Carnival Cancels Perks for Two Sailings Shortly After Launching Rewards Program
If you're booked on the September 5, 2026 Carnival Sunshine sailing from Norfolk or the Carnival Vista sailing from Port Canaveral, check your email for a notice about lost Platinum benefits. Expect no priority embarkation, debarkation, early stateroom access, luggage Drop and Go, priority luggage delivery, or priority Guest Services line/phone assistance on these voyages. Your loyalty status itself is unaffected — this only removes select perks for these two departures.
This is a fairly blunt illustration of Carnival's stated reason for scrapping VIFP: Christine Duffy said elite status had become so common it was "much more difficult to make everyone feel special," and here we are, less than a week into Carnival Rewards, with two sailings — the Sunshine's Canada run out of Norfolk and the Vista's Southern Caribbean run out of Port Canaveral — already too Platinum-heavy to honor priority boarding, stateroom drop-off, luggage delivery, and Guest Services perks. Carnival won't say how many Platinum guests are on these ships, which makes it hard to gauge how widespread this will get. Since legacy Platinum status carries through December 2028, I'd expect more of these notices before that transition window closes. If I were sailing either ship, I'd temper my boarding-day expectations now rather than be surprised at the pier.