Key Aspects:
- A group was caught filming a fake pier runner video in Nassau, Bahamas, on Monday, March 2.
- They attempted multiple takes of “missing” Carnival Freedom, but were never sailing on that ship at all.
- The group was likely aboard MSC Seashore, which was also in port but stayed later than Carnival Freedom.
With more and more AI-generated videos taking over social media, it can be hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. But what about when “real” videos aren’t real at all?
One content creator has been caught red-handed (red-camera-ed?) faking a video as a pier runner toward a Carnival cruise ship. The original video was posted on March 2, 2026, and shows three women running alongside a Carnival ship as it pulls away from the pier.
One woman shouts “Nooooooo!” as the ship is leaving, while another says “I told you 5:30!”
The video is titled “Missed Our Cruise in the Bahamas.” While the exact ship is not identified and its hull name cannot be seen, it is clearly a Carnival cruise ship, and a brief glimpse at the beginning of the roughly 10-second clip shows the iconic funnel without its signature whale tail wings.
Cruise Hive reported extensively on how the Conquest-Class Carnival Freedom experienced one fire in May 2022 that damaged her funnel, then how a second fire in March 2024 again damaged the funnel just five months after it had been replaced during dry dock.
No other ships in the Carnival fleet have the same tapered funnel base without the whale tail wings. Furthermore, Carnival Freedom was the only Carnival ship visiting Nassau, Bahamas on Monday, March 2.
The video, which has amassed more than 27 million views, 51,500 shares, and 10,900 comments, has a variety of hashtags such as #cruiseleaving, #missedthecruise, and #familymissesthecruise. Not one hashtag, however, notes that the video is fake.
Read Also: Is Carnival Cruise Line Unsympathetic to Pier Runners?
The brief video does have one clue to its lack of authenticity. The three women running to “catch” the ship are not carrying any large bags or beach towels. Of course, such items could have been dropped in the mad dash or might not have been needed, depending on how they spent the day ashore.
Caught by a Guest Onboard
What really sinks the video as fake, however, is the fact that these women (and one man not seen in the original) were filmed by another guest, this one onboard Carnival Freedom, showing them making multiple takes of missing “their” ship.
It’s a popular (though occasionally controversial) activity to stake out a good view of the pier close to sailaway time and watch for pier runners, guests who are late returning to the ship.
In this case, it allowed someone to capture this attempt to craft a “missing the ship” video when they weren’t even guests aboard Carnival Freedom at all.
In the first take, three women are running after the ship. After filming the clip, they quickly review the video, but then do another take with two women and the man running after the ship.
It is not confirmed which cruise ship the group was actually sailing with at the time. Because they were alongside Carnival Freedom, they had to have been cruise guests because the pier is inside the secure area and other tourists and visitors are not permitted.
However, another video the creator posted the day before, on March 1, 2026, shows them embarking a cruise ship and is tagged for MSC Cruises. MSC Seashore departed Port Canaveral on March 1 for a 4-night sailing to the Bahamas, with a visit to Nassau from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. the next day.
As Carnival Freedom was docked from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., the group would have had ample time to film their “missing the ship” video while still returning to MSC Seashore for the all-aboard time.
Too bad. Wouldn’t missing their own ship after these shenanigans have been beautifully ironic? Pier runners indeed.
