The Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise, in which passengers can expect to visit 11 world wonders and over 60 countries, set sail on December 10th. With 179 days under their belt, the people aboard the Serenade of the Seas have experienced the unexpected.
People on the internet speculated that the cruise would be filled with nonstop drama, like a reality TV show. This proved to be untrue, though, as one woman who documents her travel journeys online explained to Vox that true petty drama doesn’t really happen on cruises, especially because most people on the cruise are of an older age and past starting feuds.
“I don’t think many people will create drama because they don’t want to put their vacation at risk,” she said to Vox. “Like, you have to go to the buffet at breakfast and someone could be staring at you. They could be sitting next to you on the bus ride for an excursion for two hours. You cannot escape everyone who’s on this cruise.”
So far on the cruise, though, there have been tons of mishaps including a flood, a passenger was temporarily banned, and some stops were relocated, upsetting passenger’s plans. An influencer, Marc Sebastian, went on board for a few weeks and stirred up some drama by livestreaming on board, violating the passengers privacy, and calling out the Royal Caribbean for their low worker pay.
The boat contains 2,490 guests and 891 crew members, but some passengers have just newly arrived while others have departed, like Sebastian. A few weeks ago an older passenger sadly passed away, but of the sparse media coverage there was, most didn’t disclose the fact that the passenger was of older age, and the fact that most passengers on boat are in retirement and above 65 years of age. This is a pretty common thing for older people to go on cruises and travel, so something like this was foreseen.
The Royal Caribbean provides activities for all of the passengers to do when they arrive at their ports, which they usually stay at for a minimum of a day, and up to 3 days at the most. However, passengers also have the choice to go off and do their own thing. This is what Hunnicut, a woman on the cruise, does most of the time.
“The itinerary is set but in terms of what we do at each port, we have complete freedom. Some people chose to do a royal Caribbean shore excursion. We usually wing it and wait to discover what’s available at a port. [My husband and I’s] go to are hiking or renting a car and exploring,” Hunnicutt said.
Although the age of the passengers are mostly older, Hunnicutt shares the fact that she has made many friends while on board, and considers some lifelong friends.
“One of the most beautiful things about this 9 month cruise is that it exposes you to different people and different cultures all around the world,” said Hunnicutt.
Although the Royal Caribbean’s cruise didn’t give way to all of the drama people watching at home had hoped for, some students from Calabasas High School have their own stories to share about their dramatic experiences while on cruises.
Addison Aguilera, a student at CHS, talks about when she was at a private school and went on a cruise for the last night of a school trip in New York. There were other non-private schools present on the boat that ignored the administrators demands of refraining from using expletive language.
“This was [the conductor’s] last straw, because people were still cussing, he was like ‘i’m turning this boat around’ and he turned the boat around and we had to go back, like, an hour early because they wouldn’t stop cussing and we had to sit at a table in silence waiting for the boat to reach the dock,” said Aguilera.
Shaked Skolnick, a student at CHS, shares her experience of being on a cruise that wasn’t necessarily drama-filled, but also wasn’t the ideal cruise experience.
“I was walking with my friends to the Kids Club, and all the kids there became friends and left us out. So we sort of just had to do our own thing for the rest of the cruise,” said Skolnick.
Gavin Tesser, another student at CHS, also agrees that drama can happen on almost any cruise in any situation.
“There was a lot of drama on my cruise because people got sick and blamed each other,” said Tesser.
The nine month cruise is set to arrive back home on September 10th, so there may be some new developments and more exciting stories but what it mostly is is young couples and senior citizens experiencing the world.
