The drama on the 9-month world cruise

On Dec. 10, 2023, Royal Caribbean’s nine-month cruise, known as The Ultimate World Cruise, set off for a trip around the world. And in just a few weeks, it’s already gone viral for drama.

Since embarking, videos depicting all the high jinks on the high seas have become a major TikTok phenomenon. In the first three weeks of the cruise, the hashtag #ultimateworldcruise garnered over 150 million views.

Image: @uksecrettravel/TikTok

The epic 274-night cruise costs a minimum of around $60,000 per person, and suites start from $117,000. It plans to visit 11 world wonders and more than 60 countries across seven continents.

Image: Royalcaribbean.com

The cruise has become something of a social media obsession thanks to passengers with TikTok accounts that are sharing some of the drama on the ship. One of the stars to have emerged is Joe, who laughs while sending messages to his kids like: “Hey kids! Remember when you thought you had an inheritance? Well, here we are… spending it all.”

Image: @spendingourkidsmoney/TikTok

A nine-month cruise may sound enticing, but the reality is that even exterior rooms are very small… likely a huge thing to get used of for couples who have at least $120,000 to dish out for a nine-month adventure. This TikTok user showed how cluttered their room is with all the items they’ve brought for the long cruise.

Image: @lifeofagypsy/TikTok

Another passenger gave a room tour, spending time to share about the “really tiny” bathroom. She explained some storage solutions to avoid clutter and keep it organized. She jokingly referred to it as “a luxury bathroom.”

Image: @aa.kenney/TikTok

So invested in the drama, TikTok user @whimsysoul created a Bingo card to track some of the things that could still go wrong. And as you may guess, several squares have already been checked off.

Image: @whimsysoul/Tiktok

The first bingo box to be checked was the “port errand duty.” That was when passengers were not impressed with the pillows supplied by the cruise, so they bought some emergency pillows in Aruba.

Image: @whimsysoul/Tiktok

“Hey kids,” fan favorite Joe broke the news to the people playing the bingo from home. Already on day 11 he reported that a pastor had to go home early because of back problems.

Image: @yourdatingtipbestie/Tiktok

This was another quick check off the bingo card. Naturally, the self-contained ship of influencers begins to form little gangs of friends. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the audience hopes it won’t go ‘Mean Girl’ style. Here is a group of young friends and influencers celebrating a birthday.

Image: @amike_oosthuizen

Just a couple weeks in, the first passenger tested for COVID-19, likely starting an outbreak. Remember at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic — a cruiseship was the scene of one of the first major outbreaks. But this is likely to be expected… whether they’ll get a 2nd outbreak remains to be seen for another bingo square.

Image: @uksecrettravel/TikTok

Seizing on the popularity of the cruise, it didn’t take long for a “cool brand” to reach out to an influencer to sponsor his time on the cruise. Marc Sebastian was the lucky influencer, and he will only be joining for a segment of the cruise. He is just about to board the ship, so let’s see if he’s paid to cause any extra drama!

Image: @marcsebastianf/TikTok

The “Duty Free space” was then ticked off because of a big crisis — after the New Year celebrations the ship was reportedly running low on some types of wine. Luckily, the major crisis was averted when the ship added two local wines from Uruguay and Argentina to make up for the drought of some of the favorites. Two of the passengers said they were great and passengers were happy once again!

Image: @livingphase2/TikTok

Influencer Gigi said she promised to share “the good, bad and ugly” with followers, so spilled the beans that she saw a big fight between a couple, that ended in the wife throughout her husband’s wet clothes around the laundry room and saying they couldn’t live in such small a room. When Gigi offered advice, “she wasn’t having it!” That was only two weeks in!

Image: @yourdatingtipbestie/Tiktok

The first storm of the cruise included 60mph winds and flooded parts of the ship. It also forced elevators to close until further notice, ticking off the “tech issues” and “weather mishap” boxes all at once.

Image: @aditaml2759/TikTok

The internet and ship are also intrigued after having stumbled upon some pineapple signs on doors. Did you know that pineapples (especially upside down pineapples) are a subtle symbol that someone is a swinger or looking for a swinger party?!

Image: @aditaml2759/TikTok

“If I get asked if I work on the ship one more time…” that’s how passenger Brandee Lee started one of her updates, saying it started at the pre-cruise gala, has continued throughout, with even crew members assuming she was staff. “It’s gonna be a long nine months,” she said.

Image: @Iambrandeelake/TikTok

On Dec. 23, one passenger posted about how disappointing it was that the big waves prevented the cruisers from visiting Devil’s Island, a former French penal colony that operated from 1852 to 1952 off the coast of the South American country French Guiana.

Image: @lifeofagypsy/TikTok