This Royal Caribbean Cruise Voyage Sees Drama Days Into Its 9-Month Travel Time

The Gist:

• Royal Caribbean kicked off a world cruise event called their Ultimate World Cruise voyage set to last for over nine months.
• The cruise will reportedly travel all seven continents.
• Drama between passengers kicked off less than a month into its travel time.

If events like Fyre Festival have taught us anything (and they clearly haven't), it's that outlandish travel events involving over a thousand guests spending ridiculous amounts of money for a supposed luxury experience never turn out exactly as planned. They may even prove to be a recipe for disaster, even if they're sanctioned by an official (albeit controversial) source.

To that end, the nine-month Royal Caribbean Ultimate World Cruise has captured people's attention across the internet.

The popular cruise line set sail on a massive voyage set to last 274 nights between December 2023 and September 2024.

Just picture it. Over a thousand guests have boarded the same cruise and will be stuck with each other 24/7 for more than the length of an average US school year. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, a lot. Barely a month into its voyage, the nine-month tour has already seen some bouts of drama.

The Ultimate World Cruise set sail on Dec. 10, 2023. According to outlets like Today, there are over 1,093 passengers on board. Tickets averaged between $53,999 to $117,599 per person, with seats still available for different portions of the trip.

But less than a month into the trip, reports of drama aboard the ship already began to surface on the internet. As of this writing, a corner of TikTok has already been carved out to keep track of the cruise's activity both before and during its duration.

For starters, Royal Caribbean reportedly began selling cheaper bookings for the cruise that don't last as long as the full nine months. These options were made available long after people had already spent thousands of dollars for the complete trip, leading some to try and haggle for downgrades.

As the trip set sail, however, people began reporting that there was a "class system" on the trip. People who are staying for the full trip are supposedly receiving preferential treatment over those who are not.

And of course, individual passengers are experiencing some difficulty and even some not-micro-microaggressions. In one of the most infamous examples of cruise drama, a Black TikToker named Brandee Lake was asked on several occasions if she was a crew member on the ship even though she was a paying guest. She'd even been asked how she could afford the full nine-month trip.

Aside from that, TikTokers on the trip have been privy to other individual incidents on board. One person reportedly heard a couple arguing in the hallway, having been fed up with living so close to each other after only three weeks of travel. Another TikToker even caught wind of someone having been diagnosed with COVID-19 on the ship and is being held in isolation.

As of this writing, TikTokers not on the ship are eagerly waiting for the other shoe to really drop. After all, nine months is a long time for anyone, especially if you're spending it on a cruise.