“There will be mutiny. Blood will be shed. Someone’s going overboard. I want to watch. We’re witnessing Fyre Festival…put me on the cruise.’
These were the words of Marc Sebastian, just one of hundreds of TikTok users who in recent weeks have developed a new and all-consuming obsession: Royal Caribbean’s nine-month Ultimate World Cruise. Or, as the app calls it, the “nine-month TikTok reality show.”
The Ultimate World Cruise, billed as “the most epic cruise ever set sail,” is Royal Caribbean’s longest cruise ever. With a 274-night itinerary, prices for the full trip start at $53,999 (£42,462) per person. According to Royal Caribbean’s website, they can cost as much as $117,599 (£92,474), before taxes and fees. Passengers booked for the whole lot (some people are only on board for certain segments, more on this later) will visit 65 countries, including Antarctica.
Since the ship set sail on December 10, TikTok has been flooded with posts from guests documenting their journey. Passengers have become celebrities overnight and their followers have grown tremendously overnight.
Stories about users’ land-based cruises have also quickly emerged, with creators obsessively analyzing passengers’ videos and anticipating the ship’s potential for drama. It’s Triangle of Sadness, Titanic and Below Deck – and it has TikTok in its grip; in just two weeks, the hashtag #UltimateWorldCruise has been viewed more than 150 million times. “I invested so much in this nine-month world cruise because I know it’s going to be a mess,” someone wrote on X.
“I can’t wait for the nine month cruise documentary ala (sic) Fyre Fest,” said another. ‘It gives Lord of the Flies.’
One TikToker created a virtual bingo card that went viral, with predictions such as ‘minor neighbor drama’, ‘a wedding’, ‘stowaway’ and ‘pirate takeover’.
And so far, #cruisetok has lived up to the drama. There are already accusations of a class system on the rise, rumors of swingers, a flood, accusations of racism and outrage over cramped conditions. One creator, who calls herself TikTok’s “sea tea” director and keeps her followers updated on “breaking news,” claimed that someone had already left the cruise.
If you’re wondering how entertaining a group of technically illiterate retirees could be, think again. Part of the fun of the UWC is that it has attracted everyone from social media-savvy Gen Zers and millennials to boomers and the elderly. (One couple made videos on board joking about how they spent their children’s inheritance during the trip).
Passengers document everything from relaxing on a private island in the Bahamas to taking MTV Cribs-style tours of their cabins (called staterooms). What seem like mundane visits to the ship’s washroom, workouts and trips to the all-day buffet have become blockbuster hits on the app.
Here’s everything you need to know about who’s on board and all the drama so far.
From Gen Z influencers to wealthy retirees: all the main characters are on board
The ship, called the Serenade of the Seas, has a capacity for 2,476 guests – although so far no one knows exactly how many people are actually on board. However, eagle-eyed fans spotted that recent footage from traveler @brooklynschwetje shows a cruise meeting when it was revealed that there were 1,093 membership passengers on board.
The most prolific creator to date is @amike_oosthuizen, a South African influencer with over 200,000 followers who is on board and working remotely with her husband. Her video titled ‘what I eat in a day on a nine-month cruise’, in which she takes viewers on a journey to the ship’s buffet, had 3.9 million views at the time of writing. Some of her food consisted of fruit, yogurt, a muffin, oatmeal, and a smoothie. For lunch she has a salad, a burger patty with cheese and a plate of vegetables. She ends the day with fish, noodles, corn and slices of watermelon.
Mike and Nancy, an older couple whose TikTok bio says they “find fulfillment in the second phase of life,” have been sharing wholesome content on their account @livingphase2, which has nearly 30,000 followers at the time of writing.
Another star of #cruisetok is Joe Martucci, a 67-year-old recently retired from Florida, who posts from the ship with the handle @spendingourkidsmoney. Joe’s four children encouraged him to post video updates on TikTok, which he had never used before, he told the New York Times. His first video had almost half a million views at the time of writing – and he has more than 70,000 followers.
Lindsay Wilson, a 32-year-old shipboard teacher from Arizona, told the New York Times that the attention was “very, very strange.” She said she and some other passengers who had amassed new TikTok followers met in person and talked via group chats about their new celebrity status.
Some of these users, many of whom consider themselves the cast of The Ultimate Real World Cruise, have started hanging out with each other on the ship and posting content together.
Even some of the onboard staff have started posting videos, like Julian Mendoza with the handle @cooljul1.
“Really small” rooms
Of course, part of the fascination with #cruisetok is an obsession with the ridiculous lives of the super-rich and what they spend their money on. This may be why TikTokers sharing in-depth onboard tours, often showing off their relatively small living conditions, have gone particularly viral. Schadenfreude sells.
One passenger, Ale Kenney, who is on board with her husband Andrew, recently shared a video of her room that has been viewed nearly three million times.
“The cupboard is very small, I leave that to the imagination, because when I open it, everything falls out,” she says at one point, pointing to a cupboard next to the door.
“Our bathroom is very small, but we make it work. We added a few storage options – this magnetic shelf from Amazon – and then just crammed our medicine and my makeup down here.
She points to the bathroom cabinet and laughs: “This opens, but it’s very small. And that’s it from our luxury bathroom experience.”
She and Andrew decorated the walls with a banner, photos and sketches – and the room has a window with a sea view.
“This feels like a dystopian (sic) prison,” one user commented. Another said: “I can’t imagine being on a cruise for nine months without an outside cabin. I would go crazy.”
Rumors about swingers, a flood and accusations of racism: the drama on board so far
Social media is quick to compare the cruise to the popular reality show Below Deck, which follows crews working on luxury yachts, as users eagerly await an explosion of controversy. But is there already drama?
Yeah, sort of.
There was a brief moment when it seemed like there were some swingers on the ship, when a woman and her husband taped a pineapple (a symbol used to identify other swingers) to their door. Unfortunately, the woman later clarified that she “just liked pineapples.”
New footage from inside the ship, largely posted to TikTok, shows flooding on the 12th deck, with passengers outside reporting high winds and storms. One user shared a video of the flooding with the caption: “Our first Ultimate WC storm, 60mph winds, flooding, forward lifts closed until further notice.”
The main point of tension, however, is that an apparent class system has emerged. The cruise is divided into four segments – Americas, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Mediterranean, and Europe & Beyond – and each segment can be booked separately, so not everyone on board travels the full distance. Rumors of hostility between the ‘segmenters’ and those on board have been circulating for nine months, with the segmenters reportedly receiving different treatment from the full boarders. However, the only real injustice so far seems to be that some full board guests are said to be monitoring the cruise’s Facebook group.
Perhaps the best update yet comes from Mike and Nancy, an older couple who documented their journey on the ship on TikTok. In a video posted on January 2, the couple dropped the bombshell that the ship was running low on wine.
“Well, all of you on TikTok who have been asking for drama on the Ultimate World Cruise, we finally have some drama for you. They’re almost out of wine. Can you believe it?” Mike said. ‘They told us here that we drank more wine than they could ever have anticipated. They hope that they will be supplied again, they are trying in all different ports. They tried to replenish their supplies in Barbados, that didn’t work, they tried to replenish their supplies in Rio, they got a little bit. We will keep you informed.”
However, there have been more serious allegations. A week after the ship’s voyage, Brandee Lake, a Black content creator and passenger, posted a video (which has 2.6 million views as of this writing) claiming she had been mistaken for a crew member multiple times, once by a passenger and another time by an employee.
“When I get asked if I will work on this ship one more time,” she said in the TikTok. “After I said I wasn’t working, I was asked if I was independently wealthy – how did you even afford this?”. Alongside the video, she wrote the caption: “Apparently it seemed far-fetched to some that a black woman (and family) could be a guest on this once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Brandee later told TODAY that after she posted her TikTok, the cruise’s hotel manager made a point of greeting her at dinner. Royal Caribbean did not respond when contacted for comment on the allegations.