Royal Caribbean and Hurtigruten have been sanctioned by the UK’s advertising standards watchdog for “misleading” adverts.

Hurtigruten was cited by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) for sharing a “misleading” discount on its website for its Northern Lights Expedition Cruise from London itinerary – which it put down to an IT glitch – while Royal was hauled up for the description of its Italy, Greece and Croatia sailing.

The advert in question claimed Hurtigruten’s Northern Lights Expedition Cruise from London was previously priced from £4,932, with a new price of £1,994 shown in larger text below.

The complainant, who had previously booked the cruise at a lower price than £4,932 and had never seen it sold at that price, challenged whether the savings claim was misleading.

In response, the line said the savings claim was pulled from the wrong location on the website due to a recent change in IT systems. They said they would correct the IT error as “a matter of urgency”.

Upholding the complaint, the ASA considered consumers would understand the crossed-out price of £4,932 to represent the price at which the cruise was usually sold and therefore they would be able to make significant savings by purchasing the cruise at the discounted price of £1,994.

In its ruling, the ASA said: “The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Hurtigruten to ensure their future savings claims did not mislead by including a crossed-out price that was not the usual selling price of the cruise.”

Hurtigruten and Royal Caribbean told to ensure future adverts are accurate

Meanwhile, search results on Royal Caribbean’s website featured the cruise in question with text below stating: “Leaving from: Venice (Ravenna), Italy: and “visiting: Venice (Ravenna), Italy, Dubrovnik, Croatia […] Sicily (Messina), Italy”.

The complainant, who understood Ravenna was more than two hours away from Venice by car, challenged whether the claims relating to the location of the port were misleading.

In response, Royal said cruise ships were banned from docking in Venice and therefore were required to use whatever alternative cruise port was available to provide reasonable access to Venice and other regional attractions.

However, the ASA upheld the complaint as it considered the claim “leaving from Venice (Ravenna)” would be interpreted by consumers to mean the cruise would depart from a port in Venice.

“Consumers would likely assume they could travel to Venice to join the cruise at its departure port. However, we understood that both cities were independent ports that were distinct from one another,” the ASA said.

“The ad must not appear in the form complained of. We told Royal Caribbean to ensure ads made clear where cruises departed from, and not to misleadingly imply a cruise departed from or visited a particular place if that was not the case.”