated Nutting vowed to get everything in writing for the next vacation she takes.