funny cruise ship pranks

50 Best Cruise Jokes, Puns and Sayings that Will Make You Laugh

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The Ultimate Collection of Cruise Jokes, Puns and One Liners

If you love cruising and can use a laugh or two, read on! This collection of 50 of the best cruise jokes, puns and even some funny things overheard on cruise ships, will surely give you a chuckle.

The cruise puns and sayings can also make great captions on social media, and can even be printed on cruise t-shirts and mugs as you get ready for a future cruise !

If you love cruise jokes, memes and cruise travel inspiration , you’ll love our Life Well Cruised facebook page !

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Short cruise jokes

Most of these cruise jokes are family friendly, so you can even teach your children any of them before your next cruise.

1. Ocean waves

What did one ocean say to the other?

Nothing. They just waved.

2. Colorful Cruise ship accident

Did you hear about the red cruise ship and the blue cruise ship that crashed into each other at sea?

All the survivors were marooned.

3. Marriage trouble

I bought my wife a ticket to go on a cruise. It’s no Titanic, but I’m optimistic.

4. Latest cruise ship trend

Did you hear the latest trend is installing trampolines on cruise ships? Now everyone is jumping on board.

5. Cruise Ship Talk

What do you call an azipod that doesn’t work?

6. Nervous new cruiser

A nervous first time cruiser asked the Captain, “Do ships like this sink very often?” No, replied the Captain, “Usually only once.”

7. No Leeks allowed

What vegetable isn’t allowed on cruise ships?

8. Cruise crew joke

What’s it like working on a cruise ship?

It has it’s up and downs

9. Christmas cruise joke

Where does Santa go on vacation?

10. Marine life

Why do fish swim in salt water?

Because pepper makes them sneeze

11. Bermuda Triangle

What would you call the Bermuda triangle if it had 4 corners? The Bermuda Wreck-Tangle

12. The friendly sea

How do we know we know the ocean is friendly?

13. Haunted cruise

What do ghosts eat on a cruise?

14. Mermaids

What does a mermaid use to call her friends?

A shell phone of course!

15. Cruise ship sickness

Where do sick cruise ships go?

Longer cruise jokes

16. on a cruise ship deck.

A man is standing on deck, gazing out at the water. As the ship passes a small remote island, he spots somebody. He squints to make out what he sees – a thin, straggly man with wild looking hair. He watches as the man runs from side to side, jumps up and down and waves his arm.

The cruise passenger turns to the captain and says “What’s up with that guy?” The captain shrugs and replies “I don’t know, but he’s happy to see us every year when we pass!”

17. Sinking cruise ship joke

A cruise ship sinks in the middle of the sea and the cruise passengers manage to escape on life boats. A woman asks the Captain “How far is the closest land?”

“3 miles”, he answers. “That’s not too bad, in which direction?, she asks.

The Captain replied “Down”

18. Inside cabin problems

A couple called down to guest services, complaining that they were stuck and couldn’t get out of their cabin.

“What’s the issue?”, answered the purser. “There are only 2 doors”, replied the woman. “One is the bathroom and the other says Do Not Disturb.”

19. A Pirate in a Bar

A pirate walks into a bar with a paper towel on his head. The bartender asks, “Hey, what’s with the paper towel?” The pirate says, “Argh, I’ve got a bounty on my head.”

What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A nervous wreck.

20. Popular cruise comedian joke

The showers in the cruise cabins are so small, I just soap the walls and spin around a few times!

21. Advice from the ocean

Be shore of yourself, come our of your shell, take time to relax and coast, avoid pier pressure, sea life’s beauty, don’t get tide down, make waves!

More travel jokes

22. airplane travel.

What kind of chocolate do they sell at the airport?

The plane chocolate.

23. Flight trouble

Why did the librarian get kicked off the plane?

It was overbooked

24. Emotional baggage

I told my suitcase there will be no cruise vacation this year. Now I’m dealing with emotional baggage!

Recommended: 50 Best Gifts for Cruisers 2021 (that are unique & practical)

Funny things overheard on a cruise

Cruise ship crew have been sharing some of the funny things they’ve heard cruise passengers say over the years. We’ve also heard a few things that have given us a chuckle as well.

10 Funniest things overheard on a cruise ship

25. What time is the midnight buffet?

26. What happens to the ice sculptures after they melt?

27. To the Captain – “If you’re here, who’s driving the ship?” ( please don’t say this)

28. Do these elevators go to the front of the ship?

29. Do the crew sleep on board?

30. Is the ocean salt water?

31. When visiting Rome “I’m surprised the ruins are in such bad shape.”

32. How do we know which pictures are ours?

33. How do they get enough water to fill the cruise ship pools while out at sea?

Suggested: 25 Surprising Things You Didn’t Know About Cruise Ships

Cruise puns and one liners

34. I’m struggling with jokes today, so you’ll have to put up with this one liner

Ok, in all seriousness, a good cruise pun often makes a fun, short and sweet Instagram caption, or can even be used on a personalized cruise t-shirt or mug design.

35. Cruiseitude (n) a grumpy mood from lack of cruising

36. Thallosphile (n.) a person who loves the sea, oceans.

37. Sea you soon

38. What happens on the cruise ship, stays on a cruise ship.

39. I’m on vacation and I don’t give a ship

40. Ship happens

41. Feeling a little Nauti

42. Seas the day

43. Sea life’s beauty

44. Keep calm and cruise

45. Sorry, I was ship faced

46. Happiness comes in waves

47. Cruise hair, don’t care

48. I have no cruise control, It’s like they book themselves.

49. I need my vitamin sea

50. Whatever floats your boat

Read next: 25 Inspirational Cruise Quotes for Those Who Love Travel and Sea

Funny Cruise T-shirts, Coffee Mugs and Novelty Items

“Ship Faced” Thermal Coffee Mug

Cruise Mug “I’m just counting the days until my next cruise”

Seriously, this rings true for me every. single. day!

Cruise coffee mug “I don’t give a Ship”

Recommended: Funny cruise ship mug

Funny Cruise t-shirt – “Blame it on the drink package”

Final thoughts: 50 Best Cruise Jokes, Puns and Sayings that Will Make You Laugh and Smile

If you love cruising, I hope this post full of cruise jokes and sayings gave you a little pick me up. If you’re a bit sentimental, and are missing cruise life these days, check out this popular post full of the best cruise travel quotes .

Another post you might enjoy, if you’re a lover of the sea is: 25 Inspirational Ocean Quotes for Those That Love the Sea

Do you have a funny cruise joke, pun or story to share? Please let me know and share in the comments below.

Happy cruising!

P.S. If you’ve enjoyed this post, please don’t keep it to yourself ;-). Please share it with a friend on Facebook or save for later on Pinterest. Thanks so much!

Ahoy Matey! 27 Hilarious Cruise Jokes To Keep You Laughing ⚓️🤣

Ahoy mates! As someone who loves cruising, I know that it can be a time to relax, recharge, and have some fun. And what better way to have fun than with some hilarious cruise ship jokes?

I’ve compiled a list of 27 jokes that are sure to keep you laughing throughout your entire cruise. Whether you’re a first-time cruiser or a seasoned pro, there’s something for everyone in this list.

From family-friendly humor to adult-only jokes, from one-liners to funny stories, these jokes are sure to bring a smile to your face. So sit back, relax, and get ready to laugh with these hilarious cruise ship jokes.

And who knows, you might even make some new friends by sharing a few of these jokes around the ship. So let’s set sail on a laughter-filled journey!

The article contains 27 clean and funny cruise ship jokes, with subtopics including spring break, sunbathing, language classes, and more.
The author mentions that most cruise ships have comedy shows on board, with options for family-friendly and adult comedy.
The post may contain affiliate links, which could earn the author commission as an Amazon Associate.
The author has extensive experience in the cruise industry and offers additional content on cruise ship memes, nautical greetings, and sea quotes.

Cruise Joke List

I have to say, I love how Mike Schimdt has compiled this list of 27 hilarious cruise ship jokes.

It’s great to see the wide variety of humor that can be found on a cruise ship, from the classic genie wish gone wrong to parrots spoiling magic tricks.

And of course, there’s the ever popular lost Rolex joke. It’s a testament to the creativity and humor of cruise ship entertainment and staff.

It’s also great to see that the jokes are clean and family-friendly, while still being funny and clever. It shows that you don’t need to rely on crude humor to get a laugh.

From the nervous cruiser to the scotch and water drinker, there’s something for everyone on this list. It’s a great reminder that humor is an important part of the cruise experience, and adds to the overall enjoyment of the trip.

Family-Friendly Humor

With so many family-friendly comedy shows available on cruise ships, it’s no wonder that parents and kids alike can enjoy a good laugh while sailing on the high seas. Whether it’s a stand-up comedian or a comedic magician, there’s something for everyone on board. Cruise ship activities don’t just involve swimming and sunbathing, there’s also a wide range of entertainment options that are perfect for families.

To emphasize the importance of family-friendly humor on cruise ships, here’s a table showcasing some of the best comedy shows available for families:

With so many options available, families can enjoy a variety of cruise ship entertainment that caters to their specific interests. Whether it’s a magic show, a comedy act, or a puppet show, there’s something for everyone. The best part is that these shows are all family-friendly, so parents can relax and enjoy the entertainment without having to worry about any inappropriate content. So, sit back, relax, and get ready to laugh on your next cruise vacation!

Adult-Only Humor

For those seeking a more mature sense of humor, adult-only comedy shows on cruise ships offer a chance to unwind and enjoy some naughty nautical and risqué routines.

These shows are typically held in the evenings, after the family-friendly shows have ended, and are designed for adults who want to let loose and have a good laugh.

The comedians performing in these shows are often more daring and edgier than their family-friendly counterparts, which makes for a night of laughter that you won’t soon forget.

Whether it’s poking fun at the cruise ship staff or sharing humorous stories about their own lives, these comedians know how to push the envelope and keep their audience laughing until their sides hurt.

So, if you’re looking for a night of adult-only humor while on your next cruise, be sure to check out the comedy shows and get ready to let loose and have some fun!

Spring Break Jokes

When planning for my spring break cruise, I can’t wait to share these clever and witty jokes with my friends and family.

The first joke about a genie and beer ocean wish is bound to get a good laugh out of everyone. Who wouldn’t want to wish for an endless supply of beer while cruising on the open sea?

But that’s not the only joke on the list that will have everyone chuckling. From jokes about nervous cruisers to sailors blowing their noses, there’s something for everyone.

And if you’re looking for a more family-friendly option, the castaway joke about a happy man on an island is sure to please.

So sit back, relax, and get ready to have a good laugh with these hilarious cruise jokes.

A genie grants a man three wishes, and he wishes for an endless supply of beer in the ocean.

A man stands on the deck playing cards and a gust of wind blows them away.

A castaway is finally rescued from a deserted island and is asked how he survived.

Castaway Jokes

I particularly enjoy the castaway jokes on the list, especially the one about the happy man who was rescued from the island. It made me laugh out loud imagining the sheer joy and relief he must have felt when he finally saw the rescue boat approaching. Speaking of happy islands, have you ever dreamt of being stranded on a beautiful tropical island with nothing to worry about but sipping piña coladas and sunbathing? Well, according to a recent survey, 75% of Americans have.

To help you visualize this dream scenario, let me paint a picture for you. Imagine yourself lying on a white sandy beach, with crystal clear turquoise water on one side and a lush green jungle on the other. You’re holding a colorful drink with a little umbrella in one hand, and a parrot is perched on the other, doing tricks for your entertainment. Ah, the sweet taste of freedom! But let’s be real, we all know that being stranded on an island would also come with its own set of challenges. Just take a look at this table:

All things considered, I think I’ll stick to daydreaming about island adventures and leave the castaway jokes to the comedians. Speaking of which, did you hear about the magician and his parrot? Let’s just say, the bird had a few tricks up its sleeve that the audience wasn’t expecting.

Ship Sinking Jokes

My mind meanders to the morbid as I muse about the mishaps that may materialize when ships sink. But leave it to cruise ship comedians to turn a harrowing event into a humorous one.

I recall a joke where a cruise ship sinks, and passengers escape on lifeboats. Two bankers are the only survivors, and one makes a business joke. It’s a witty take on a scary scenario, and it’s the kind of humor that makes light of a situation and alleviates fear.

On a more serious note, when a ship sinks, the captain makes announcements to keep passengers informed and calm. It’s a crucial role, and one that requires both leadership and compassion.

But in today’s modern era, it’s not just safety and communication that are evolving on cruise ships. The latest trend is installing trampolines for guests to bounce around on the high seas. Who knew that bouncing on a trampoline could be a fun way to pass the time on a sinking ship? I suppose it’s one way to stay afloat, both literally and figuratively.

Cabin Steward Jokes

As a frequent cruiser, I always look forward to the cabin steward jokes that are often shared during the family-friendly comedy shows on board.

One of my favorite jokes involves the cabin steward making the bed in the middle of the night while the passengers are sleeping. The punchline goes something like this: "I never knew someone could make a bed while I was still in it!"It’s a classic joke that never fails to get a laugh from the audience.

Another popular cabin steward joke involves cleaning pranks. The comedian tells a story about a passenger who left a note on the bathroom mirror asking the steward to clean it. The next day, the passenger found a note on the mirror that read, "I cleaned the mirror, but I couldn’t find your face!"

And let’s not forget the bedtime stories that some cabin stewards like to tell. One comedian joked about how his cabin steward told him a bedtime story about a cruise ship that sank, causing him to have nightmares for the rest of the trip.

These types of jokes add a fun element to the cruise experience and keep passengers entertained throughout their trip.

One-Liner Jokes

Feeling in need of a good laugh? These one-liner jokes are sure to tickle your funny bone on your next cruise adventure.

Whether you’re looking for a family-friendly joke or something a bit more adult, these quick quips are perfect for sharing with your fellow shipmates. So, without further ado, here are four one-liner cruise jokes to keep you chuckling:

‘Why did the pirate take a parrot on his cruise? For the arrrrrrrrguments!’

‘I took a language class on my last cruise. Let’s just say, I still don’t know how to ask for directions to the bathroom.’

‘Why did the magician bring a parrot on stage? To make his tricks more a-PECK-ting!’

‘I tried to book a small ship for my next cruise, but they said it was too premature to make a reservation.’

These jokes are sure to have you and your fellow passengers laughing out loud. Whether you’re lounging by the pool or taking in a comedy show, these one-liners are the perfect way to lighten the mood and enjoy your time at sea.

So, why not share a joke or two with your shipmates and see who can come up with the funniest punchline? After all, laughter’s the best medicine, even on a cruise ship!

What are the latest cruise deals available for booking?

I just booked a cruise and found amazing deals on popular cruise lines! From luxurious spas and gourmet dining to thrilling water slides and Broadway shows, cruise ship amenities are unbeatable. Can’t wait to set sail and feel the freedom of the open sea!

How can readers book tickets for comedy shows on board cruise ships?

Booking tickets for comedy shows on board cruise ships is easy. Simply check the ship’s schedule for show times and visit the onboard box office to purchase tickets. Pricing options vary, but there are usually family-friendly and adult-only shows available.

Can readers share their own cruise jokes or memes with the author’s email list?

Hey there! I love a good cruise joke as much as the next person, but let’s talk about reader participation. Have you ever shared your own hilarious cruise experience or meme with the author’s email list? It’s a great way to connect and share laughs!

What are some popular cruise ship destinations that the author recommends?

When it comes to the best cruise destinations for families, the Caribbean and Mediterranean are top picks. The Caribbean offers beautiful beaches and tropical weather, while the Mediterranean has rich history and culture. Both offer a sense of freedom and adventure.

Are there any safety measures in place on cruise ships to prevent ship sinkings or accidents?

Cruise safety measures are taken seriously onboard. Emergency protocols are in place, including lifeboats, evacuation drills, and GPS tracking systems. It’s like being a captain of your own ship, with backup plans for any situation.

10 Funniest Cruise Jokes That Will Make You Laugh

By: Author Carrie Ann Karstunen

Posted on Published: May 19, 2020 - Last updated: July 2, 2022

10 Funniest Cruise Jokes That Will Make You Laugh

Do you love going to the comedy shows when you’re on a cruise? I know it’s one of my favorite things to do on a ship. But until cruising starts up again, we’ll have to make do with telling some cruise jokes.

I’ve collected the funniest cruise jokes at sea, so you can crack up your friends and family with some cruise humor. Dad joke alert: some of these are pretty corny! But they’re all clean cruise jokes, and safe for the entire family. Enjoy!

Bankers aweigh

Two bankers were the only survivors when their cruise ship sank. They were both clinging to a single life preserver. One banker, knowing that his colleague couldn’t swim, says, “I think I can make it to shore to get help. Can you float alone?”

The other banker replies, “How can you talk business at a time like this?”

The booze cruise

A cruise ship is headed back from the Caribbean on its last night at sea. Just before dinner time, the captain gets on the loudspeaker.

“This is your captain speaking. I regret to inform you that there was an error with our provisioning. While there are 2000 passengers on board, we only have enough food for 1000 dinners. However, we do have plenty of alcohol, so anyone who is willing to give up their meal will receive free drinks for the rest of the night.”

A few hours later, the captain gets on the loudspeaker again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize but it appears we’ve run out of booze. On the upside, we still have a thousand delicious meals for you to enjoy!”

A cruise ship passenger is standing on the deck, looking out at the ocean. As the ship passes a small island, he spots a figure on the beach. He can see it’s a very thin man with wild hair, dressed in rags. He watches him wave his arms, jump up and down, and run back and forth along the beach.

The passenger turns to the Captain, who is standing nearby:

“Captain, what’s up with that guy?”

The Captain just shrugs.

“No clue. He’s always this happy when we sail by.”

The sunbathers

Two elderly gentlemen are relaxing in the sun on a cruise ship. One turns to the other and asks, “Have you read Marx?”

“Oh, yes.” the other replies, “I believe it’s from sitting on these deck chairs”.

A magician worked on a cruise ship. There was a new set of passengers each week, so the magician performed the same tricks over and over again. The captain’s pet parrot came to all the magic shows and began to understand how each of the magic tricks worked.

Once the parrot understood, he began to shout during the show, “Look, he’s hiding the rabbit under the table!” or “Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?”

Every week, the parrot ruined the show. The magician was exasperated but couldn’t do anything. After all, it was the captain’s parrot.

One night, the ship hit an iceberg and sank. The magician found himself stranded on the iceberg…along with the parrot. They stared at each other with hatred, but neither uttered a word. This went on for days. Finally on the fourth day, the parrot couldn’t hold back any longer. “OK, I give up.” he said, “What did you do with the ship?”

The party pooper

Why couldn’t the cruisers play cards?

Because the Captain was standing on the deck.

Rolex below deck s

A rich guy took a cruise to a tropical island, and decided to sunbathe on the beach. Wanting an even tan, he took off his luxury watch and slipped it in his pocket.

Back on board at the end of the day, he realized that his watch was gone—it must have fallen out of his pocket. Too embarrassed to admit he’d lost such an expensive item, he decided not to tell anyone.

A moment later, the Captain’s voice came on the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is an announcement to the passenger who lost the Rolex Pearlmaster on the beach……The time is now 6:54 PM.”

Spring Break

A bunch of fraternity brothers go on a cruise for Spring Break. Halfway through their vacation the ship wrecks, and the young men escape on a lifeboat. They floated on the ocean for a couple of days, but no one came to rescue them. On the third day, one of the men noticed a bottle floating near the lifeboat.

“Whoa, what if there’s a genie in that bottle?” he asked. He reached into the water, picked up the bottle, and rubbed it.

With a loud whoosh, a huge genie appeared. “I am a powerful genie, but I can only grant one wish,” the genie shouted.

“That’s a no-brainer!” the frat boy said, “I wish the entire ocean was made of beer!”

The genie granted the wish, and promptly vanished.

“Dude!” groaned one of the other brothers. “Now we have to pee in the boat!”

Rethinking sinking

A very nervous first-time cruiser approached the Captain. “Do ships like this sink very often?” he asked.

Replied the captain, “No, not too often. Usually, it’s only once.”

Shipped out

A married man walks into his local pub, where all of his bachelor friends are gathered at the bar. “Hey, Dave!” shouts one of his buddies. “How’d you talk your wife into letting you come out with us?”

“Oh, I’m on my own for the week. She took the kids on a Caribbean cruise.”

“No, she wanted to.”

Which of these cruise jokes is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below!

25 Hilarious Cruise Jokes to Tell at Sea

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. We may receive compensation when you purchase via my links at no cost to you. See my disclosure for more information.

If you love cruising, you’ll love our collection of 25 cruise jokes. The collection of puns, jokes, and riddles will give you and your travel friends a chuckle.

Be sure to read to the end to see the 10 funniest conversations overheard on a cruise ship.

Table of Contents

25 Hilarious Cruise Jokes

1. playing cards.

Why couldn’t the passengers play cards?

Because the captain was standing on the deck.

2. Sick Cruise Ships

Where do sick cruise ships go?

3. Phone Calls

What does a mermaid use to call her friends?

A shell phone, of course.

4. Life as a Crew Member

What’s it like working on a cruise ship?

It has its ups and downs.

5. Inside Cabins

A couple called guest services, complaining they were stuck and couldn’t get out of their cabin.

“What’s the issue?” answered the purser. “There are only two doors,” replied the woman. “One is the bathroom, and the other says Do Not Disturb.”

6. Shower Trouble

The showers in the cruise cabins are so small. I just soap the walls and spin around a few times!

7. Emotional Baggage

I told my suitcase I wouldn’t be taking a cruise this year. Now I’m dealing with emotional baggage!

8. Ocean Waves

What did one ocean say to the other?

Nothing. They just waved.

9. Marriage Trouble

I bought my wife a ticket to go on a cruise. It’s no Titanic, but I’m optimistic.

10. Nervous Cruiser

A nervous first-time cruiser asked the Captain, “Do ships like this sink very often?” No, replied the Captain, “Usually only once.”

11. Mechanical Issues

What do you call an azipod that doesn’t work?

12. Bermuda Triangle

What would you call the Bermuda triangle if it had 4 corners? The Bermuda Wreck-Tangle

13. On a Cruise Ship Deck

A man is standing on deck, gazing out at the water. As the ship passes a small remote island, he spots somebody. He squints to make out what he sees – a thin, straggly man with wild-looking hair. He watches as the man runs from side to side, jumps up and down, and waves his arm.

The cruise passenger turns to the captain and says, “What’s up with that guy?” The captain shrugs and replies, “I don’t know, but he’s happy to see us when we sail by!”

14. Christmas Cruise Joke

Where does Santa go on vacation?

15. Sinking Cruise Ship Joke

A cruise ship sinks in the middle of the sea, and the cruise passengers manage to escape on lifeboats . A woman asks the Captain, “How far is the closest land?”

“3 miles”, he answers. “That’s not too bad. In which direction? she asks.

The Captain replied, “Down.”

16. The Friendly Sea

How do we know we know the ocean is friendly?

17. Booze Cruise

On its last night at sea, a cruise ship sails back from the Caribbean. Just before dinner time, the captain gets on the loudspeaker.

“This is your captain speaking. I regret to inform you that there was an error with our provisioning. While there are 2000 passengers on board, we only have enough food for 1000 dinners. However, we have plenty of alcohol, so anyone willing to give up their meal will receive free drinks for the rest of the night.”

A few hours later, the captain gets on the loudspeaker again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize, but we’ve run out of booze. On the upside, we still have a thousand delicious meals for you to enjoy!”

18. Lost Rolex

A wealthy passenger took a cruise vacation to a tropical island and decided to sunbathe on the beach. Wanting an even tan, he took off his luxury watch and slipped it into his pocket.

19. Pier Pressure

What keeps a dock floating above water?

Pier pressure.

20. Breaking News

Breaking news: Passengers trapped on a cruise ship on the ocean for 4 days.

On the bright side, it’s kind of what they paid for .

21. Latest Cruise Ship Trend

Did you hear the latest trend is installing trampolines on cruise ships? Now everyone is jumping on board.

22. Vegetables

What vegetable isn’t allowed on cruise ships?

23. Marine life

Why do fish swim in salt water?

Because pepper makes them sneeze

24. Bermuda Triangle

25. the magician and the parrot.

A magician worked on a cruise ship, performing the same tricks each week for new passengers.

The captain’s pet parrot came to all the shows and figured out how the tricks worked. He began to shout out during the performances. “It’s up his sleeve,” spoiling the illusions.

The magician was annoyed but couldn’t do anything as the parrot belonged to the captain.

One night, the ship sank. The magician found himself stranded on a desert island, along with the parrot. They stared at each other with hatred for days, neither uttering a word.

Finally, after three days, the parrot couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Okay, I give up,” he said. “What did you do with the ship?”

Bonus: 10 Hilarious Conversations Overheard on a Crusie Ship

Passengers partying on the pool deck of Disney Dream in Orlando, Florida

What time is the midnight buffet?
What happens to the ice sculptures after they melt?
To the Captain – “If you’re here, who’s driving the ship?”
Do these elevators go to the front of the ship?
Do the crew sleep on board?
Is the ocean salt water?
When visiting Rome, “I’m surprised the ruins are in such bad shape.”
How do we know which pictures are ours?
How do they get enough water to fill the cruise ship pools while at sea? (I’ll give you one guess)
Is the toilet fresh water? (I don’t know for two reasons. Number 1 and number 2 )

Marcello De Lio

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Man on a cruise connecting to Princess Cruises MedallionNet Internet on a laptop

47 Funny Cruise Ship Memes – Best for 2024

If you’re looking for a good laugh, then look no further than these funny cruise ship memes. From the silly to the downright absurd, these memes will have you chuckling in no time.

We’ve scoured the internet for some of the funniest cruise memes out there, and we’re sure you’ll get a good laugh out of them or at least raise a smile.

I’ve tried to capture every funny side of cruising, including memes about needing a cruise through to cruise day, the onboard buffet food, and many more.

But first in case you didn’t already know.

So what’s a cruise ship meme?

A cruise ship meme is any funny or relatable image or video that’s been shared online, typically with a caption added. And when it comes to cruise ship memes, there’s no shortage of funny cruise ship pics.

Whether you’re a seasoned cruiser or someone who’s thinking about taking their first cruise, these memes will definitely resonate.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy some of the funniest cruise ship memes out there.

Funny Cruise Memes

In case you are looking for a specific type of cruise meme relating to a specific cruise line or situation such as being a cruise addict or overindulging in the buffet we have split the memes into humor categories below.

Near the end, we group a random selection of the best and funniest cruise memes for you to enjoy before ending with memes that represent the feelings of disembarkation day.

Carnival Cruise Memes

Carnival Cruises are the best and some passengers are very loyal.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Cruise Industry Expert (@seadaytravel)

Disney Cruise Memes

Disney-inspired cruise memes are always popular.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Cruise Memes (@cruise.memes)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kingdom Konsultant Travel (@kingdomkonsultants)

Booze Cruise Memes

For some cruisers, it’s all about the boozing and the drinks package, cocktails, and having a very merry time on vacation.

I like this feeling:

Cruise Food and Buffet Memes

We all know how good and how much food is on offer onboard the cruise ship.

No matter what your intentions are before embarking, it usually doesn’t last long.

Its actually quite surprising how much weight can be put on in 7 days!

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Steve Jones (@stevejonesvacations)

Know this feeling, especially on the first visit to the buffet. The joy and excitement is real.

Let’s get fat together.

Withdrawal symptoms from the buffet start to set in.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by richard (@cruisewithrichard)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by GangwayEveryday (@gangwayeveryday)

Haha, when you get home.

It was only 7 days, made the most of it though.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Prof Cruise (@profcruise)

I Need a Cruise Memes

We spend a lot of time waiting for the next cruise.

Do you get this excited when booking a cruise is mentioned?

My kind of house in between cruises (I wish).

This is a great idea for the yard.

Funny and cute!

What kind of friend are they anyway if they go without you?

The days are long while waiting.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Cruise Pics and Tips (@cruisepicsandtips)

When the wait is too long and you’ve reached breaking point!

It’s all about prioritizing for the cruise budget.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by 𝗖𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗕𝗲 (@cruisebe)

Packing Cruise Memes

It’s all about the packing

How do you distinguish your luggage?

Anyone else do this? (I do!)

It’s Cruise Day Memes

You know that crazy happy feeling!

Love this one, watch the kid’s food fly! (Poor kid but at least smiling)

Going on a Cruise Memes

When the cruise is booked nothing can stop the smile when that happy feeling has set in.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hajózásról Őszintén (@thecruisepics)

The cruise is booked, all is good.

Every time, never gets old.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Cruisin’ & Schmoozin’ w/Tony (@tonycarnival)

Screw everything and everyone.

So exciting.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Rick Stover (@rickstover1)

Size 7 day Cruise Memes

When it comes to happy birthdays, Christmas, Mother’s and Father’s day, some people only want to wear a size 7 day cruise!

What do you want to wear for Christmas?

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bolsover Cruise Club (@bolsovercruise)

Another one but this time for Disney:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Let’s Talk Dis (@letstalkdispodcast)

Cruise Addict Memes

Are you a cruise addict?

This is the dream:

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Lido Lizard (@lido_lizard)

Best Random Funny Cruise Memes

Can you see it? 🙂

Is this you? Where am I exactly?

Cruise towels.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Helloworld Travel Naracoorte (@helloworldnaracoorte)

Yes, it’s a cruise cabin!

Is this you whenever you hear the word cruise.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dave & Brandy’s Excursions (@daveandbrandys_excursions)

Love cruising meme.

Disembarkation Day Cruise Memes

All good things must come to end (until the next cruise).

No rush to leave the ship, or even the cabin.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by More Precious Than Gold (@morepreciousthangoldta)

Do you think we’d ever get away with it? Hide.

Know this feeling. Hard times.

Back home to chores.

More Funny Memes

If you are still looking for more funny cruising memes or image you might find some at these sources which our updated regularly:

Cruise Memes Facebook Groups – a great source and no wonder it has over 75,000 followers. They also post many of their memes on their Instagram page .

I hope these cruise memes made you laugh or gave you a few reasons to smile.

Which one was your favorite? Feel free to let me know.

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Cruise Jokes: 10 Funny Things Cruisers Say

Yes, it’s true. You do hear some of the funniest and strangest things on a cruise. And yes, every single one of the 10 things on our list has been said by at least one (if not hundreds) person on a cruise ship. We recommend not drinking anything while you’re reading this – wouldn’t want to ruin your computer or mobile screen!

When it comes to cruise jokes, sometimes we cruisers are actually the biggest joke of all…

1. Where does the crew sleep at night? Oh, there are so many funny answers to this question. I’ll admit on my first cruise – where I knew nothing about cruising – I did wonder where the crew stayed. But I wondered where on board they stayed. Many cruisers don’t realize every ship has crew quarters and so the question is asked at least once a cruise.

2. Is this when they pretend to sink the ship now? On the way to safety briefing during a recent cruise, I heard the boy walking behind me ask his dad this question. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing immediately. Oh the things kids say. On cruises.

3. Is the toilet water salt water or fresh water? Why do you want to know this question? I suppose it’s not a ‘dumb’ question per se, but what does it matter anyway? Inquiring minds may want to know, but you’re going to do the same thing to the toilet whether it’s salt water or fresh water.

4. Does the elevator go to the front of the ship? Why yes, it does. How did you guess this cruise ship has an elevator (which literally means ‘a thing that raises’) that does something no other elevator in the world can do? Instead, check your ship map and find the best way to walk there.

5. Did this ship ever sink? Yeah, you’ve seen Titanic or Poseidon one too many times if you’re asking this question. If this ship had sunk, we most definitely wouldn’t be sailing on it today. We’d be watching the National Geographic special where they explore the wreckage.

6. What happens to the ice sculptures when they melt? Uh…the key word in your question is melt. Have you heard the song from Frozen about the snowman in summer? It’s called water and the ice sculpture ceases to exist. Other than the ice sculpture demonstration done outside on Lido, the sculptures are normally carved in a freezer and typically only last a few hours.

7. What time is the midnight buffet? Yeah. Really. Though in some defense of this question, cruise ships do offer different types of buffets at different times of the day. But the midnight buffet – well, that’s at midnight.

8. The Captain’s at the Celebration party, so who’s steering the ship? I giggle when I hear this question, because honestly, I thought this for a few minutes on my first cruise. I had no clue how the navigation or technical part of the ship worked. But then I noticed lots of officers in those spiffy white uniforms and realized there’s definitely more than one person capable of driving the boat. Plus, in Titanic , Captain Smith left the bridge to go to bed before that fateful iceberg interfered on Murdoch’s watch (OK – maybe Titanic’ s not the best example here!)

9. How will I know what pictures are mine? You know how it goes on a cruise ship, the ship’s photographers start snapping your picture the minute you step into the cruise terminal and doesn’t stop until your ship’s card is officially shut down for debarkation. Most ships display all of the photos they’ve taken so you can browse and buy your best photos. But I hear this question on almost every ship and it’s hard to resist the urge to actually answer this one for fellow passengers. Let’s just hope they figure it out.

10. Where can I fish on this ship? Ah, if only it were this easy to get ‘fresh’ seafood on a ship. But alas, no fishing from your cruise ship. Try a deep-sea fishing shore excursion in one of your ports if you really need to get a fishing fix in.

Tags: cruise humor

10 Hilarious Activities To Spice Up Your Cruise Experience

Last updated Jul 02, 2023
Difficulty Intemediate

Category United States

Cruises are known for their luxurious accommodations, exciting destinations, and endless entertainment options. But what if you could take your cruise experience to the next level with a touch of humor and hilarity? From wacky onboard competitions to unexpected and outrageous activities, we've rounded up a list of 10 hilarious activities that are sure to spice up your cruise adventure. Get ready to laugh your way through your vacation as you partake in these side-splitting, belly-aching moments that will leave you with memories to last a lifetime. So, buckle up and join us on a laughter-filled journey as we explore the 10 funniest activities to spice up your cruise experience.

What You'll Learn

Watermelon eating contest on the upper deck, lip sync battle in the cruise ship theater, scavenger hunt around the different decks, dress up as pirates and have a themed party on the pool deck, karaoke night in the ship's lounge, dance-off competition under the stars on the promenade, comedy show featuring onboard entertainers, game night in the ship's casino, meme-making competition on the sundeck, talent show showcasing guests' unique skills in the atrium.

Are you planning to go on a cruise and wondering how to make your trip even more fun and memorable? Look no further! We have a hilarious suggestion that will surely create lasting memories for you and your fellow cruisers. Organize a watermelon eating contest on the upper deck!

A watermelon eating contest is a fantastic way to bring people together and create a joyful atmosphere onboard. Here's what you need to know to make it happen:

Find a suitable location: The upper deck of the cruise ship is the ideal spot for this contest. Make sure there is enough space for participants and spectators to gather around and cheer.
Get the supplies: Purchase a few watermelons in advance. Depending on the number of participants, you might need more than one. Make sure the watermelons are chilled and ready to eat.
Set the rules: Establish the contest rules beforehand to avoid confusion or disputes. Here are some suggestions:
Each participant must start with a whole watermelon.
The objective is to eat as much watermelon as possible within a specified time limit.
Participants must use their hands only; no utensils allowed.
The person who finishes the most watermelon or eats the most in the given time wins.
Gather participants: Spread the word about the watermelon eating contest on the ship's bulletin boards, through announcements, or via the cruise's social media groups. Encourage people of all ages and backgrounds to participate and make it a truly inclusive event.
Have a countdown and start: Gather everyone on the upper deck, provide each participant with a watermelon, and start the contest. You can have a designated timer or use a whistle to signal the start and end of the eating period.
Capture the moments: Encourage spectators to take photos or videos of the contest. These will be treasured souvenirs and can be shared with friends and family when you return from the cruise.
Crown the winner: Once the time is up, determine who ate the most watermelon and announce the winner. You can offer a small prize or certificate to make it even more exciting.

Remember, the main goal of organizing a watermelon eating contest is to have fun and create a lively atmosphere on your cruise. Make sure to consider any safety precautions, such as advising participants to eat responsibly and drink plenty of water.

So, don't miss out on this chance to bring laughter and amusement to your cruise vacation. Organize a watermelon eating contest on the upper deck and enjoy the hilarious moments that ensue! Bon voyage!

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Cruises are a great opportunity to relax, have fun, and enjoy some quality entertainment. One of the most entertaining and hilarious activities you can participate in while on a cruise is a lip sync battle in the cruise ship theater. These battles are a great way to showcase your hidden talent as a performer and provide a memorable experience for both the participants and the audience.

To participate in a lip sync battle, you'll first need to sign up for the event. Usually, there will be a sign-up sheet at the guest services desk or an announcement made during the daily activities briefing. Once you've signed up, you can start preparing your lip sync performance.

The key to a successful lip sync battle is to choose a song that matches your personality and style. Whether you're a fan of classic rock, pop music, or even hip-hop, there's a song out there that will allow you to shine on stage. Don't be afraid to get creative and think outside the box when selecting your song.

Once you've picked the perfect song, it's time to start rehearsing. Practice your lip-syncing skills in front of a mirror or with a group of friends to ensure that you'll be able to flawlessly perform on the big day. Pay attention to the song's lyrics and master the timing of each word and movement to create an impressive performance.

On the day of the lip sync battle, head over to the cruise ship theater with your game face on. Get ready to unleash your inner performer and entertain the audience with your lip-syncing skills. The atmosphere in the theater will be electric, with participants eagerly waiting for their turn to shine.

When it's finally your turn, step onto the stage with confidence and let the music guide you. Use props, gestures, and facial expressions to enhance your performance and make it more entertaining. Don't be afraid to incorporate some dance moves or even a little choreography if you're feeling adventurous.

As you lip sync your heart out, remember to interact with the audience and create a connection with them. Engage with their energy and feed off their enthusiasm. The more you involve the audience in your performance, the more memorable and enjoyable it will be for everyone involved.

At the end of the lip sync battle, the audience will likely be cheering and applauding for all the participants. Win or lose, the experience itself is what matters the most. You'll have created wonderful memories and entertained both yourself and those around you.

So, if you're looking for a funny and unforgettable activity to do on a cruise, consider participating in a lip sync battle in the cruise ship theater. It's a chance to showcase your talent, have a blast, and create memories that will last a lifetime. Get ready to take the stage and show the world your lip-syncing skills!

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Going on a cruise is always a fun and exciting experience. With so many activities and amenities available on board, it's easy to find ways to entertain yourself. One fun and interactive activity that you can organize during your cruise is a scavenger hunt around the different decks. This activity is not only enjoyable but also a great way to explore the ship and create lasting memories with your friends or family.

To start off the scavenger hunt, gather a group of participants and divide them into teams. Each team will be given a list of items or tasks to complete, and the objective is to find or complete as many items as possible within a set time limit. Make sure to establish some ground rules before starting the hunt, such as boundaries or limitations on where participants can go.

The next step is to create a list of items or tasks for the teams to find or complete. These can range from simple tasks like taking a picture with a crew member or finding a specific location on the ship, to more challenging tasks like finding a hidden object or solving a riddle. Make sure to include a variety of tasks that require participants to explore different areas of the ship, such as the pool deck, dining areas, or entertainment venues.

Once the teams have their lists, it's time to start the scavenger hunt. Set a time limit, and let the teams loose to explore the ship and complete their tasks. It's important to provide clear instructions and guidelines to ensure the safety of all participants and to prevent any disruptions to other passengers.

To make the scavenger hunt even more exciting, consider adding some additional elements or rewards. For example, you could award bonus points for creativity or teamwork, or offer prizes to the team that completes the most tasks within the time limit. Encourage participants to have fun and think outside the box, as this will make the scavenger hunt even more memorable.

As the scavenger hunt comes to an end, gather all the teams together to tally up the scores and announce the winners. This can be done in a designated meeting area or during a special event, such as a group dinner or party. Celebrate the accomplishments of each team and award the prizes accordingly.

A scavenger hunt around the different decks of a cruise ship is a fantastic way to have fun and create unique memories with your fellow passengers. It allows you to explore the ship, interact with the crew, and engage in friendly competition with your teammates. So why not organize a scavenger hunt on your next cruise and enjoy a truly entertaining experience that everyone will remember for years to come?

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Cruising can be a fantastic way to relax and enjoy your vacation. However, if you're looking to add a little extra fun and excitement to your trip, why not try organizing a pirate-themed party on the pool deck? Dressing up as pirates and hosting a themed party can create a memorable and hilarious experience for you and your fellow cruisers. Here are some tips and ideas to make your pirate party a success:

Costumes: Encourage all the guests to dress up as pirates. This could include wearing eye patches, bandanas, striped shirts, and of course, the essential pirate hat. You can find a variety of pirate costumes online or at party stores. Don't forget to accessorize with pirate-themed props like swords and treasure chests filled with costume jewelry.
Decorations: Transform the pool deck into a pirate paradise with creative decorations. Hang pirate flags, create makeshift wooden signs with pirate phrases, and scatter gold coins around the venue. You can also set up a photo booth with pirate-themed backdrops and props to capture the fun memories.
Activities: Plan some entertaining and pirate-themed activities to engage everyone at the party. Set up a treasure hunt where guests follow clues to find hidden treasures around the ship or stage a mock pirate battle with water guns. Additionally, consider organizing a pirate trivia quiz or a pirate-themed karaoke session for some added laughter.
Music and Entertainment: Enhance the pirate ambiance with appropriate music. Create a playlist featuring popular pirate songs like "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean or "The Pirate Song" by Ray and Gerard Hoffnarr. You could even hire a live band or DJ to play pirate-inspired tunes throughout the party.
Food and Drinks: Serve pirate-inspired food and drinks to keep everyone fueled for the festivities. Have a themed buffet with dishes like "captain's mac and cheese," "pirate's booty" (popcorn), or "shipwrecked sliders." For drinks, consider serving "swashbuckling rum punch" or "walk the plank lemonade." Make sure to offer non-alcoholic options for those who prefer them.
Prizes and Souvenirs: Create a sense of competition and reward guests for their pirate spirit. Hold a pirate costume contest and give out prizes for the best-dressed pirates. You can also provide guests with pirate-inspired souvenirs, such as personalized pirate ship keychains or temporary tattoos.

Remember to check with the cruise line about any rules or regulations regarding costumes or party themes. It's essential to be respectful of fellow passengers and ensure your party doesn't disrupt the overall cruise experience. With proper planning and a little imagination, your pirate-themed party on the pool deck will undoubtedly be a highlight of your cruise vacation. So, gather your crew, set sail, and prepare for a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas!

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One of the funniest things that can happen during karaoke night is when someone chooses a song that is completely out of their vocal range. Picture a burly man attempting to hit Mariah Carey's high notes or a shy teenage girl belting out a rock anthem. The audience will surely be amused by these unexpected performances and cheer them on, creating a light-hearted and supportive atmosphere.

Another funny occurrence during karaoke night is when a group of friends decides to perform a choreographed dance routine to a popular song. It is hilarious to see coordinated moves amidst a sea of people who are just standing and singing. These groups often put on an entertaining show, with exaggerated dance moves and funny expressions, leaving the audience in stitches.

The host of the karaoke night also plays a significant role in creating a funny and enjoyable atmosphere. They can crack jokes, impersonate famous singers, or even perform a funny skit between performances. Their humor can lighten the mood and make everyone feel relaxed and comfortable on stage.

Of course, there will always be those who take karaoke night too seriously and attempt to give a professional performance. These individuals often put on a serious face and try to hit all the right notes, which can be quite amusing if they are not quite up to par. The contrast between the serious demeanor and the imperfect performance can result in some hilarious moments.

Karaoke night on a cruise ship is a time for passengers to let loose, have fun, and entertain one another. It is an opportunity to embrace your inner performer, even if you are not the best singer. The combination of enthusiastic participants, unexpected song choices, and a lively atmosphere creates a night filled with laughter and joy.

So, if you find yourself onboard a cruise ship with a karaoke night on the itinerary, be sure to gather your friends, pick a fun song, and let your inhibitions go. You may surprise yourself with your hidden talent, or you may end up providing a good laugh for everyone around. Either way, karaoke night is a must-attend event that promises plenty of hilarious moments and unforgettable memories.

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Cruises offer a perfect opportunity for passengers to let loose and have some fun. From delicious food to exciting entertainment, there is something for everyone on board. If you're looking for an activity that will guarantee laughs and entertainment, why not organize a dance-off competition under the stars on the promenade?

Organizing a dance-off competition on a cruise ship is a great way to bring people together and showcase their dancing skills. This activity can be enjoyed by both young and old cruisers alike. From competitive dancers to those who simply love to move their bodies to the rhythm, everyone can participate and have a blast.

To start off the dance-off competition, you'll need to gather interested participants. You can create sign-up sheets and put them in common areas around the ship, such as the main lobby or near the pool. Additionally, you can announce the competition during the ship's daily activities briefing to attract more participants. Encourage passengers of all ages and dancing abilities to join in on the fun.

Next, you'll need a suitable location for the dance-off. The promenade is an ideal spot for this activity as it offers plenty of space for both dancers and spectators. Additionally, the open-air environment will create a vibrant and energetic atmosphere, especially when the stars come out.

To make the dance-off competition even more enjoyable, it's a great idea to have a theme. This can be as simple as a specific dance style, such as salsa or hip-hop, or something more creative, like a 70s disco party. Encourage participants to dress up in costumes that match the theme, which adds an extra element of fun to the event.

To make the competition fair, consider having different age categories or skill levels. This way, dancers will compete against others with similar abilities, ensuring a fair and exciting contest. Judges can be chosen from the ship's crew or even from the audience. Their role is to evaluate the performances based on factors like creativity, energy, and synchrony.

Make sure to prepare some fun prizes for the winners of the dance-off competition. It can be something as simple as a trophy or certificate, or even a small token of appreciation like a gift card to the ship's onboard shops. A prize will motivate dancers to give their best performance and add an extra sense of accomplishment to the winners' experience.

Finally, remember that the main objective of this activity is to create a fun and enjoyable experience for everyone involved. Even if participants don't win, they will have a great time showcasing their dance moves, laughing, and enjoying the lively atmosphere. The dance-off competition will surely be a memorable highlight of the cruise for both participants and spectators alike.

In conclusion, organizing a dance-off competition on the promenade of a cruise ship is a fantastic and hilarious activity for passengers of all ages. By encouraging participation, having a suitable location, incorporating a theme, and providing awards, this competition will surely be a hit among cruisers. So, the next time you find yourself aboard a cruise ship, don't forget to bring your dancing shoes and get ready to groove under the stars!

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If you're on a cruise and looking for a good laugh, the comedy show featuring onboard entertainers is definitely an event you won't want to miss. Cruise ships have become known for their top-notch entertainment options, and the comedy show is often one of the highlights.

One of the great things about the comedy show on a cruise ship is that it features a variety of talented performers. From stand-up comedians to improv groups, there's something for everyone. These entertainers are often seasoned professionals who know how to get a crowd laughing, and their performances are sure to keep you entertained throughout the show.

The comedy show on a cruise ship usually takes place in a dedicated venue, such as a theater or a lounge. The venue is typically intimate, which creates a cozy and fun atmosphere. This allows the audience to feel more connected to the performers, and it's not uncommon for the comedians to interact with the crowd during their sets.

One of the great things about the comedy show on a cruise ship is that there's usually a variety of shows to choose from throughout your trip. This means you can catch different acts on different nights, ensuring that you never get bored. Additionally, the shows are often scheduled at various times throughout the day, so you can fit them into your itinerary without any hassle.

The comedy show on a cruise ship is a great way to unwind and have a good laugh after a day of exploring and enjoying the other activities onboard. It's also a perfect opportunity to meet fellow passengers and bond over a shared sense of humor. The shows are usually open to all ages, although some may have age restrictions or be geared towards adult audiences.

If you're planning a cruise and looking for some funny things to do, make sure to check out the comedy show featuring onboard entertainers. With their hilarious performances and crowd-pleasing jokes, these shows are sure to add a dose of laughter and fun to your vacation. So grab a drink, find a seat, and get ready to laugh until your sides hurt.

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Cruises are often associated with relaxation, breathtaking views, and endless entertainment. However, one aspect that guests may overlook is the ship's casino. While it's true that the casino primarily caters to those wanting to test their luck, it can also be a hub for jovial and memorable game nights. In this article, we will explore some funny things to do on a cruise, particularly during game night in the ship's casino.

Hilarious Costume Contest:

One way to liven up the atmosphere is by hosting a casino-themed costume contest. Encourage guests to dress up as iconic casino characters like James Bond, Las Vegas showgirls, or even as a deck of cards. This brings out the creativity and adds a touch of humor to the casino experience. Award prizes for the best-dressed participants and watch as laughter fills the air.

Slot Machine Challenges:

The slot machines are a staple of any casino, and they can also be a source of great amusement. Organize challenges like 'Fastest Spin' or 'Silliest Celebration After Winning.' Guests can compete against each other, showcasing their funniest dance moves or celebrating their winnings in the most over-the-top manner. These challenges not only bring laughter but also create a sense of camaraderie among cruise-goers.

Group Poker Night:

Poker is a classic casino game that allows for both skill and strategy. However, during game night on a cruise, consider adding a twist to make it even more entertaining. Introduce rules that involve dares or embarrassing actions for those who lose a hand. For example, the loser might have to wear a funny hat or sing a silly song. Not only will this make the game more engaging, but it will also ensure laughter and a lighthearted atmosphere.

Bingo with a Twist:

Bingo is a popular game on cruises, known for its relaxed and enjoyable nature. Take it up a notch by incorporating funny challenges into the gameplay. Designate certain numbers as "special numbers" that have corresponding dares or tasks attached to them. When these numbers are called, the players who have them on their cards must perform a silly action like doing a dance or impersonating a famous celebrity. These unexpected challenges are sure to bring laughter and create lasting memories.

Game Show Extravaganza:

Transform the ship's casino into a game show set and invite guests to participate in a wacky, casino-themed quiz night. Create humorous trivia questions about casinos, gambling superstitions, or famous casino movies. Incorporate silly penalties for incorrect answers, such as wearing a foam finger for the rest of the game or acting like a chicken until the next round. The combination of laughter, competition, and entertainment will make this game show extravaganza a hit among cruise-goers.

In conclusion, game night at the ship's casino can be a perfect opportunity for some laughs and lighthearted fun during your cruise adventure. From costume contests to slot machine challenges and group poker nights with added dares, there are plenty of funny things you can incorporate into your casino experience. So, embrace the humor, let loose, and create priceless memories as you embark on your cruise vacation.

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Are you looking for a way to bring some laughter and entertainment to your next cruise vacation? Look no further! One popular and hilarious activity you can organize is a meme-making competition on the sundeck. This activity is sure to bring smiles and laugher to everyone on the cruise while creating unforgettable memories.

To start the meme-making competition, gather interested participants and provide them with the necessary materials such as paper, markers, and magazines. You can also encourage them to bring their smartphones or tablets to access various meme templates and generators online. Additionally, consider setting up a projector or a large screen where participants can showcase their memes for everyone to enjoy.

Once everyone is ready, set a time limit, and let the meme-making begin! Participants can choose any topic they find amusing or relevant to the cruise experience. They can create their memes by drawing, writing captions, or combining existing images and text. Encourage creativity and humor, as the goal is to make everyone burst into laughter.

To add more excitement to the competition, you can also appoint a panel of judges who will evaluate the memes based on creativity, originality, and humor. The judges can be fellow passengers or even some of the cruise staff members. To make the competition fair, you may consider dividing the participants into different age groups or categories.

As the memes start rolling in, gather everyone on the sundeck to share and display their masterpieces. This will create a fun and interactive atmosphere where participants can see each other's hilarious creations and enjoy a good laugh together. You can project the memes on a large screen or display them on boards for everyone to view.

At the end of the competition, announce the winners and award them with fun prizes. Consider giving out gag gifts or cruise-related items that will remind participants of the amazing time they had on the cruise. You can also create a small exhibition area where everyone's memes can be displayed for the remainder of the cruise, allowing passengers to revisit the humor and enjoy the creativity throughout their trip.

Organizing a meme-making competition on the sundeck is a fantastic way to bring laughter and entertainment to your cruise vacation. It creates a joyful and lighthearted atmosphere that allows everyone to relax and have a great time. So, gather your friends, family, or fellow cruise passengers, and let the meme-making begin! Get ready for hilarious moments and unforgettable memories that will make your cruise experience even more enjoyable.

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If you're looking for a cruise experience that's filled with fun and laughter, why not participate in a talent show showcasing your unique skills? Many cruise ships organize talent shows in their atriums, allowing guests to showcase their talents and entertain fellow passengers. This is a great opportunity to let your creativity shine and create lasting memories during your cruise.

Whether you have a hidden talent like singing, dancing, magic tricks, or even stand-up comedy, participating in a talent show on a cruise can be a great way to break the ice and have some fun onboard. These shows are not only entertaining for everyone but also provide a platform for guests to come together and enjoy each other's unique abilities.

Here are some tips on how to make the most of your talent show experience on a cruise:

Choose a talent that you are passionate about: When deciding what talent to showcase, it's important to choose something that you genuinely enjoy doing. This will not only make the experience more enjoyable for you, but it will also show in your performance and captivate the audience.
Practice, practice, practice: Once you have decided on your talent, it's time to start practicing. Take the time to perfect your skills and make sure you are confident in your ability to perform in front of a crowd. The more you practice, the more comfortable you will be on stage.
Prepare your act: Depending on your talent, you may need to plan out your act and make sure you have everything you need for a memorable performance. For example, if you are planning to sing, choose a song that suits your voice and rehearse with instrumental tracks if necessary.
Be creative: While traditional talents like singing and dancing are always a hit, don't be afraid to think outside the box and showcase a unique talent. Maybe you can do a stand-up comedy routine or perform a magic trick that will leave the audience in awe. The more creative and original your act, the more memorable it will be.
Have fun and engage with the audience: The most important thing when participating in a talent show on a cruise is to have fun and enjoy yourself. Remember to engage with the audience, make eye contact, and let your personality shine through.
Support other participants: Just like you, other passengers will also be showcasing their talents during the talent show. Show your support by cheering them on and applauding their performances. This will create a positive and encouraging atmosphere for everyone involved.

Participating in a talent show on a cruise can be a thrilling and enjoyable experience. It's a chance to showcase your unique skills, connect with other passengers, and create unforgettable memories. So, if you have a talent that you've always wanted to share with the world, why not sign up for a talent show on your next cruise? It's an opportunity you won't want to miss!

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Frequently asked questions.

There is a lot of funny entertainment options available on cruises. You can participate in a comedy show or watch a hilarious theatrical performance. Many cruises also have game shows and trivia nights that are always full of laughter. Another fun activity is joining a themed party on the ship, such as a costume party or a karaoke night, where you can show off your funny side.

While playing pranks or practical jokes may not be encouraged on a cruise ship, you can still have some light-hearted fun with your fellow passengers. Organize a funny dress-up day where everyone wears ridiculous costumes or funny hats. You can also create your own scavenger hunt with funny challenges for your group. Just be sure to keep the pranks or jokes harmless and respectful to avoid causing any discomfort or inconvenience to others.

Yes, many cruise lines offer unique and funny shows or performances that are tailored specifically for their guests. One popular option is comedy shows featuring professional comedians who can make the audience burst into laughter with their funny and relatable jokes. Some cruises also have magicians or illusionists who incorporate humor into their acts, leaving the audience in stitches. Keep an eye on the cruise ship's schedule to see what funny performances or acts are available during your trip.

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Carnival Cruise Lines

Pranks on Carnival

By picklebongo , April 1, 2010 in Carnival Cruise Lines

picklebongo

Since April Fool's Day is tomorrow, I was wondering what are some of the best pranks some of you have pulled on your Carnival cruises?

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I didn't pull any pranks on my first cruise but I do believe FireFly's PVP is going to prank em tomorrow by telling em that the Magic will be in Galveston! ;):D

Cruiser1547228475

Are you kidding ?:D:):D

Keep reading here !

cruisetobeaches

Go to a place like Spencer Gifts and buy a light activated noise maker. Several are available with the bird chirping as the best original sounding one. Turn it on and hide it a light somewhere. When the light is shut off, and it is dark..............After about 30 seconds the chirping will begin. Turn on the light to see what is making the noise and it will stop............:D

I thought that posting John Heald would give you something extra due to catching a virus on his blog was quite amusing :p

This is the one that sticks out most in my mind....

Host Randy happened to be on the same cruise as Gatorclaw and his parents on April 1.

They arranged it so that Host Randy was in Gatorclaw's parent's cabin when they arrived. They told the parents Randy's cabin was no longer available (or something like that) and he'd be bunking with them!!

I'm pretty sure Gatorclaw has a video of it somewhere.

breezycruiser

This is the one that sticks out most in my mind.... Host Randy happened to be on the same cruise as Gatorclaw and his parents on April 1. They arranged it so that Host Randy was in Gatorclaw's parent's cabin when they arrived. They told the parents Randy's cabin was no longer available (or something like that) and he'd be bunking with them!! I'm pretty sure Gatorclaw has a video of it somewhere.

Here it is:

yep...I think that one wins the prize!!!:D

-fill out a room service breakfast order, preferably Salmon and Chocolate milk, to be delivered at 5am and place it on the door of a friends cabin (who you know will be out late partying)

-using a Rain-X type substance, write a message on the bathroom mirror such as "Nice ****". When your cabin mate gets out of the shower, the mirror will be steamed up except message.

-Get a group of people to splash water on their life vests till the lights start flashing before going on the Muster Drill and watch as first time cruisers get scared that their vest is broken.

-If you have the late dinner, wear a tuxedo t-shirt and walk around the lobby outside the dinning room around 5:30-6pm on elegant night. Watch as people giggle, give dirty looks, and lecture you on the dress code.

-Not really a prank but a joke that gets a lot of laughs. All through out the last day of the cruise, randomly say to someone in a scared voice, "I'm not going to dinner tonight....I saw how the movie ends"

We're leaving Sunday on the Valor, I plan to have one of the girls from the office call home today and advise our Cruise is cancelled, I'm typing now what she shoud say including booking confirmations & cabin info.....:eek::eek::D

- -not really a prank but a joke that gets a lot of laughs. All through out the last day of the cruise, randomly say to someone in a scared voice, "i'm not going to dinner tonight....i saw how the movie ends"

omg ! Priceless !

OMG!! Please let us know what happens. That's a great April Fools JOKE!!!!

You ever see that picture of David Hasselhoff in the Speedo? I had printed out a whole bunch of those and taped them into the false window of my parents' interior cabin (connecting cabins make it soooo easy). I got my mother to open the drapes looking for something I'd "lost". Hilarity ensued.

http://www.geeks.com/pix/2010/RBMBEDITION.html

i thought that posting john heald would give you something extra due to catching a virus on his blog was quite amusing :p

What? It was funny! People took it seriously LOL

Will do. Wifey gets home from school around 1ish..I added that they offered a 4 day cruise to the Bahama's in its place, I'll see how long I can play this out....make her think we're going to the Bahama's for awhile which we've been and had no plans to go back.

the other families going I let in on it as well.....in case she calls them first.. and when she calls me, I'll tell her you can't get me on that April Fools joke:D

You should get one of the radio shows that do phone pranks to do that. I have heard some good phone pranks. They bleep out all the cussing too. It is hilarious. :p

That's not funny!!!!

Can't recall the ship now, but one April Fools Day the Capers had The Skipper listed as captain and Gilligan was the cruise director...lol...also had our next port of call listed as somewhere in Indiana. It was pretty funny.

I remember that it also said that the captian was Captain crunch lol

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photo of Icon of the Seas, taken on a long railed path approaching the stern of the ship, with people walking along dock

Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever

Seven agonizing nights aboard the Icon of the Seas

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Updated at 2:44 p.m. ET on April 6, 2024.

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MY FIRST GLIMPSE of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, from the window of an approaching Miami cab, brings on a feeling of vertigo, nausea, amazement, and distress. I shut my eyes in defense, as my brain tells my optic nerve to try again.

The ship makes no sense, vertically or horizontally. It makes no sense on sea, or on land, or in outer space. It looks like a hodgepodge of domes and minarets, tubes and canopies, like Istanbul had it been designed by idiots. Vibrant, oversignifying colors are stacked upon other such colors, decks perched over still more decks; the only comfort is a row of lifeboats ringing its perimeter. There is no imposed order, no cogent thought, and, for those who do not harbor a totalitarian sense of gigantomania, no visual mercy. This is the biggest cruise ship ever built, and I have been tasked with witnessing its inaugural voyage.

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“Author embarks on their first cruise-ship voyage” has been a staple of American essay writing for almost three decades, beginning with David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” which was first published in 1996 under the title “Shipping Out.” Since then, many admirable writers have widened and diversified the genre. Usually the essayist commissioned to take to the sea is in their first or second flush of youth and is ready to sharpen their wit against the hull of the offending vessel. I am 51, old and tired, having seen much of the world as a former travel journalist, and mostly what I do in both life and prose is shrug while muttering to my imaginary dachshund, “This too shall pass.” But the Icon of the Seas will not countenance a shrug. The Icon of the Seas is the Linda Loman of cruise ships, exclaiming that attention must be paid. And here I am in late January with my one piece of luggage and useless gray winter jacket and passport, zipping through the Port of Miami en route to the gangway that will separate me from the bulk of North America for more than seven days, ready to pay it in full.

The aforementioned gangway opens up directly onto a thriving mall (I will soon learn it is imperiously called the “Royal Promenade”), presently filled with yapping passengers beneath a ceiling studded with balloons ready to drop. Crew members from every part of the global South, as well as a few Balkans, are shepherding us along while pressing flutes of champagne into our hands. By a humming Starbucks, I drink as many of these as I can and prepare to find my cabin. I show my blue Suite Sky SeaPass Card (more on this later, much more) to a smiling woman from the Philippines, and she tells me to go “aft.” Which is where, now? As someone who has rarely sailed on a vessel grander than the Staten Island Ferry, I am confused. It turns out that the aft is the stern of the ship, or, for those of us who don’t know what a stern or an aft are, its ass. The nose of the ship, responsible for separating the waves before it, is also called a bow, and is marked for passengers as the FWD , or forward. The part of the contemporary sailing vessel where the malls are clustered is called the midship. I trust that you have enjoyed this nautical lesson.

I ascend via elevator to my suite on Deck 11. This is where I encounter my first terrible surprise. My suite windows and balcony do not face the ocean. Instead, they look out onto another shopping mall. This mall is the one that’s called Central Park, perhaps in homage to the Olmsted-designed bit of greenery in the middle of my hometown. Although on land I would be delighted to own a suite with Central Park views, here I am deeply depressed. To sail on a ship and not wake up to a vast blue carpet of ocean? Unthinkable.

Allow me a brief preamble here. The story you are reading was commissioned at a moment when most staterooms on the Icon were sold out. In fact, so enthralled by the prospect of this voyage were hard-core mariners that the ship’s entire inventory of guest rooms (the Icon can accommodate up to 7,600 passengers, but its inaugural journey was reduced to 5,000 or so for a less crowded experience) was almost immediately sold out. Hence, this publication was faced with the shocking prospect of paying nearly $19,000 to procure for this solitary passenger an entire suite—not including drinking expenses—all for the privilege of bringing you this article. But the suite in question doesn’t even have a view of the ocean! I sit down hard on my soft bed. Nineteen thousand dollars for this .

selfie photo of man with glasses, in background is swim-up bar with two women facing away

The viewless suite does have its pluses. In addition to all the Malin+Goetz products in my dual bathrooms, I am granted use of a dedicated Suite Deck lounge; access to Coastal Kitchen, a superior restaurant for Suites passengers; complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream (“the fastest Internet at Sea”) “for one device per person for the whole cruise duration”; a pair of bathrobes (one of which comes prestained with what looks like a large expectoration by the greenest lizard on Earth); and use of the Grove Suite Sun, an area on Decks 18 and 19 with food and deck chairs reserved exclusively for Suite passengers. I also get reserved seating for a performance of The Wizard of Oz , an ice-skating tribute to the periodic table, and similar provocations. The very color of my Suite Sky SeaPass Card, an oceanic blue as opposed to the cloying royal purple of the standard non-Suite passenger, will soon provoke envy and admiration. But as high as my status may be, there are those on board who have much higher status still, and I will soon learn to bow before them.

In preparation for sailing, I have “priced in,” as they say on Wall Street, the possibility that I may come from a somewhat different monde than many of the other cruisers. Without falling into stereotypes or preconceptions, I prepare myself for a friendly outspokenness on the part of my fellow seafarers that may not comply with modern DEI standards. I believe in meeting people halfway, and so the day before flying down to Miami, I visited what remains of Little Italy to purchase a popular T-shirt that reads DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL across the breast in the colors of the Italian flag. My wife recommended that I bring one of my many T-shirts featuring Snoopy and the Peanuts gang, as all Americans love the beagle and his friends. But I naively thought that my meatball T-shirt would be more suitable for conversation-starting. “Oh, and who is your ‘daddy’?” some might ask upon seeing it. “And how long have you been his ‘little meatball’?” And so on.

I put on my meatball T-shirt and head for one of the dining rooms to get a late lunch. In the elevator, I stick out my chest for all to read the funny legend upon it, but soon I realize that despite its burnished tricolor letters, no one takes note. More to the point, no one takes note of me. Despite my attempts at bridge building, the very sight of me (small, ethnic, without a cap bearing the name of a football team) elicits no reaction from other passengers. Most often, they will small-talk over me as if I don’t exist. This brings to mind the travails of David Foster Wallace , who felt so ostracized by his fellow passengers that he retreated to his cabin for much of his voyage. And Wallace was raised primarily in the Midwest and was a much larger, more American-looking meatball than I am. If he couldn’t talk to these people, how will I? What if I leave this ship without making any friends at all, despite my T-shirt? I am a social creature, and the prospect of seven days alone and apart is saddening. Wallace’s stateroom, at least, had a view of the ocean, a kind of cheap eternity.

Worse awaits me in the dining room. This is a large, multichandeliered room where I attended my safety training (I was shown how to put on a flotation vest; it is a very simple procedure). But the maître d’ politely refuses me entry in an English that seems to verge on another language. “I’m sorry, this is only for pendejos ,” he seems to be saying. I push back politely and he repeats himself. Pendejos ? Piranhas? There’s some kind of P-word to which I am not attuned. Meanwhile elderly passengers stream right past, powered by their limbs, walkers, and electric wheelchairs. “It is only pendejo dining today, sir.” “But I have a suite!” I say, already starting to catch on to the ship’s class system. He examines my card again. “But you are not a pendejo ,” he confirms. I am wearing a DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL T-shirt, I want to say to him. I am the essence of pendejo .

Eventually, I give up and head to the plebeian buffet on Deck 15, which has an aquatic-styled name I have now forgotten. Before gaining entry to this endless cornucopia of reheated food, one passes a washing station of many sinks and soap dispensers, and perhaps the most intriguing character on the entire ship. He is Mr. Washy Washy—or, according to his name tag, Nielbert of the Philippines—and he is dressed as a taco (on other occasions, I’ll see him dressed as a burger). Mr. Washy Washy performs an eponymous song in spirited, indeed flamboyant English: “Washy, washy, wash your hands, WASHY WASHY!” The dangers of norovirus and COVID on a cruise ship this size (a giant fellow ship was stricken with the former right after my voyage) makes Mr. Washy Washy an essential member of the crew. The problem lies with the food at the end of Washy’s rainbow. The buffet is groaning with what sounds like sophisticated dishes—marinated octopus, boiled egg with anchovy, chorizo, lobster claws—but every animal tastes tragically the same, as if there was only one creature available at the market, a “cruisipus” bred specifically for Royal Caribbean dining. The “vegetables” are no better. I pick up a tomato slice and look right through it. It tastes like cellophane. I sit alone, apart from the couples and parents with gaggles of children, as “We Are Family” echoes across the buffet space.

I may have failed to mention that all this time, the Icon of the Seas has not left port. As the fiery mango of the subtropical setting sun makes Miami’s condo skyline even more apocalyptic, the ship shoves off beneath a perfunctory display of fireworks. After the sun sets, in the far, dark distance, another circus-lit cruise ship ruptures the waves before us. We glance at it with pity, because it is by definition a smaller ship than our own. I am on Deck 15, outside the buffet and overlooking a bunch of pools (the Icon has seven of them), drinking a frilly drink that I got from one of the bars (the Icon has 15 of them), still too shy to speak to anyone, despite Sister Sledge’s assertion that all on the ship are somehow related.

Kim Brooks: On failing the family vacation

The ship’s passage away from Ron DeSantis’s Florida provides no frisson, no sense of developing “sea legs,” as the ship is too large to register the presence of waves unless a mighty wind adds significant chop. It is time for me to register the presence of the 5,000 passengers around me, even if they refuse to register mine. My fellow travelers have prepared for this trip with personally decorated T-shirts celebrating the importance of this voyage. The simplest ones say ICON INAUGURAL ’24 on the back and the family name on the front. Others attest to an over-the-top love of cruise ships: WARNING! MAY START TALKING ABOUT CRUISING . Still others are artisanally designed and celebrate lifetimes spent married while cruising (on ships, of course). A couple possibly in their 90s are wearing shirts whose backs feature a drawing of a cruise liner, two flamingos with ostensibly male and female characteristics, and the legend “ HUSBAND AND WIFE Cruising Partners FOR LIFE WE MAY NOT HAVE IT All Together BUT TOGETHER WE HAVE IT ALL .” (The words not in all caps have been written in cursive.) A real journalist or a more intrepid conversationalist would have gone up to the couple and asked them to explain the longevity of their marriage vis-à-vis their love of cruising. But instead I head to my mall suite, take off my meatball T-shirt, and allow the first tears of the cruise to roll down my cheeks slowly enough that I briefly fall asleep amid the moisture and salt.

photo of elaborate twisting multicolored waterslides with long stairwell to platform

I WAKE UP with a hangover. Oh God. Right. I cannot believe all of that happened last night. A name floats into my cobwebbed, nauseated brain: “Ayn Rand.” Jesus Christ.

I breakfast alone at the Coastal Kitchen. The coffee tastes fine and the eggs came out of a bird. The ship rolls slightly this morning; I can feel it in my thighs and my schlong, the parts of me that are most receptive to danger.

I had a dangerous conversation last night. After the sun set and we were at least 50 miles from shore (most modern cruise ships sail at about 23 miles an hour), I lay in bed softly hiccupping, my arms stretched out exactly like Jesus on the cross, the sound of the distant waves missing from my mall-facing suite, replaced by the hum of air-conditioning and children shouting in Spanish through the vents of my two bathrooms. I decided this passivity was unacceptable. As an immigrant, I feel duty-bound to complete the tasks I am paid for, which means reaching out and trying to understand my fellow cruisers. So I put on a normal James Perse T-shirt and headed for one of the bars on the Royal Promenade—the Schooner Bar, it was called, if memory serves correctly.

I sat at the bar for a martini and two Negronis. An old man with thick, hairy forearms drank next to me, very silent and Hemingwaylike, while a dreadlocked piano player tinkled out a series of excellent Elton John covers. To my right, a young white couple—he in floral shorts, she in a light, summery miniskirt with a fearsome diamond ring, neither of them in football regalia—chatted with an elderly couple. Do it , I commanded myself. Open your mouth. Speak! Speak without being spoken to. Initiate. A sentence fragment caught my ear from the young woman, “Cherry Hill.” This is a suburb of Philadelphia in New Jersey, and I had once been there for a reading at a synagogue. “Excuse me,” I said gently to her. “Did you just mention Cherry Hill? It’s a lovely place.”

As it turned out, the couple now lived in Fort Lauderdale (the number of Floridians on the cruise surprised me, given that Southern Florida is itself a kind of cruise ship, albeit one slowly sinking), but soon they were talking with me exclusively—the man potbellied, with a chin like a hard-boiled egg; the woman as svelte as if she were one of the many Ukrainian members of the crew—the elderly couple next to them forgotten. This felt as groundbreaking as the first time I dared to address an American in his native tongue, as a child on a bus in Queens (“On my foot you are standing, Mister”).

“I don’t want to talk politics,” the man said. “But they’re going to eighty-six Biden and put Michelle in.”

I considered the contradictions of his opening conversational gambit, but decided to play along. “People like Michelle,” I said, testing the waters. The husband sneered, but the wife charitably put forward that the former first lady was “more personable” than Joe Biden. “They’re gonna eighty-six Biden,” the husband repeated. “He can’t put a sentence together.”

After I mentioned that I was a writer—though I presented myself as a writer of teleplays instead of novels and articles such as this one—the husband told me his favorite writer was Ayn Rand. “Ayn Rand, she came here with nothing,” the husband said. “I work with a lot of Cubans, so …” I wondered if I should mention what I usually do to ingratiate myself with Republicans or libertarians: the fact that my finances improved after pass-through corporations were taxed differently under Donald Trump. Instead, I ordered another drink and the couple did the same, and I told him that Rand and I were born in the same city, St. Petersburg/Leningrad, and that my family also came here with nothing. Now the bonding and drinking began in earnest, and several more rounds appeared. Until it all fell apart.

Read: Gary Shteyngart on watching Russian television for five days straight

My new friend, whom I will refer to as Ayn, called out to a buddy of his across the bar, and suddenly a young couple, both covered in tattoos, appeared next to us. “He fucking punked me,” Ayn’s frat-boy-like friend called out as he put his arm around Ayn, while his sizable partner sizzled up to Mrs. Rand. Both of them had a look I have never seen on land—their eyes projecting absence and enmity in equal measure. In the ’90s, I drank with Russian soldiers fresh from Chechnya and wandered the streets of wartime Zagreb, but I have never seen such undisguised hostility toward both me and perhaps the universe at large. I was briefly introduced to this psychopathic pair, but neither of them wanted to have anything to do with me, and the tattooed woman would not even reveal her Christian name to me (she pretended to have the same first name as Mrs. Rand). To impress his tattooed friends, Ayn made fun of the fact that as a television writer, I’d worked on the series Succession (which, it would turn out, practically nobody on the ship had watched), instead of the far more palatable, in his eyes, zombie drama of last year. And then my new friends drifted away from me into an angry private conversation—“He punked me!”—as I ordered another drink for myself, scared of the dead-eyed arrivals whose gaze never registered in the dim wattage of the Schooner Bar, whose terrifying voices and hollow laughs grated like unoiled gears against the crooning of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

But today is a new day for me and my hangover. After breakfast, I explore the ship’s so-called neighborhoods . There’s the AquaDome, where one can find a food hall and an acrobatic sound-and-light aquatic show. Central Park has a premium steak house, a sushi joint, and a used Rolex that can be bought for $8,000 on land here proudly offered at $17,000. There’s the aforementioned Royal Promenade, where I had drunk with the Rands, and where a pair of dueling pianos duel well into the night. There’s Surfside, a kids’ neighborhood full of sugary garbage, which looks out onto the frothy trail that the behemoth leaves behind itself. Thrill Island refers to the collection of tubes that clutter the ass of the ship and offer passengers six waterslides and a surfing simulation. There’s the Hideaway, an adult zone that plays music from a vomit-slathered, Brit-filled Alicante nightclub circa 1996 and proves a big favorite with groups of young Latin American customers. And, most hurtfully, there’s the Suite Neighborhood.

2 photos: a ship's foamy white wake stretches to the horizon; a man at reailing with water and two large ships docked behind

I say hurtfully because as a Suite passenger I should be here, though my particular suite is far from the others. Whereas I am stuck amid the riffraff of Deck 11, this section is on the highborn Decks 16 and 17, and in passing, I peek into the spacious, tall-ceilinged staterooms from the hallway, dazzled by the glint of the waves and sun. For $75,000, one multifloor suite even comes with its own slide between floors, so that a family may enjoy this particular terror in private. There is a quiet splendor to the Suite Neighborhood. I see fewer stickers and signs and drawings than in my own neighborhood—for example, MIKE AND DIANA PROUDLY SERVED U.S. MARINE CORPS RETIRED . No one here needs to announce their branch of service or rank; they are simply Suites, and this is where they belong. Once again, despite my hard work and perseverance, I have been disallowed from the true American elite. Once again, I am “Not our class, dear.” I am reminded of watching The Love Boat on my grandmother’s Zenith, which either was given to her or we found in the trash (I get our many malfunctioning Zeniths confused) and whose tube got so hot, I would put little chunks of government cheese on a thin tissue atop it to give our welfare treat a pleasant, Reagan-era gooeyness. I could not understand English well enough then to catch the nuances of that seafaring program, but I knew that there were differences in the status of the passengers, and that sometimes those differences made them sad. Still, this ship, this plenty—every few steps, there are complimentary nachos or milkshakes or gyros on offer—was the fatty fuel of my childhood dreams. If only I had remained a child.

I walk around the outdoor decks looking for company. There is a middle-aged African American couple who always seem to be asleep in each other’s arms, probably exhausted from the late capitalism they regularly encounter on land. There is far more diversity on this ship than I expected. Many couples are a testament to Loving v. Virginia , and there is a large group of folks whose T-shirts read MELANIN AT SEA / IT’S THE MELANIN FOR ME . I smile when I see them, but then some young kids from the group makes Mr. Washy Washy do a cruel, caricatured “Burger Dance” (today he is in his burger getup), and I think, Well, so much for intersectionality .

At the infinity pool on Deck 17, I spot some elderly women who could be ethnic and from my part of the world, and so I jump in. I am proved correct! Many of them seem to be originally from Queens (“Corona was still great when it was all Italian”), though they are now spread across the tristate area. We bond over the way “Ron-kon-koma” sounds when announced in Penn Station.

“Everyone is here for a different reason,” one of them tells me. She and her ex-husband last sailed together four years ago to prove to themselves that their marriage was truly over. Her 15-year-old son lost his virginity to “an Irish young lady” while their ship was moored in Ravenna, Italy. The gaggle of old-timers competes to tell me their favorite cruising stories and tips. “A guy proposed in Central Park a couple of years ago”—many Royal Caribbean ships apparently have this ridiculous communal area—“and she ran away screaming!” “If you’re diamond-class, you get four drinks for free.” “A different kind of passenger sails out of Bayonne.” (This, perhaps, is racially coded.) “Sometimes, if you tip the bartender $5, your next drink will be free.”

“Everyone’s here for a different reason,” the woman whose marriage ended on a cruise tells me again. “Some people are here for bad reasons—the drinkers and the gamblers. Some people are here for medical reasons.” I have seen more than a few oxygen tanks and at least one woman clearly undergoing very serious chemo. Some T-shirts celebrate good news about a cancer diagnosis. This might be someone’s last cruise or week on Earth. For these women, who have spent months, if not years, at sea, cruising is a ritual as well as a life cycle: first love, last love, marriage, divorce, death.

Read: The last place on Earth any tourist should go

I have talked with these women for so long, tonight I promise myself that after a sad solitary dinner I will not try to seek out company at the bars in the mall or the adult-themed Hideaway. I have enough material to fulfill my duties to this publication. As I approach my orphaned suite, I run into the aggro young people who stole Mr. and Mrs. Rand away from me the night before. The tattooed apparitions pass me without a glance. She is singing something violent about “Stuttering Stanley” (a character in a popular horror movie, as I discover with my complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream Internet at Sea) and he’s loudly shouting about “all the money I’ve lost,” presumably at the casino in the bowels of the ship.

So these bent psychos out of a Cormac McCarthy novel are angrily inhabiting my deck. As I mewl myself to sleep, I envision a limited series for HBO or some other streamer, a kind of low-rent White Lotus , where several aggressive couples conspire to throw a shy intellectual interloper overboard. I type the scenario into my phone. As I fall asleep, I think of what the woman who recently divorced her husband and whose son became a man through the good offices of the Irish Republic told me while I was hoisting myself out of the infinity pool. “I’m here because I’m an explorer. I’m here because I’m trying something new.” What if I allowed myself to believe in her fantasy?

2 photos: 2 slices of pizza on plate; man in "Daddy's Little Meatball" shirt and shorts standing in outdoor dining area with ship's exhaust stacks in background

“YOU REALLY STARTED AT THE TOP,” they tell me. I’m at the Coastal Kitchen for my eggs and corned-beef hash, and the maître d’ has slotted me in between two couples. Fueled by coffee or perhaps intrigued by my relative youth, they strike up a conversation with me. As always, people are shocked that this is my first cruise. They contrast the Icon favorably with all the preceding liners in the Royal Caribbean fleet, usually commenting on the efficiency of the elevators that hurl us from deck to deck (as in many large corporate buildings, the elevators ask you to choose a floor and then direct you to one of many lifts). The couple to my right, from Palo Alto—he refers to his “porn mustache” and calls his wife “my cougar” because she is two years older—tell me they are “Pandemic Pinnacles.”

This is the day that my eyes will be opened. Pinnacles , it is explained to me over translucent cantaloupe, have sailed with Royal Caribbean for 700 ungodly nights. Pandemic Pinnacles took advantage of the two-for-one accrual rate of Pinnacle points during the pandemic, when sailing on a cruise ship was even more ill-advised, to catapult themselves into Pinnacle status.

Because of the importance of the inaugural voyage of the world’s largest cruise liner, more than 200 Pinnacles are on this ship, a startling number, it seems. Mrs. Palo Alto takes out a golden badge that I have seen affixed over many a breast, which reads CROWN AND ANCHOR SOCIETY along with her name. This is the coveted badge of the Pinnacle. “You should hear all the whining in Guest Services,” her husband tells me. Apparently, the Pinnacles who are not also Suites like us are all trying to use their status to get into Coastal Kitchen, our elite restaurant. Even a Pinnacle needs to be a Suite to access this level of corned-beef hash.

“We’re just baby Pinnacles,” Mrs. Palo Alto tells me, describing a kind of internal class struggle among the Pinnacle elite for ever higher status.

And now I understand what the maître d’ was saying to me on the first day of my cruise. He wasn’t saying “ pendejo .” He was saying “Pinnacle.” The dining room was for Pinnacles only, all those older people rolling in like the tide on their motorized scooters.

And now I understand something else: This whole thing is a cult. And like most cults, it can’t help but mirror the endless American fight for status. Like Keith Raniere’s NXIVM, where different-colored sashes were given out to connote rank among Raniere’s branded acolytes, this is an endless competition among Pinnacles, Suites, Diamond-Plusers, and facing-the-mall, no-balcony purple SeaPass Card peasants, not to mention the many distinctions within each category. The more you cruise, the higher your status. No wonder a section of the Royal Promenade is devoted to getting passengers to book their next cruise during the one they should be enjoying now. No wonder desperate Royal Caribbean offers (“FINAL HOURS”) crowded my email account weeks before I set sail. No wonder the ship’s jewelry store, the Royal Bling, is selling a $100,000 golden chalice that will entitle its owner to drink free on Royal Caribbean cruises for life. (One passenger was already gaming out whether her 28-year-old son was young enough to “just about earn out” on the chalice or if that ship had sailed.) No wonder this ship was sold out months before departure , and we had to pay $19,000 for a horrid suite away from the Suite Neighborhood. No wonder the most mythical hero of Royal Caribbean lore is someone named Super Mario, who has cruised so often, he now has his own working desk on many ships. This whole experience is part cult, part nautical pyramid scheme.

From the June 2014 issue: Ship of wonks

“The toilets are amazing,” the Palo Altos are telling me. “One flush and you’re done.” “They don’t understand how energy-efficient these ships are,” the husband of the other couple is telling me. “They got the LNG”—liquefied natural gas, which is supposed to make the Icon a boon to the environment (a concept widely disputed and sometimes ridiculed by environmentalists).

But I’m thinking along a different line of attack as I spear my last pallid slice of melon. For my streaming limited series, a Pinnacle would have to get killed by either an outright peasant or a Suite without an ocean view. I tell my breakfast companions my idea.

“Oh, for sure a Pinnacle would have to be killed,” Mr. Palo Alto, the Pandemic Pinnacle, says, touching his porn mustache thoughtfully as his wife nods.

“THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S your time, buddy!” Hubert, my fun-loving Panamanian cabin attendant, shouts as I step out of my suite in a robe. “Take it easy, buddy!”

I have come up with a new dressing strategy. Instead of trying to impress with my choice of T-shirts, I have decided to start wearing a robe, as one does at a resort property on land, with a proper spa and hammam. The response among my fellow cruisers has been ecstatic. “Look at you in the robe!” Mr. Rand cries out as we pass each other by the Thrill Island aqua park. “You’re living the cruise life! You know, you really drank me under the table that night.” I laugh as we part ways, but my soul cries out, Please spend more time with me, Mr. and Mrs. Rand; I so need the company .

In my white robe, I am a stately presence, a refugee from a better limited series, a one-man crossover episode. (Only Suites are granted these robes to begin with.) Today, I will try many of the activities these ships have on offer to provide their clientele with a sense of never-ceasing motion. Because I am already at Thrill Island, I decide to climb the staircase to what looks like a mast on an old-fashioned ship (terrified, because I am afraid of heights) to try a ride called “Storm Chasers,” which is part of the “Category 6” water park, named in honor of one of the storms that may someday do away with the Port of Miami entirely. Storm Chasers consists of falling from the “mast” down a long, twisting neon tube filled with water, like being the camera inside your own colonoscopy, as you hold on to the handles of a mat, hoping not to die. The tube then flops you down headfirst into a trough of water, a Royal Caribbean baptism. It both knocks my breath out and makes me sad.

In keeping with the aquatic theme, I attend a show at the AquaDome. To the sound of “Live and Let Die,” a man in a harness gyrates to and fro in the sultry air. I saw something very similar in the back rooms of the famed Berghain club in early-aughts Berlin. Soon another harnessed man is gyrating next to the first. Ja , I think to myself, I know how this ends. Now will come the fisting , natürlich . But the show soon devolves into the usual Marvel-film-grade nonsense, with too much light and sound signifying nichts . If any fisting is happening, it is probably in the Suite Neighborhood, inside a cabin marked with an upside-down pineapple, which I understand means a couple are ready to swing, and I will see none of it.

I go to the ice show, which is a kind of homage—if that’s possible—to the periodic table, done with the style and pomp and masterful precision that would please the likes of Kim Jong Un, if only he could afford Royal Caribbean talent. At one point, the dancers skate to the theme song of Succession . “See that!” I want to say to my fellow Suites—at “cultural” events, we have a special section reserved for us away from the commoners—“ Succession ! It’s even better than the zombie show! Open your minds!”

Finally, I visit a comedy revue in an enormous and too brightly lit version of an “intimate,” per Royal Caribbean literature, “Manhattan comedy club.” Many of the jokes are about the cruising life. “I’ve lived on ships for 20 years,” one of the middle-aged comedians says. “I can only see so many Filipino homosexuals dressed as a taco.” He pauses while the audience laughs. “I am so fired tonight,” he says. He segues into a Trump impression and then Biden falling asleep at the microphone, which gets the most laughs. “Anyone here from Fort Leonard Wood?” another comedian asks. Half the crowd seems to cheer. As I fall asleep that night, I realize another connection I have failed to make, and one that may explain some of the diversity on this vessel—many of its passengers have served in the military.

As a coddled passenger with a suite, I feel like I am starting to understand what it means to have a rank and be constantly reminded of it. There are many espresso makers , I think as I look across the expanse of my officer-grade quarters before closing my eyes, but this one is mine .

photo of sheltered sandy beach with palms, umbrellas, and chairs with two large docked cruise ships in background

A shocking sight greets me beyond the pools of Deck 17 as I saunter over to the Coastal Kitchen for my morning intake of slightly sour Americanos. A tiny city beneath a series of perfectly pressed green mountains. Land! We have docked for a brief respite in Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts and Nevis. I wolf down my egg scramble to be one of the first passengers off the ship. Once past the gangway, I barely refrain from kissing the ground. I rush into the sights and sounds of this scruffy island city, sampling incredible conch curry and buckets of non-Starbucks coffee. How wonderful it is to be where God intended humans to be: on land. After all, I am neither a fish nor a mall rat. This is my natural environment. Basseterre may not be Havana, but there are signs of human ingenuity and desire everywhere you look. The Black Table Grill Has been Relocated to Soho Village, Market Street, Directly Behind of, Gary’s Fruits and Flower Shop. Signed. THE PORK MAN reads a sign stuck to a wall. Now, that is how you write a sign. A real sign, not the come-ons for overpriced Rolexes that blink across the screens of the Royal Promenade.

“Hey, tie your shoestring!” a pair of laughing ladies shout to me across the street.

“Thank you!” I shout back. Shoestring! “Thank you very much.”

A man in Independence Square Park comes by and asks if I want to play with his monkey. I haven’t heard that pickup line since the Penn Station of the 1980s. But then he pulls a real monkey out of a bag. The monkey is wearing a diaper and looks insane. Wonderful , I think, just wonderful! There is so much life here. I email my editor asking if I can remain on St. Kitts and allow the Icon to sail off into the horizon without me. I have even priced a flight home at less than $300, and I have enough material from the first four days on the cruise to write the entire story. “It would be funny …” my editor replies. “Now get on the boat.”

As I slink back to the ship after my brief jailbreak, the locals stand under umbrellas to gaze at and photograph the boat that towers over their small capital city. The limousines of the prime minister and his lackeys are parked beside the gangway. St. Kitts, I’ve been told, is one of the few islands that would allow a ship of this size to dock.

“We hear about all the waterslides,” a sweet young server in one of the cafés told me. “We wish we could go on the ship, but we have to work.”

“I want to stay on your island,” I replied. “I love it here.”

But she didn’t understand how I could possibly mean that.

“WASHY, WASHY, so you don’t get stinky, stinky!” kids are singing outside the AquaDome, while their adult minders look on in disapproval, perhaps worried that Mr. Washy Washy is grooming them into a life of gayness. I heard a southern couple skip the buffet entirely out of fear of Mr. Washy Washy.

Meanwhile, I have found a new watering hole for myself, the Swim & Tonic, the biggest swim-up bar on any cruise ship in the world. Drinking next to full-size, nearly naked Americans takes away one’s own self-consciousness. The men have curvaceous mom bodies. The women are equally un-shy about their sprawling physiques.

Today I’ve befriended a bald man with many children who tells me that all of the little trinkets that Royal Caribbean has left us in our staterooms and suites are worth a fortune on eBay. “Eighty dollars for the water bottle, 60 for the lanyard,” the man says. “This is a cult.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. There is, however, a clientele for whom this cruise makes perfect sense. For a large middle-class family (he works in “supply chains”), seven days in a lower-tier cabin—which starts at $1,800 a person—allow the parents to drop off their children in Surfside, where I imagine many young Filipina crew members will take care of them, while the parents are free to get drunk at a swim-up bar and maybe even get intimate in their cabin. Cruise ships have become, for a certain kind of hardworking family, a form of subsidized child care.

There is another man I would like to befriend at the Swim & Tonic, a tall, bald fellow who is perpetually inebriated and who wears a necklace studded with little rubber duckies in sunglasses, which, I am told, is a sort of secret handshake for cruise aficionados. Tomorrow, I will spend more time with him, but first the ship docks at St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Charlotte Amalie, the capital, is more charming in name than in presence, but I still all but jump off the ship to score a juicy oxtail and plantains at the well-known Petite Pump Room, overlooking the harbor. From one of the highest points in the small city, the Icon of the Seas appears bigger than the surrounding hills.

I usually tan very evenly, but something about the discombobulation of life at sea makes me forget the regular application of sunscreen. As I walk down the streets of Charlotte Amalie in my fluorescent Icon of the Seas cap, an old Rastafarian stares me down. “Redneck,” he hisses.

“No,” I want to tell him, as I bring a hand up to my red neck, “that’s not who I am at all. On my island, Mannahatta, as Whitman would have it, I am an interesting person living within an engaging artistic milieu. I do not wish to use the Caribbean as a dumping ground for the cruise-ship industry. I love the work of Derek Walcott. You don’t understand. I am not a redneck. And if I am, they did this to me.” They meaning Royal Caribbean? Its passengers? The Rands?

“They did this to me!”

Back on the Icon, some older matrons are muttering about a run-in with passengers from the Celebrity cruise ship docked next to us, the Celebrity Apex. Although Celebrity Cruises is also owned by Royal Caribbean, I am made to understand that there is a deep fratricidal beef between passengers of the two lines. “We met a woman from the Apex,” one matron says, “and she says it was a small ship and there was nothing to do. Her face was as tight as a 19-year-old’s, she had so much surgery.” With those words, and beneath a cloudy sky, humidity shrouding our weathered faces and red necks, we set sail once again, hopefully in the direction of home.

photo from inside of spacious geodesic-style glass dome facing ocean, with stairwells and seating areas

THERE ARE BARELY 48 HOURS LEFT to the cruise, and the Icon of the Seas’ passengers are salty. They know how to work the elevators. They know the Washy Washy song by heart. They understand that the chicken gyro at “Feta Mediterranean,” in the AquaDome Market, is the least problematic form of chicken on the ship.

The passengers have shed their INAUGURAL CRUISE T-shirts and are now starting to evince political opinions. There are caps pledging to make America great again and T-shirts that celebrate words sometimes attributed to Patrick Henry: “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” With their preponderance of FAMILY FLAG FAITH FRIENDS FIREARMS T-shirts, the tables by the crepe station sometimes resemble the Capitol Rotunda on January 6. The Real Anthony Fauci , by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears to be a popular form of literature, especially among young men with very complicated versions of the American flag on their T-shirts. Other opinions blend the personal and the political. “Someone needs to kill Washy guy, right?” a well-dressed man in the elevator tells me, his gray eyes radiating nothing. “Just beat him to death. Am I right?” I overhear the male member of a young couple whisper, “There goes that freak” as I saunter by in my white spa robe, and I decide to retire it for the rest of the cruise.

I visit the Royal Bling to see up close the $100,000 golden chalice that entitles you to free drinks on Royal Caribbean forever. The pleasant Serbian saleslady explains that the chalice is actually gold-plated and covered in white zirconia instead of diamonds, as it would otherwise cost $1 million. “If you already have everything,” she explains, “this is one more thing you can get.”

I believe that anyone who works for Royal Caribbean should be entitled to immediate American citizenship. They already speak English better than most of the passengers and, per the Serbian lady’s sales pitch above, better understand what America is as well. Crew members like my Panamanian cabin attendant seem to work 24 hours a day. A waiter from New Delhi tells me that his contract is six months and three weeks long. After a cruise ends, he says, “in a few hours, we start again for the next cruise.” At the end of the half a year at sea, he is allowed a two-to-three-month stay at home with his family. As of 2019, the median income for crew members was somewhere in the vicinity of $20,000, according to a major business publication. Royal Caribbean would not share the current median salary for its crew members, but I am certain that it amounts to a fraction of the cost of a Royal Bling gold-plated, zirconia-studded chalice.

And because most of the Icon’s hyper-sanitized spaces are just a frittata away from being a Delta lounge, one forgets that there are actual sailors on this ship, charged with the herculean task of docking it in port. “Having driven 100,000-ton aircraft carriers throughout my career,” retired Admiral James G. Stavridis, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, writes to me, “I’m not sure I would even know where to begin with trying to control a sea monster like this one nearly three times the size.” (I first met Stavridis while touring Army bases in Germany more than a decade ago.)

Today, I decide to head to the hot tub near Swim & Tonic, where some of the ship’s drunkest reprobates seem to gather (the other tubs are filled with families and couples). The talk here, like everywhere else on the ship, concerns football, a sport about which I know nothing. It is apparent that four teams have recently competed in some kind of finals for the year, and that two of them will now face off in the championship. Often when people on the Icon speak, I will try to repeat the last thing they said with a laugh or a nod of disbelief. “Yes, 20-yard line! Ha!” “Oh my God, of course, scrimmage.”

Soon we are joined in the hot tub by the late-middle-age drunk guy with the duck necklace. He is wearing a bucket hat with the legend HAWKEYES , which, I soon gather, is yet another football team. “All right, who turned me in?” Duck Necklace says as he plops into the tub beside us. “I get a call in the morning,” he says. “It’s security. Can you come down to the dining room by 10 a.m.? You need to stay away from the members of this religious family.” Apparently, the gregarious Duck Necklace had photobombed the wrong people. There are several families who present as evangelical Christians or practicing Muslims on the ship. One man, evidently, was not happy that Duck Necklace had made contact with his relatives. “It’s because of religious stuff; he was offended. I put my arm around 20 people a day.”

Everyone laughs. “They asked me three times if I needed medication,” he says of the security people who apparently interrogated him in full view of others having breakfast.

Another hot-tub denizen suggests that he should have asked for fentanyl. After a few more drinks, Duck Necklace begins to muse about what it would be like to fall off the ship. “I’m 62 and I’m ready to go,” he says. “I just don’t want a shark to eat me. I’m a huge God guy. I’m a Bible guy. There’s some Mayan theory squaring science stuff with religion. There is so much more to life on Earth.” We all nod into our Red Stripes.

“I never get off the ship when we dock,” he says. He tells us he lost $6,000 in the casino the other day. Later, I look him up, and it appears that on land, he’s a financial adviser in a crisp gray suit, probably a pillar of his North Chicago community.

photo of author smiling and holding soft-serve ice-cream cone with outdoor seating area in background

THE OCEAN IS TEEMING with fascinating life, but on the surface it has little to teach us. The waves come and go. The horizon remains ever far away.

I am constantly told by my fellow passengers that “everybody here has a story.” Yes, I want to reply, but everybody everywhere has a story. You, the reader of this essay, have a story, and yet you’re not inclined to jump on a cruise ship and, like Duck Necklace, tell your story to others at great pitch and volume. Maybe what they’re saying is that everybody on this ship wants to have a bigger, more coherent, more interesting story than the one they’ve been given. Maybe that’s why there’s so much signage on the doors around me attesting to marriages spent on the sea. Maybe that’s why the Royal Caribbean newsletter slipped under my door tells me that “this isn’t a vacation day spent—it’s bragging rights earned.” Maybe that’s why I’m so lonely.

Today is a big day for Icon passengers. Today the ship docks at Royal Caribbean’s own Bahamian island, the Perfect Day at CocoCay. (This appears to be the actual name of the island.) A comedian at the nightclub opined on what his perfect day at CocoCay would look like—receiving oral sex while learning that his ex-wife had been killed in a car crash (big laughter). But the reality of the island is far less humorous than that.

One of the ethnic tristate ladies in the infinity pool told me that she loved CocoCay because it had exactly the same things that could be found on the ship itself. This proves to be correct. It is like the Icon, but with sand. The same tired burgers, the same colorful tubes conveying children and water from Point A to B. The same swim-up bar at its Hideaway ($140 for admittance, no children allowed; Royal Caribbean must be printing money off its clientele). “There was almost a fight at The Wizard of Oz ,” I overhear an elderly woman tell her companion on a chaise lounge. Apparently one of the passengers began recording Royal Caribbean’s intellectual property and “three guys came after him.”

I walk down a pathway to the center of the island, where a sign reads DO NOT ENTER: YOU HAVE REACHED THE BOUNDARY OF ADVENTURE . I hear an animal scampering in the bushes. A Royal Caribbean worker in an enormous golf cart soon chases me down and takes me back to the Hideaway, where I run into Mrs. Rand in a bikini. She becomes livid telling me about an altercation she had the other day with a woman over a towel and a deck chair. We Suites have special towel privileges; we do not have to hand over our SeaPass Card to score a towel. But the Rands are not Suites. “People are so entitled here,” Mrs. Rand says. “It’s like the airport with all its classes.” “You see,” I want to say, “this is where your husband’s love of Ayn Rand runs into the cruelties and arbitrary indignities of unbridled capitalism.” Instead we make plans to meet for a final drink in the Schooner Bar tonight (the Rands will stand me up).

Back on the ship, I try to do laps, but the pool (the largest on any cruise ship, naturally) is fully trashed with the detritus of American life: candy wrappers, a slowly dissolving tortilla chip, napkins. I take an extra-long shower in my suite, then walk around the perimeter of the ship on a kind of exercise track, past all the alluring lifeboats in their yellow-and-white livery. Maybe there is a dystopian angle to the HBO series that I will surely end up pitching, one with shades of WALL-E or Snowpiercer . In a collapsed world, a Royal Caribbean–like cruise liner sails from port to port, collecting new shipmates and supplies in exchange for the precious energy it has on board. (The actual Icon features a new technology that converts passengers’ poop into enough energy to power the waterslides . In the series, this shitty technology would be greatly expanded.) A very young woman (18? 19?), smart and lonely, who has only known life on the ship, walks along the same track as I do now, contemplating jumping off into the surf left by its wake. I picture reusing Duck Necklace’s words in the opening shot of the pilot. The girl is walking around the track, her eyes on the horizon; maybe she’s highborn—a Suite—and we hear the voice-over: “I’m 19 and I’m ready to go. I just don’t want a shark to eat me.”

Before the cruise is finished, I talk to Mr. Washy Washy, or Nielbert of the Philippines. He is a sweet, gentle man, and I thank him for the earworm of a song he has given me and for keeping us safe from the dreaded norovirus. “This is very important to me, getting people to wash their hands,” he tells me in his burger getup. He has dreams, as an artist and a performer, but they are limited in scope. One day he wants to dress up as a piece of bacon for the morning shift.

THE MAIDEN VOYAGE OF THE TITANIC (the Icon of the Seas is five times as large as that doomed vessel) at least offered its passengers an exciting ending to their cruise, but when I wake up on the eighth day, all I see are the gray ghosts that populate Miami’s condo skyline. Throughout my voyage, my writer friends wrote in to commiserate with me. Sloane Crosley, who once covered a three-day spa mini-cruise for Vogue , tells me she felt “so very alone … I found it very untethering.” Gideon Lewis-Kraus writes in an Instagram comment: “When Gary is done I think it’s time this genre was taken out back and shot.” And he is right. To badly paraphrase Adorno: After this, no more cruise stories. It is unfair to put a thinking person on a cruise ship. Writers typically have difficult childhoods, and it is cruel to remind them of the inherent loneliness that drove them to writing in the first place. It is also unseemly to write about the kind of people who go on cruises. Our country does not provide the education and upbringing that allow its citizens an interior life. For the creative class to point fingers at the large, breasty gentlemen adrift in tortilla-chip-laden pools of water is to gather a sour harvest of low-hanging fruit.

A day or two before I got off the ship, I decided to make use of my balcony, which I had avoided because I thought the view would only depress me further. What I found shocked me. My suite did not look out on Central Park after all. This entire time, I had been living in the ship’s Disneyland, Surfside, the neighborhood full of screaming toddlers consuming milkshakes and candy. And as I leaned out over my balcony, I beheld a slight vista of the sea and surf that I thought I had been missing. It had been there all along. The sea was frothy and infinite and blue-green beneath the span of a seagull’s wing. And though it had been trod hard by the world’s largest cruise ship, it remained.

This article appears in the May 2024 print edition with the headline “A Meatball at Sea.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

IMAGES

50 Best Cruise Jokes, Puns and Sayings that Will Make You Laugh
50 Best Cruise Jokes, Puns and Sayings that Will Make You Laugh
50 Best Cruise Jokes, Puns and Sayings that Will Make You Laugh
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50 Best Cruise Jokes, Puns and Sayings that Will Make You Laugh

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COMMENTS

11 Crazy Cruise Ship Jokes And Pranks And 1 Stupid One
#5 Bubble Bath Hot Tub Mayhem. Now I have to confess to secretly loving this prank.These pranksters turn the cruise ship's hot tub into the World's Best Bubble Bath as they secretly release small bags of washing-up liquid in the hot tub.. Make sure you watch to the end as the mayhem soon ensues….clearly the kids all thought this was a great prank as well.
50 Best Cruise Jokes, Puns and Sayings that Will Make You Laugh
20. Popular cruise comedian joke. The showers in the cruise cabins are so small, I just soap the walls and spin around a few times! 21. Advice from the ocean. Be shore of yourself, come our of your shell, take time to relax and coast, avoid pier pressure, sea life's beauty, don't get tide down, make waves!
28 Hilarious Cruise Jokes To Make You Laugh
8. The Magician and the Parrot. A magician worked on a cruise ship, performing the same tricks each week for new passengers. The captain's pet parrot came to all the shows and figured out how the tricks worked. He began to shout out during the shows. "It's up his sleeve", and suchlike, spoiling the illusions.
220 Hilarious Cruise Puns That Will Make You Seas the Day and Sail Into
16. I tried to order some sushi on the cruise ship, but they said it was all out to sea. 17. The onboard shops on the cruise ship had some real sea-gar deals. 18. The cruise ship's game room was rocking ans sea-ing with people. 19. The live music on the cruise ship was a real ship-shape experience. 20. I got lost on the cruise ship and took a ...
Ahoy Matey! 27 Hilarious Cruise Jokes To Keep You Laughing
The article contains 27 clean and funny cruise ship jokes, with subtopics including spring break, sunbathing, language classes, and more. ... Another popular cabin steward joke involves cleaning pranks. The comedian tells a story about a passenger who left a note on the bathroom mirror asking the steward to clean it. The next day, the passenger ...
Best Practical Jokes on Board?? Harmless suggestions?
Not funny (and could wind up being very expensive to you if you ruined their cruise and have to pay medical bills). OP, whatever you do, think it through first. If there's a possibility something might not be a "harmless" practical joke or have a negative affect on innocent parties, ditch the idea.
200+ Hilarious Cruise Ship Puns to Keep You Laughing All Voyage Long
4. "This cruise ship is incredible," Tom said impressively. 5. "I can't wait to explore the onboard activities," Tom said eagerly. 6. "I love watching the sunset from the deck," Tom said romantically. 7. "I'll be in the casino all night," Tom said playfully. 8.
10 Funniest Cruise Jokes That Will Make You Laugh
Spring Break. A bunch of fraternity brothers go on a cruise for Spring Break. Halfway through their vacation the ship wrecks, and the young men escape on a lifeboat. They floated on the ocean for a couple of days, but no one came to rescue them. On the third day, one of the men noticed a bottle floating near the lifeboat.
32 Best Cruise Puns
Embark on a pun-filled voyage as we present the ultimate collection of cruise ship humour! Discover the 32 best cruise puns that will leave you smiling from port to starboard. From witty wordplay to clever captions, this article will set sail with laughter, ensuring smooth sailing through the world of puns. So, grab a life jacket and prepare to be entertained on this lighthearted journey ...
Cruise Ship Comedy: The Funniest Moments at Sea
Get ready to set sail on a hilarious adventure with our collection of the funniest moments ever captured on cruise ships! From outrageous pranks to unexpecte...
The Best Cruise April Fool's Pranks of 2024!
The Best Pranks From The Cruise Lines Ambassador Cruise Line. ... 43 Funny Cruise Ship Memes to Make You Smile; 32 Best Cruise Puns; View All Cruises. Powered by Cruiseline.com. If you found this interesting, please share! Share on Facebook. Jenni Fielding is the founder of Cruise Mummy. She has worked in the cruise industry since 2015 and has ...
Funniest Cruiser Questions
Cruise directors hear some pretty ridiculous questions from passengers. We've spoken with many from across different cruise lines to find the FUNNIEST cruise questions ever asked - below is a compilation. #10 FUNNIEST cruise question "What would happen if I flushed a ship toilet while still sitting on it?" #9 FUNNIEST cruise question
25 Hilarious Cruise Jokes To Tell At Sea
13. On a Cruise Ship Deck. A man is standing on deck, gazing out at the water. As the ship passes a small remote island, he spots somebody. He squints to make out what he sees - a thin, straggly man with wild-looking hair. He watches as the man runs from side to side, jumps up and down, and waves his arm.
Cruising for a Laugh: The Top Funny Moments on Cruise Ships
Get ready to set sail on a hilarious adventure with our compilation of the top funny moments ever captured on cruise ships! From unexpected mishaps to outrag...
47 Funny Cruise Ship Memes
47 Funny Cruise Ship Memes - Best for 2024. Leave a Comment / By CruiseShipTraveller / April 3, 2023. If you're looking for a good laugh, then look no further than these funny cruise ship memes. From the silly to the downright absurd, these memes will have you chuckling in no time. We've scoured the internet for some of the funniest ...
Old Man on a CRUISE SHIP Pranks!
Pranking random passengers & employees on the JoCo Caribbean Cruise!SUBSCRIBE! http://bit.ly/SubMFPATREON PERKS! http://patreon.com/mediocrefilmsMORE P...
The 50 Best Instagram Funny Cruise Quotes Puns And Jokes
Okay let's get some Instagram-able quotes at the ready:-. "I'm not lazy, I'm on cruise control". "I'm just a girl, standing in front of a cruise ship, asking it to take me away". "I sea you, and I like what I sea". "Cruising: when you're too lazy to plan a real vacation". "I'm not lost, I'm just on a spontaneous ...
Cruise Jokes: 10 Funny Things Cruisers Say
Cruise Jokes: 10 Funny Things Cruisers Say. Yes, it's true. You do hear some of the funniest and strangest things on a cruise. And yes, every single one of the 10 things on our list has been said by at least one (if not hundreds) person on a cruise ship. We recommend not drinking anything while you're reading this - wouldn't want to ...
10 Hilarious Activities To Spice Up Your Cruise Experience
While playing pranks or practical jokes may not be encouraged on a cruise ship, you can still have some light-hearted fun with your fellow passengers. ... Keep an eye on the cruise ship's schedule to see what funny performances or acts are available during your trip. Written by. Duke Trotter Author Editor Reviewer Traveller; Reviewed by ...
Hilarious Mail Pranks!
This is too funny! Send your friend a Gay Cruise Confirmation Packet Mail Prank. Just imagine their reaction when they get this in the mail! Mailers.....
pranks
36. November 17, 2008. Streetsboro, OH. #3. Posted April 13, 2009. One thing one of my cousins and her best friend did was hide in another one of cousin's shower in her cabin. When the cousin was getting ready to go to the bathroom, the other cousin and her friend jumped out at her and scared her.
Pranks on Carnival
I didn't pull any pranks on my first cruise but I do believe FireFly's PVP is going to prank em tomorrow by telling em that the Magic will be in Galveston! ;):D Link to comment
Gag Cruise Gifts
FREE shipping. Prank Mail Alaskan Cruise Fake Package gets sent directly to your Victim. Funny Gag Gift that will Embarrass your Friends and Family. (1.4k) $7.19. $7.99 (10% off) Funny Cruising Mug: Cruise Gifts For Her/Him. Camping Mugs For Dad, Mom Mugs, Sailing Mugs, Sail Mug, Funny Coffee Mug, Cruise Ship Gifts.
Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever
Day 2. I WAKE UP with a hangover. Oh God. Right. I cannot believe all of that happened last night. A name floats into my cobwebbed, nauseated brain: "Ayn Rand." Jesus Christ. I breakfast alone ...