File this one under "reasons your port got cancelled that you will never guess." Guests on Carnival Adventure's 9-night Vanuatu and New Caledonia cruise out of Sydney lost their July 11 call at Mystery Island — and the culprit chain includes a pontoon door and an invasive beetle.

Here's the sequence: a technical issue closing the ship's pontoon door delayed the 2,636-passenger ship's July 10 departure from Port Vila. Normally you'd just show up late and take a shortened stop. But Vanuatu's biosecurity regulations prohibit vessels from traveling between islands after dark, because of the risk of transporting the coconut rhinoceros beetle — an invasive species that burrows into palm crowns and can devastate the country's coconut trees. No daylight, no dock. Mystery Island became a sea day.

The details:

• Guests got AU$100 onboard credit per stateroom, and prepaid Mystery Island excursions were refunded to Sail and Sign accounts.
• Captain Francesco Bencivenga broke the news by announcement and follow-up letter: "We sincerely apologise for this disappointment and any inconvenience caused."
• The rest of the itinerary ran as planned — Noumea on July 12, back in Sydney July 15.

For context, Vanuatu is still rebuilding cruise tourism after the December 2024 earthquake, and Carnival Adventure was the first ship back the following August. Carnival playing it strictly by the book with local regulators is the unglamorous, correct move — you don't get invited back to the island by arguing with its beetle policy.

Somewhere out there, Tim from Australia was either on this ship or knows someone who was, and we fully expect a SpeakPipe about it. Tim: was the sea day at least nice?

Source: Cruise Hive