Carnival Cruise Line warns against common snack hack
Be careful about taking cruise advice from TikTok.
TikTok creators have gained a reputation for giving out terrible advice on a variety of topics — and cruise advice is often no different.
Carnival Cruise Line Brand Ambassador John Heald is regularly tasked with combating bad advice shared on TikTok and other social media platforms as he answers hundreds of cruise passenger questions every day on his popular Facebook page.
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One piece of questionable TikTok advice that’s been circulating for some time relates to bringing plastic food storage bags on your cruise to load up with snacks from the cruise ship buffet. While taking snacks from the buffet isn’t necessarily a problem, cruisers need to know that some social media influencers have recommended a way to enjoy cruise snacks that can actually get cruisers in trouble.
John Heald recently pointed out this issue after one Carnival cruiser wrote to him to accuse the cruise line of “forcing” cruisers to bring plastic bags to “smuggle” cereal for snacking.
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Carnival cruise passenger demands boxed cereal for snacking
“Why are the small individual boxes of cereals not available in the buffet at breakfast? My kids like to snack on these during the day, so I thought it might be handy to grab a couple each morning before going ashore. But the Carnival Paradise had none. The cereal is in a Red Roof Inn style dispenser,” an unidentified passenger wrote to the brand ambassador.
“You are forcing us to buy ziplock bags to put some cereal in and smuggle it off the ship,” the passenger insisted. “Give your passengers what they want. Everyone eats cereal so bring us those boxes and more choices of cereal. My Kroger has a variety pack for under $10.”
Heald shared the passenger’s demanding message on his Facebook page in order to explain why the cruise line no longer offers individual boxes of cereal. He also wanted to point out a potential problem that passengers can encounter if they take cereal or other food off the ship.
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“We do have cereal from dispensers. And yes, when we used to have them in those small boxes, people would take many of them. Not to eat at breakfast, but to take back to their cabins or to take home and it was just not practical,” he explained.
The brand ambassador also wanted to make sure that passengers understood that this cruiser’s idea to take cereal in plastic bags off the ship and into a port of call wasn’t wise.
Most cruise ports don’t permit visitors to bring food ashore
“I would also [caution] anybody thinking, 'Oh, that’s a good idea, I’ll take a Ziploc bag and take cereal off the ship.' Remember, most of the places we go to do not allow this, and if you are caught by the local authorities bringing food off the ship they may treat you in a frosty manner. And that will not be [gr-r-reat],” Heald wrote in his signature humorous way of conveying important cruise information.
If the cereal was pre-packaged and unopened, it probably wouldn’t be a problem, but local authorities in most cruise ports do not permit passengers to bring food ashore that is not pre-packaged. This often goes against agricultural restrictions and, in some cruise ports, getting caught trying to bring certain foods ashore could even come with a fine.
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While some cruise lines like Disney Cruise Line do continue to offer cereal in single-serve boxes, Carnival has no plans to bring back boxed cereal, no matter how much cereal dispensers bother some passengers.
“Anyway, I certainly don’t want to be a cereal killer, but we are not planning to go back to the boxes,” Heald noted.
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