by “There will be rebellion. There will be blood. Someone is going overboard. I want to watch. We’re witnessing the Fyre Festival…take me on the cruise.”
Those were the words of Marc Sebastian, just one of the hundreds of TikTok users who developed a new and all-consuming obsession in the last few weeks – a nine-month Ultimate World Cruise at Royal Caribbean. Or, as the app called it, the “nine-month TikTok reality show”.
Billed as “the most epic cruise ever to sail”, the Ultimate World Cruise is Royal Caribbean’s longest cruise ever. With a 274-night itinerary, prices for the entire trip start at $53,999 (£42,462) per person. They can go up to $117,599 (£92,474) excluding taxes and fees, according to the Royal Caribbean website. Passengers who booked the whole shebang (some people only board certain parts, more on this later) will visit 65 countries, including Antarctica.
Since the ship set sail on December 10, TikTok has been awash (no pun intended) with posts from guests documenting their journey. Passengers became famous overnight, and their fans are in the sky overnight.
Accounts describing the cruise from users on the ground also quickly surfaced, with creators closely analyzing passenger videos and anticipating the ship’s dramatic potential. The Triangle of Sorrow meets the Titanic and hits Below Deck – and TikTok is in jeopardy; in two weeks, the hashtag #UltimateWorldCruise has attracted over 150 million views. “I’m so invested in this 9 month world cruise because I know it’s going to be a mess,” one person posted on X.
“I can’t WAIT for the documentary nine months on cruise ala (sic) Fyre Fest,” said another. “He’s already bringing Lord of the Flies.”
One TikToker made a virtual bingo card that went viral, with predictions including “little neighbor drama,” “wedding,” “stowaway” and “pirate takeover.”
And so far, the drama has been produced by #cruisetok. There are already allegations of an emerging class system, rumors of speed bumps, floods, accusations of racism, and anger at the confined conditions. One creator, who refers to herself as the director of TikTok’s “sea tea” and updates her followers with “breaking news”, claimed that someone had already left the cruise.
If you’re wondering how entertaining a group of tech-illiterate retirees could be, think again. Part of the fun of the UWC is that it attracted everyone from social media-savvy Gen Zers and millennials to boomers and seniors. (One couple made videos on board joking about how they spent their children’s inheritance on the trip).
Passengers are documenting everything from relaxing on a private island in the Bahamas to MTV Cribs-style tours of their cabins (called staterooms). Visits to the ship’s washroom, training and trips to the all-day buffet on the app have been very popular.
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 on board
The ship, called Serenade of the Seas, has a capacity of 2,476 guests – although no one knows exactly how many people are on board. However, eagle-eyed fans noticed that recent footage from traveler @brooklynschwetje shows a cruise meeting where it was revealed that 1,093 membership passengers were on board.
The most prolific creator so far was @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”, where she takes viewers on a journey to the ship’s daily buffet, has had 3.9 million views at the time of writing. Some of her food included fruit, yogurt, a muffin, oatmeal, and a smoothie. For lunch, she will have 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’re “finding fulfillment in the second phase of life”, have been sharing healthy content on their @livingphase2 account, racking up nearly 30,000 followers at the time of writing .
Another #cruisetok star is Joe Martucci, a 67-year-old recently retired from Florida, posting from the ship with the handle @spendingourkidsmoney. Joe’s four children encouraged him to post video updates on TikTok, which he never used, 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 teacher on board from Arizona, told the New York Times that the attention was “very strange, very strange.” She said she bonded with some of the other passengers who picked up new TikTok followers. person and talk through group chats about their new celebrity status.
Some of these users, many accepting them as The Ultimate Real World Cruise cast, have started hanging out with each other on the ship and posting content together.
Even some of the crew on board have started posting videos, such as Julian Mendoza with the handle @cooljul1.
“really tiny” rooms.
Of course, part of the fascination with #cruisetok is an obsession with the ridiculous lives of the super rich and what they choose to spend their money on. This is probably why TikTokers sharing in-depth tours of a room on board, often showing their relatively meager 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 received nearly three million views.
“The closet is really tiny — I’ll leave that to the imagination because if I open it, everything will fall out,” she says at one point, moving to a small cupboard next to the door.
“Our bathroom is really tiny, but we make it work. We added a few storage options—this magnetic shelf from Amazon—and then put our medicine and makeup down here.”
Pointing to the bathroom cupboard, she laughs: “This one opens but it’s very teeny tiny. And that’s it from our luxury bathroom experience.”
She and Andrias decorated the walls with flags, pictures and sketches — and the room has a sea view window.
“This feels like a dystopian (sic) jail” said one user. Another said: “I can’t imagine going on a cruise for 9 months without an outside stateroom. I would go crazy”.
Swingers rumors, floods, and accusations of racism – the drama on board so far
Social media has been quick to compare the cruise to the hit reality show Below Deck, which follows teams working on a luxury yacht, with users eagerly awaiting an explosion of controversy. But is there any drama yet?
Well… sort of.
There was a brief moment when it looked like there were several swings on the ship, when a woman and her husband placed a pineapple (a symbol used to signal other swings) on the door. Sadly, the woman later clarified that she “liked pineapples”.
New footage from inside the ship, posted mainly on TikTok, showed flooding on the 12th deck, with passengers reporting strong winds and storms outside. One user shared a video of the flooding with the caption: “Our first WC Ultimate storm, 60mph winds, flooding, elevators ahead closed until further notice.”
The main point of tension, however, is an apparent class system that has emerged. The cruise is divided into four segments – Americas, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Med, and Europe & Beyond – and each is available to book individually, so not everyone is on board going the whole distance. There had been rumors of conflict between the “segregators” and those on board for nine months, and it is reported that the segregationists received different treatment from the full students. However, the only injustice so far seems to have been the alleged involvement of some integrators in the cruise’s Facebook group.
Perhaps the best update so far came from Mike and Nancy, an older couple who were chronicling their trip on the ship on TikTok. In a video posted on January 2, the couple dropped the bombshell that the ship was running out of wine.
“Well, for all of you on TikTok who have been asking for a drama on the Ultimate World Cruise, we finally have some drama for you. They are running out of wine. Can you believe it?” said Mike. “They’ve told us here that we’ve gone more wine than they could have expected. They’re expecting to restock, they’re trying all the different ports. They tried to restock in Barbados, that didn’t work, they tried to restock in Rio, they got a little. We’ll keep you posted.”
However, there are more serious allegations. A week into the ship’s voyage, black content creator and passenger Brandee Lake posted a video (which has 2.6 million views at the time of writing) in which she claimed that a crew member had been repeatedly misled, one time after another. . a passenger and another time by a crew member.
“If I’m asked if I’m working on this ship again,” she said in the TikTok. “After I said I wasn’t working, I was asked if I was independently wealthy – because, basically, how did you pay for this?”. Along with the video, she wrote the caption: “Apparently it seemed to some that a Black woman (and family) could be the guest of the once in a lifetime experience”.
Brandee said later today that after posting a TikTok, the cruise hotel manager greeted her during dinner. Royal Caribbean did not respond when contacted for comment about the allegations.
