Royal Caribbean’s nine-month cruise passenger claims there’s one word travellers can’t say

A passenger on Royal Caribbean’s nine month cruise has claimed that there’s a certain thing that travellers aren’t allowed to discuss while onboard.

On his popular TikTok page, Marc Sebastian, has shared a series of videos about his experiences on the cruise, which officially departed on 10 December 2023. The nine-month cruise will come to an official end on 10 September 2024, with the ship docking in Miami, Florida.

In the video posted to his TikTok on 22 January, Sebastian shared some of the things he has “learned about cruising”, after spending 18 nights so far on the ship Serenade of the Seas. He started the video by describing his first claim, that passengers aren’t allowed to talk about the Titanic, which sank in 1912 after hitting an iceberg.

While describing his confusion about the alleged rule, he also shared the shocked reactions that his peers had when he mentioned the Titanic. “I brought up to an entire room of people having lunch that our ship is only 100 feet longer than the Titanic,” he said. “[And] when I tell you that. Utensils dropped. Waiters gasped. It’s dead silent.”

Sebestian said he then realised the rule on the ship, when his friend whispered to him: “You’re not allowed to talk about the Titanic.”

He quipped about how he had no idea that he couldn’t mention the word, adding: “Well, it wasn’t like that was in the f***ing handbook. Not that I read the handbook, clearly.”

Sebastian’s video has quickly gone viral on TikTok, with more than 2.6m views as of 23 January. In the comments, many people mocked the alleged rule regarding what passengers can discuss onboard.

“I’m sorry if I’m going on a boat, I’m talking about Titanic and OceanGate,” one wrote, referring to OceanGate’s Titan submersible, which experienced a “catastrophic implosion” when it submerged in June 2023, killing all five people aboard the vessel.

“The way I would be talking about the Titanic all the time,” another wrote, while a third claimed: “When I went on a cruise my mom told me saying Titanic was equivalent to screaming bomb at an airport.”

Elsewhere in the video, the influencer made some other claims about cruises, as he also said that “ships have godmothers”. He then specified that Whoopi Goldberg was the “godmother” of the Serenade of the Seas, before showing a picture of the actor on a wall.

“Girl, you and I, we’ve got to talk,” he quipped, referring to Goldberg. “Because I gotta let you know what’s going on on this ship. As an EGOT winner, I don’t think this is the right ship for you.”

He went on to continue the bit in the caption, writing: “Someone get Whoopi on the line girl. I have some goss[ip] for her.”

The Independent has contacted Sebastian and Royal Caribbean for comment.

In December 2023, the Ultimate World Cruise went viral on social media after passengers began opening up about their time on the boat. As noted by Royal Caribbean’s itinerary, the trip consists of 274 nights, with some of the destinations including Aruba, Barbados, Japan, Italy, Greece, Spain, Denmark, Germany, and France. Passengers will also have the opportunity to bond “with like-minded explorers over global discoveries across all seven continents”, according to Royal Caribbean’s website.

Since the start of the trip, people have joked bout what could happen on the cruise, with a woman named Kara, who goes by the name @whimsysoul on TikTok, sharing “The Ultimate Bingo Card” for the next year for “anyone else who is buckling in for this nine months TikTok reality show”. Some of the spaces on her Bingo Card included “someone goes home early”, “staff dates passenger”, “lobster style sunburn”, “brands sponsor passengers,” and “minor mystery to solve”.

Earlier this month, the cruise once again went viral when travellers shared videos of the flood onboard. In a TikTok video shared by one passenger, Adita, on 2 January,  one deck of the ship could be seen with floods of water along the carpeted floors.

The footage also showed the large amounts of water that were coming from the outside deck of the ship. The traveller continued to walk through the floors of the ship amid the flood, before they went down a flight of carpeted stairs. The video was posted during a cruise day as the ship was heading to South America.

In a statement to The Independent at the time, a representative for Royal Caribbean said: “On Tuesday 2 January, while sailing to Montevideo, Uruguay, the Serenade of the Seas experienced heavy wind and rain. One set of elevators and six rooms were impacted by some of the rain. Our team on board is managing the minor cleanup and elevator repairs. Seranade continued to its next destination, as scheduled, and arrived in Montevideo on Thursday.”

Travellers on the Ultimate World Cruise are also paying a hefty price, as the most inexpensive room option is $59,999 per person for an interior stateroom, according to Royal Caribbean’s website. Prices for other rooms are in a higher range, with the junior suite starting at $117,599 per person.