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World cruises aren't new, but this is the first one that Royal Caribbean has done and being a mainstream cruise line, the attention it's generating may be related to the fact it's more approachable than on smaller lines. Serenade of the Seas will sail roundtrip from Miami on Dec. 10, 2023 and through Sept. 10, 2024. Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas departed Miami to begin a 9-month Ultimate World Cruise on December 10, and TikTok has seen a flurry of interest for this kind of a cruise.
Where will Royal Caribbean's Ultimate Cruise sail to?
For the next several months, she'll work remotely and will be taking advantage of the various stops and sights the voyage will have to offer. The Lake sisters tell TODAY.com that other than this, they've yet to encounter any reality television-worthy bits of drama to mark on a Bingo card, but they do have a podcast where they plan on sharing their journey with followers. The sisters say they'll share the same cabin during their 9 months on the trip, and that they don't expect to butt heads too much with each other or their parents, since they're close and quarantined together during the Covid-19 pandemic. "We just kind of started running numbers and processing and thinking about it," Andrew Kenney adds.
Where is The Ultimate World Cruise going?
In the corner behind the coffee table, there's a laundry hamper and Andrew's golf putter, so he does not have to sacrifice one of his favorite pastimes while abroad. The cruise will depart from Miami on Dec. 10, 2023, and last until Sept. 10, 2024. That should give you plenty of time to start pinching those pennies—tickets start at $61,000 for an interior stateroom and go up to $112,000 for a junior suite. The price covers business class airfare and accommodations at a five-star hotel before setting sail. Sisters Brandee and Shannon Lake, who are Black, said they’re sharing a cabin and said that quarantining together during the pandemic prepared them to live in close quarters on the ship for nine months. Some said they cannot fathom what being on the cruise, traveling to that many locations while eating and drinking the days away, would do to a person physically.
Inside cabins aren't as bad as you think
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. All sorts of videos started popping up, and when it was time to board the ship, even more videos got posted and there's been 9 million views on the platform. But before you share that article that there's drama on the world cruise, here's a reality check. Maybe it's the slow news cycle that occurs around the holidays, but a number of major media outlets have written about how TikTok blew up with so-called drama on the Ultimate World Cruise that will take 9-months and began a few weeks ago. "We're gonna be in this cabin for nine months, so, obviously, we had to spruce it up, so we weren't looking at the plain walls the entire time," she says at the beginning of the one-minute and nine-second video.
Why is the world cruise all over TikTok?
A 9-Month Cruise Is TikTok's Favorite New 'Reality Show' - The New York Times
A 9-Month Cruise Is TikTok's Favorite New 'Reality Show'.
Posted: Tue, 02 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
And, according to content creator Marc Sebastien, who spent 18 nights aboard during the first leg of the journey, the ship's godmother—"Did you guys know that ships have godmothers?"—is Whoopi Goldberg. And Sebastian, 33, ended up going aboard for an 18-day stretch in January courtesy of Simon & Schuster's Atria Books, which enlisted him to host a virtual book club. His trip included a choppy ride through the Drake Passage ("Drake's best work since hotline bling," he captioned a post), the body of water between South America's Cape Horn and Antarctica's South Shetland Islands. Well, free with the entry-level $53,999 price for passage aboard the Symphony of the Seas, which will reportedly carry 27,000 guests in total over the four legs of the trip, while more than 600 were booked for the entire itinerary. The all-encompassing itinerary is the main draw here, but guests should expect to have a pretty great time on the actual ship itself, Serenade of the Seas. According to the ship's website, onboard amenities include a mini-golf course, rock climbing wall, full-service spa, pool with a retractable glass roof, and a theater hosting everything from Broadway shows to stand-up comics.
So is there drama and why is social media obsessed?
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. Inside cabins are commonplace on cruise ships, and while they aren't spacious, there are advantages to staying in them. She has put a lot of effort into her cabin decorating, but plenty of people do this sort of thing on any cruise. But in reading through the comments and looking at the videos, what we're basically seeing is people post about things that happen on any vacation when you have a lot of people together in one place. Your once-in-a-lifetime journey begins December 2023, embarking from in Miami on the first segment of the Ultimate World Cruise℠ — the Ultimate Americas Cruise. Go from postcard-perfect Caribbean shores—including the ABC islands —to viewing abundant wildlife like sea lions, penguins and whales roaming glacier-studded Antarctica as you round Cape Horn.
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The Ultimate World Cruise, a 274-night voyage aboard the Serenade of the Seas by Royal Caribbean Cruises, departed from Miami on Dec. 10. Ideally, crew members should be educated and trained both before and during such voyages — and certain behaviors should be unequivocally unacceptable. When Royal Caribbean unveiled the Ultimate World Cruise aboard its Serenade of the Seas craft in late 2021 and began bookings in early 2022, travel enthusiasts viewed it as a dream opportunity.
Ultimate Middle East and Med Pacific Cruise
Those who chose the full trip, prices started at $53,999, according to the Royal Caribbean website. A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean Cruises did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment regarding the rumors, as well as the virality of the cruise itself. Whether you cruise multiple times per year or you're new to cruising, the goal of Royal Caribbean Blog is for it to be a useful resource for keeping up to date with what's new and exciting with Royal Caribbean. Started in 2010, Royal Caribbean Blog offers daily coverage of news and information related to the Royal Caribbean cruise line along with other relevant topics of cruising, such as entertainment, news, photo updates and more. Each week we’ll send you the very best from the Vox Culture team, plus a special internet culture edition by Rebecca Jennings on Wednesdays. "I think that it is surprising out there to people that there's so many on the younger side who are on the cruise," she explained.
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Jessica Maddox, an assistant professor of digital media at the University of Alabama where Bama Rush takes place each year, said she knows first-hand how morally gray it can be to wish drama onto the lives of real people. Matt started Royal Caribbean Blog in 2010 as a place to share his passion for all things Royal Caribbean with readers. He oversees all the writers at Royal Caribbean Blog, and writes a great deal of content on a daily basis. So far we've seen a couple videos with people being unaware of the benefits top tier Royal Caribbean cruisers get on any sailing, but nothing substantial. People watching on TikTok seem quite intrigued by the idea of spending that long on a cruise ship, and it almost seemed like a reality show to viewers. It's no secret that Royal Caribbean has had its first world cruise planned for over a year, but social media took notice when the sailing began this week.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories. The first is "Immersive Africa," which "includes more of mainland Africa" like Senegal and Ghana, plus islands including the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius. The Brannon Files podcaster and Royal Caribbean Ultimate World Cruise guest chatted with PEOPLE amid news that the voyage, which kicked off in December 2023, would be switching up its itinerary to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal amid continued unrest in the Middle East. We’ve had such an enriching time so far — and we’re not even halfway through the entire experience. As a souvenir, I will go into a bookstore when we’re in port and ask the bookseller their favorite book.
There have been round-the-world cruises before, the first almost exactly 100 years ago. For the most part, though, those who started posting about their journeys on the cruise watched their TikTok follower counts jump from basically zero to more than 100,000 in the span of a few weeks. On #cruisetok, the passengers are characters, the updates are “plot,” and the actual destinations are simply backgrounds on which to project the maximum amount of drama.
Some set sail on December 10 for a single segment or two, whereas others won't join until later in the cruise. That the social media spectacle of the Ultimate World Cruise has spilled offscreen and onto the actual boat is maybe more interesting than the understandable highs and lows of living at sea with hundreds of other people. Cruises are indeed getting longer, though mishaps can certainly occur — just ask the would-be passengers who are now suing the three-year cruise that was abruptly canceled mere days before it was scheduled to depart. It’s one thing to go on a cruise for four or five nights, but guests currently traveling on the Serenade of the Seas have committed themselves to sailing around the world for nine months straight. Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise, which set sail on Dec. 10, has taken over TikTok — or CruiseTok — with users following those on board like they’re cast members in a reality show.
Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas kicked off the world cruise on December 10 from Miami, and she will spend 274-nights traversing the world with hundreds of people onboard for the entire transit. Designed with acres of glass offering panoramic vistas of sea, sky and land, Serenade of the Seas® is the perfect ship for scenery-scoping. Take in captivating views of Norway’s majestic fjords, gaze at glaciers in Antarctica, and soak up the sun and the sights while cruising through French Polynesia.
Below, Madison shares what a typical (and not-as-dramatic-as-you-may-think) day is like on the Serenade of the Seas, from waking up to the sun rising over the Pacific Ocean to studying for classes in one of the ship’s cafes. In her TikTok, she describes ways in which she makes the most out of her limited space, including placing magnets and floating shelves on the wall to reduce clutter and purchasing shoe racks from Target to keep footwear organized. "We were like, 'Well, we can do it. We don't have a mortgage right now. We don't have kids yet,'" Andrew said. "We're just in a season of life where we could actually take nine months off and see the world."
Whether they were telling their own inside stories of Bama Rush, sharing which girls they were “rooting for,” or wondering how they ended up watching these videos to begin with, once the topic took off, more and more people started fighting for a sliver of that attention. The result was a media frenzy that lasted for about two weeks before the algorithm moved on. "So friendly, so kind so much energy," Brandee Lake says, quashing any drama that users have attempted to stir up so far. "Our people at dinner are like family already, you know, we have people who we don't even interact with normally (who) are like family already. And of course, the staff itself is quite diverse."
