Royal Caribbeans nine-month Ultimate World Cruise has taken over TikTok
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“Imagine eating unlimited cruise food for nine months, like what that’s going to do to your body. I just worry people aren’t going to pace themselves and it’s going to be really hard on their bodies. You need to have balance,” one TikToker said in a video about concerns for the passengers aboard the ship.
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This isn’t the first time TikTok creators — competing for views with millions of other accounts — have mined videos posted by others to manufacture their own genre of online reality TV. In 2021, the University of Alabama’s sorority rush became an internet fixation known as #BamaRush (and eventually, a Max documentary). But much as on reality TV, the truth behind the content can seem beside the point. “I made an Ultimate World Cruise Bingo card for anyone else who is buckling in for this nine months TikTok reality show,” user @whimsysoul shared in a video posted shortly after the ship’s voyage began. The 2024 World Cruise encompasses 31 countries and started at a cool $68,800 per person. Nine months on a cruise ship is just the kind of "social incubator" that's so central to reality TV, said Jamie Cohen, a media studies professor at Queens College who began his career as a reality television producer.
What's it like aboard the ship?
Some of their fellow passengers would be there for the entire nine months, but others would only be traveling in segments. The trip itself is made of 17 existing Royal Caribbean routes, each a couple of weeks long. So every few weeks, there will be a cohort of new passengers to get to know. For people tracking the day-to-day lives of cruise ship passengers, many have predicted that the 9-month trip has the potential for drama equivalent to or even larger than a reality TV series production. After all, the footage being streamed on TikTok is created and edited by real people, not a major network.
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Meet the 'cast' of the 9-month cruise that's taking over TikTok - The Washington Post
Meet the 'cast' of the 9-month cruise that's taking over TikTok.
Posted: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Suffice to say, the inside room was closer to the low end of that range. "That is something that has kind of helped to impact my desire to travel," she explains. "I think that's why my TikTok skyrocketed so fast, because I was the first Black person that people were seeing post that was actually on the ship," Shannon Lake adds. Ticket rates are based on a range of 1,073 staterooms and the full 274-night trip ran from $53,999 per person to $117,599 per person. On Dec. 10, Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise kicked off its round-the-world tour.
Why is this world cruise all over TikTok?
"And this is their vacation. This is their life story. And they need to be able to enjoy their life's dream." The 26-year-old had done some influencing back home in South Africa (her mom, incidentally, is one of the stars of Real Housewives of Pretoria). Oosthuizen says she joined the trip with plans to post "day in the life" videos, with a focus on makeup and fashion. That's something most of the nine-month cruisers are acutely aware of and trying to avoid, several passengers told NPR.
Royal Caribbean made waves when the cruise line announced its 9-Month Ultimate World Cruise near the end of 2021. The 274-night cruise, which set sail on board Serenade of the Seas on December 10, 2023, will visit all seven continents and call at 150 destinations across 65 countries when all is said and done. Linderman also had to make sure to set up a slew of doctor appointments so that she could stay on top of a medical condition. While there are doctors and dentists onboard the ship, she created a plan with her medical providers that accommodated the cruise itinerary.
Linderman has the BRCA2 gene, which means she is at a higher risk for certain cancers. Soon after the post began to circulate, she says the cruise’s hotel director made a point to greet her at dinner. "We definitely are the youngest Black people on the boat," Brandee Lake explains. Users have expressed interest in following the Lake sisters in particular to see their perspective of traveling the world and taking part in a cruise as Black women. "I would say the majority, like the overwhelming majority of passengers, are retirees (or seniors)," she explains, summarizing that number as being at least 90% of the passengers.
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Some, like Amike Oosthuizen, boarded the ship with a sizable social media following already. She says the way the outside world is portraying passengers as reality show characters, while amusing, has stirred up some negativity on board. "But I don't feel lucky that I'm on a cruise. I feel lucky that a brand noticed that I made content and trusted me enough to put me forth into this experience." "The way that we're getting higher-produced content from some people and then some more raw, gossipy content from other people really does feel like you could stitch everything together and make an episode for every single day," she added. A cruiser named Joe (whose TikTok handle is @spendingourkidsmoney) reported last week that a passenger injured his back and had to go home after just 11 days. We have had a lot of gossip however, which could turn into real drama – one account claimed that a passenger has Covid and is in fact hiding it, which could lead to another Ruby Princess style plague vessel.
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Unlike a traditional reality show, with meddling producers and forced cliffhangers, content from the nine-month cruise comes from average Joe Martuccis. A special moment we all shared was when we were in Rio for New Year’s Eve, and we got to experience ringing in 2024 together. Meal times have become one of my favorite times, because I spend it with the people I am closest with. Every stop so far has been filled with its own experiences that have made it extremely special. The Caribbean was filled with fun days in the sea, and South America was a region of the world that I had never visited before. Experiencing the beautiful cultures, delicious food, and kind people has been priceless, but today, we aren’t stopping in any ports.
Joe’s four children encouraged him to post video updates on TikTok, which he’d never used before, he told the New York Times. His first video had nearly half a million views at the time of writing — and he has more than 70,000 followers. The most prolific creator so far has been @amike_oosthuizen, a South African influencer with more than 200,000 followers who is on board and working remotely with her husband.
“I don’t like putting rumors out there, but I think we also, the passengers that invested so much money and so much time to see the world, we deserve to know what is going on, what the plans are, what Plan B is,” Adita says in her video. But whether the drama is exaggerated or not, the clicks and likes just keep on coming with no signs of the social media buzz calming down anytime soon. Others are eager for drama to unfold, seeing it as inevitable with the mix of alcohol and passengers living in close quarters for an extended period of time. Viewers at home are eager to catch up on the drama unfolding at sea, as well as to follow along on the voyage, living vicariously through influencers. As this is the longest cruise ever offered by Royal Caribbean, it’s no surprise that the sailing is drawing a lot of attention online.
Inside cabins are commonplace on cruise ships, and while they aren't spacious, there are advantages to staying in them. If you read the comments made to the cabin tour video, there's people who can't believe little_rat_brain would stay in an inside room for 9-months. Anyone that's been on a cruise ship would tell you these sort of things happen. Another person created a bingo card for things that could happen on the world cruise.
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