{"id":288,"date":"2024-02-02T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T07:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/answerfaqpro.com\/?p=288"},"modified":"2024-02-02T07:00:34","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T07:00:34","slug":"were-a-month-into-the-ultimate-world-cruise-thats-taken-over-tiktok-and-the-drama-we-were-promised-may-actually-be-about-to-materialize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/answerfaqpro.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/02\/were-a-month-into-the-ultimate-world-cruise-thats-taken-over-tiktok-and-the-drama-we-were-promised-may-actually-be-about-to-materialize\/","title":{"rendered":"We’re a month into the Ultimate World Cruise that’s taken over TikTok, and the drama we were promised may actually be about to materialize"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What if you took hundreds of strangers, gave them each a camera, and put them in an isolated, confined space to live in for the best part of a year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This exact scenario has now been playing out for a month, and it’s not a social experiment or an ethically questionable reality TV show. It’s the most viral vacation ever taken \u2014 the Royal Caribbran\u00a0Ultimate World Cruise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 274-night voyage \u2014 with a starting price of around $60,000 \u2014 kicked off on December 10 in Miami. The cruise’s planned itinerary includes 65 countries and more than 150 ports of call. It’s unclear exactly how many passengers are on board, but the Serenade of the Seas ship hosting the trip has a capacity of 2,476 guests,\u00a0according\u00a0to its operator, Royal Caribbean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The voyage seemed almost destined for virality. But despite the best efforts of enthusiastic passengers, eager viewers, and an\u00a0algorithmic boost, the cruise, now dubbed a “TikTok reality show,” has failed to deliver on the drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems this past month may have just been the warm-up though. Those keeping close tabs have noticed a sharp uptick in the plot unfolding on the ship as we enter month two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s a recap of what’s happened so far, just in time to grab the popcorn for when things could get really good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viewers anticipated explosive drama in the days following the cruise’s departure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As early as December 11, the first full day on the ship, passengers began\u00a0sharing their experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It started with room tours \u2014\u00a0lots of them. Some people took\u00a0inspiration\u00a0from MTV’s “Cribs” and used\u00a0classic TikTok transition edits\u00a0to highlight their transformation, while others offered\u00a0in-depth looks\u00a0at every detail of their cabins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quickly, creators began to share their predictions for what might go down on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On December 15, a creator named Kara Harms\u00a0posted a bingo card\u00a0for the trip. Likening it to living in a dorm room, she predicted that over the course of the nine months, we’d see “mass STIs,” an impromptu wedding, a pregnancy resulting in a “cruise ship baby,” people missing or even falling off the boat, a low-stakes mystery, and the emergence of new travel influencers and sponsorships from brands. (Spoiler: only one of these predictions has come true \u2014\u00a0keep reading to find out which.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others went even further with their predictions, guessing there’d be “some type of civil unrest” a “Titanic”-style\u00a0tragic love story, and\u00a0feuds\u00a0resulting from a rivalry between the people who go the most viral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CruiseTok was beside itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I guarantee there’s going to be love, fun, excitement, and drama,” said cruise follower Bad YaYa in the\u00a0first\u00a0of at least 24 videos she’s created for her Ultimate World Cruise playlist. “It’s gonna be like a whodunnit, love murder mystery \u2014 hopefully without the murder \u2014\u00a0but it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stories from aboard the cruise began to emerge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

More and more passengers \u2014 or, as some have called them, “cast members” \u2014 began posting on TikTok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angie Linderman shared that she decided to embark on the cruise at 37 after losing both her parents to cancer and finding out she carried the\u00a0BRCA2 gene mutation, which increases the chances of certain cancers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“To me, there is no thought of retirement,” she said in her\u00a0viral video\u00a0explaining the choice. “There is no way I’m waiting to do shit til I retire.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruiser Joe Martucci, known as @spendingyourkidsmoney on TikTok, became a viral hit after he created his account to post a video he initially made for his children, and which they found so amusing they encouraged him to share online, the\u00a0New York Times reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Hey kids,” he began the video<\/a>, in what has since become his TikTok catchphrase. “Remember the time you thought you had an inheritance?” the 67-year-old said, laughing on the cruise balcony, as the ocean and picturesque blue skies stretched out behind him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the “cast” grew and interest ramped up,\u00a0accounts\u00a0dedicated to\u00a0collating\u00a0all the information available about the happenings aboard the cruise gained traction, as did\u00a0crew members’\u00a0accounts that\u00a0shared\u00a0their side of the experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viewers learned more about the\u00a0amenities\u00a0and\u00a0daily routines\u00a0aboard the cruise ship, and as the onboard TikTokers began\u00a0meeting each other\u00a0and collaborating with some of the creators\u00a0recapping the drama from land, the sense that this really was a reality TV moment increased.\u00a0Many of the passengers\u00a0seemed\u00a0in on the joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the drama was ever going to materialize, it seemed now was the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small kernels of controversy began to hit TikTok by the second week of the cruise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Soon, rumors of minor dramas began to circulate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One creator who’s ostensibly posting from the cruise has been\u00a0accused of faking the whole thing\u00a0after sleuths deep-dived into his videos, and Martucci (of “hey kids” fame)\u00a0said\u00a0he believed people were impersonating him online. Ultimate World Cruise followers also discovered the Facebook group where those who had already signed up for the cruise had been communicating (hosted by Royal Caribbean, the group boasts 438 members).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were some less lighthearted developments too, but they’re hardly what we’d call “drama.” One TikTok-famous passenger, Anthony McWilliams, said he disembarked in Brazil and was told\u00a0he would not be able to reboard the ship\u00a0until it reached Uruguay the following week due to Brazilian port laws. At the time,\u00a0his story\u00a0caused a bit of a stir, but 12 days later, on January 5, he\u00a0announced\u00a0to TikTok that he was “back home” aboard the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same week, another passenger\u00a0posted\u00a0on TikTok about “flooding” on the ship, which a spokesperson for Royal Caribbean\u00a0told USA Today\u00a0was caused by “heavy wind and rain.” Again, the news\u00a0spread\u00a0across CruiseTok causing concern, but within a day, it seemed everything was\u00a0pretty much back to normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pinnacle drama that never was<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Of all the stories that have emerged so far from the cruise, only two can really be categorized as “drama,” in the true internet sense of the world. And, arguably, even that’s a bit of a stretch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first brush with drama came when an Ultimate World Cruise TikTok recapper who goes by @uksecrettravel posted a\u00a0viral video\u00a0saying she had heard that some guests were unhappy because so-called Pinnacle guests \u2014 those who are part of the\u00a0highest tier of loyalty membership\u00a0Royal Caribbean offers \u2014 were being treated “very differently” to the standard passengers, especially the “segmenters” who are only on the ship for a portion of the nine-month journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as soon as the rumor began to spread, others\u00a0pointed out\u00a0that giving loyalty members perks is literally the point of loyalty programs, and passengers getting what they’d paid for doesn’t exactly constitute the social injustice it was implied to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second big moment was “pinapplegate.” What’s that you ask? A TikToker onboard documented a passenger named Adita who had an\u00a0illustrated pineapple\u00a0stuck on her cabin door. Viewers were convinced it was a secret code to signal that she and her partner were swingers. Apparently, pineapples are a\u00a0swinger-specific symbol?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a bunch of cruise-drama TikTokers\u00a0breathlessly reported\u00a0on this development, Adita\u00a0weighed in, sadly telling viewers that no, they were not swingers, they actually just really liked pineapples. Case closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then a pot-stirrer entered the group chat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As with all good reality shows, the key to keeping viewers engaged is to shake things up, and that’s what happened on January 6, when a\u00a0TikToker and miniatures collector named Marc Sebastian entered the timeline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sebastian had been following the viral accounts and begging for a sponsor to get him on the cruise to document it from the inside \u2014 and publisher Atria Books delivered. On his first day aboard, Sebastian\u00a0rushed to TikTok Live\u00a0to say that people had been “so rude” and given him dirty looks, and that only one passenger had spoken to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his first videos from aboard the ship, Sebastian spilled more tea than the wholesome original cruise TikTokers had in almost a month \u2014\u00a0he\u00a0named\u00a0the passengers he had already formed alliances with,\u00a0fanned the flames\u00a0of the anti-Pinnacle sentiment, and filmed the moment he was asked not to swear by a fellow passenger and retorted, “Don’t tell me how to speak, thank you very much.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now this <\/em>is the stuff of reality TV. If month two continues the way it seems to be kicking off, the predicted drama may still materialize after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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