Getting Travel Insurance For Your Carnival Cruise
Carnival Cruise Line is one of the largest and most recognizable cruise lines in the world, carrying roughly 4 million passengers each year. Whether you’ve already purchased a Carnival cruise package, or are considering booking an ocean adventure in the near future, travel insurance is likely top of mind.
Getting a policy for your cruise can provide financial protection if you need to cancel, as well as the peace of mind that you’re covered if things go wrong during your trip.
Below we’ll discuss the options available to you from Carnival Cruise Line themselves, as well as alternative options that may offer better travel insurance coverage at a lower price point.
Should You Buy Insurance For Your Carnival Cruise?
In short, yes, getting a single-trip travel insurance policy that covers your upcoming cruise is highly recommended. While it’s easy to imagine yourself sailing peacefully away to paradise, the unfortunate truth is that things may not go exactly as planned. Flights can get delayed en route to your cruise ship, luggage can get lost, and medical emergencies can happen without a moment’s notice.
Travel insurance offers protection from the unexpected, and provides financial reimbursement in the event that unforeseen events disrupt your cruise experience. When you factor in the high price of your cruise and the potential costs of an unexpected disruption, purchasing a comprehensive cruise insurance policy can be a wise investment.
Top Cruise Insurance Benefits
Before diving into travel insurance options for your Carnival cruise vacation, it helps to get an understanding of what a great cruise insurance policy actually covers. While every cruiser’s situation is unique, most travelers getting ready to set sail should look for a comprehensive policy that includes the following coverage:
- Trip Cancellation: Full reimbursement of your prepaid, non-refundable trip costs if you need to cancel your cruise for a covered reason, such as an unforeseen injury, illness, or death of a family member.
- Cancel For Any Reason: Option upgrade that offers partial reimbursement if you need to cancel for an uncovered reason.
- Trip Interruption: Reimbursement for unused trip costs if you need to leave your cruise early for a covered reason.
- Emergency Medical: Coverage for medical expenses including doctor visits hospital bills, and ambulance rides if you experience a medical emergency while traveling.
- Medical Evacuation & Repatriation: Reimbursement for emergency transportation services, such as a to the nearest adequate medical facility.
- Travel Delay: Reimbursement for food and lodging if your flight to the cruise port is delayed.
- Missed Connection: Coverage in the event a common carrier delay forces you to miss part of your cruise.
- Baggage Delay: Reimbursement for necessary purchases such as toiletries and clothes if your baggage is delayed.
- Baggage and Personal Item Loss: Reimbursement for personal items if your luggage is lost, stolen or damaged at any point during your cruise.
The above benefits are usually included in most comprehensive cruise insurance policies, though coverage limits, exclusions, and limitations can vary by policy.
An Overview of Carnival’s Travel Insurance Plan
Like most common carriers, Carnival Cruise Line allows passengers to protect their trip while making a booking. Their trip protection plan, named Carnival Vacation Protection™, can be added to a cruise package with just a click of a button. While convenient, does it provide adequate coverage for cruisers compared to other policies on the market?
Below we take a look at the plan, offered through a partnership with Aon Affinity and Nationwide Mutual Insurance, and assess its coverage and costs.
What Does Carnival Vacation Protection™ Cover?
Looking at the policy from a distance, it appears to have everything you might need from a cruise protection plan. We’ve outlined a few specific details below.
| Travel Insurance Benefit | Coverage Limit |
| Emergency Medical | $10,000 per passenger |
| Medical Evacuation | $30,000 per passenger |
| Pre-Existing Condition Waiver | No coverage |
| Trip Cancellation | 100% (original airfare costs only) |
| Trip Interruption | 100% |
| Cancel for Any Reason (CFAR) | No coverage |
| Travel Delay | $500 per person after a 3 hour delay |
| Missed Connection | No coverage |
| Baggage Delay | $500 per person after 24 hour baggage delay |
| Baggage Loss | $1,500 per person |
How Much Does Carnival Cruise Travel Insurance Cost?
According to Carnival Cruise Lines, their Carnival Vacation Protection™ plan starts at just $49, but will increase depending on the cost of the cruise, age of passengers, and more. It’s likely that the cost of your travel insurance policy through Carnival with exceed 10% of the cost of your cruise.
It’s also important to note that Carnival insurance only covers one passenger at a time, so if you want coverage for a whole family, you will need to purchase individual plans. This is different from travel insurance, where one policy can cover an entire group.
In general, purchasing directly from a common carrier, such as a cruise line or airline, is typically more expensive than purchasing from a third party travel insurance company.
What Do the Experts Say About Carnival Vacation Protection?
Starting with the good, Carnival Vacation Protection is a comprehensive policy that offers coverage for the majority of disruptions that could happen during a cruise. Passengers that opt for this coverage will be financially protected if they experience a medical emergency, trip delays, luggage issues, and more.
Cruisers considering this option, however, should be concerned about the low medical coverage the policy provides. As a rule of thumb, we recommend cruisers find insurance that provides at least $100,000 in Emergency Medical coverage, and at least $250,000 in Medical Evacuation coverage. Carnival’s policy falls far short of that mark.
The Carnival Vacation Protection plan also limits Trip Cancellation claims to airfare only. This means that if you were forced to cancel your cruise for a reason outside of your control, you won’t be eligible for reimbursement of any shore excursions you may have planned in advance.
Our recommendation would be to compare the Carnival Vacation Protection plan to other travel insurance policies before moving forward.
Other Ways to Get Cruise Insurance
The main thing to remember when considering cruise insurance for your upcoming voyage is that the policy doesn’t have to come from the cruise line itself. There are hundreds of providers and policies out there that offer coverage that could be adequate for your trip.
Comparison Sites
The best place to start would be a comparison engine, like Squaremouth, that allows you to see how policies compete on price and coverage. Squaremouth offers a ‘Cruise’ filter that narrows down search results to policies that offer coverage for cruisers for the lowest possible price.
Credit Cards
Nowadays, many travel credit cards include travel insurance benefits as part of their annual fee. From Trip Cancellation to Baggage Delay, these cards offer protection against a wide range of travel disruptions. Keep in mind that very few credit cards offer medical coverage, so this would need to be found elsewhere.
From A Provider
Have a preferred travel insurance provider that you’ve used in the past for a different trip? Chances are that some of their policies will over protection for cruises. Keep in mind, there’s no significant difference in cost from buying straight from a insurance provider and from a comparison site. However, some travelers may have existing accounts set up with a travel insurance company that make purchasing from their site easier.