Obnoxious YouTubers, little privacy and all-you-can-eat lobster – What life is really like on a nine-month world cruise
People left their homes, quit their jobs and cashed in living inheritances for the adventure of a lifetime.
Around 650 travelers ponied up between $59,999 and $117,599 for a nine-month-long around the world cruise of a lifetime, with stops in more than 150 destinations.
Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise featured amazing sites and custom-made cuisine – including Subway sandwiches and Cincinnati-style chili – for the homesick; but also bouts of nausea, a fire, a flood a couple of rude social media posts and plenty of drama aboard the 962-foot Serenade of the Seas ocean-liner.
Through all 276 days, sources interviewed by The Post had a swimmingly good time.
Cruisers took off in December 2023 and finally docked for good this past week – though not everyone made it home – two customers perished at sea.
“The average age on this trip was pretty high,” Joe Martucci, 67, who was so proud of his seven-continent voyage he found himself irked by those who hopped on for just a segment but still swanned around in World Cruise tee shirts, told The Post. “So we’re going to have people who died.”
A woman, he remembered, “was with her daughter, son and husband. She stood up from going to the bathroom and just [collapsed].” Her passing lowered the head count by one.
Another passenger, Andrew Kenney, 27, pegged the average age on board as “like in their 70s.”
While plenty of locations were must-sees – Martucci was particularly taken with the Antarctic, of which he said, “The pureness was just amazing” – even the most enviable site-seeing can turn into a grind.
“When we got to Europe, after about five-and-a-half months, it started to feel like a job … leaving the boat at 8:00 in the morning and returning at 5:00,” said Martucci who took the mega voyage, along with his wife Audrey, as a retirement present to himself.
“It was 20 days without a sea day, so every day you were in a port and felt like you had to see what was there.”
Adding to the travel fatigue, some of the stops felt forced. “We’d get off the boat and wonder why we were there,” he said, recalling a less-than-memorable city in Spain. “We were there on a Monday – but Monday is the day when everything is closed.”
A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told The Post they do not comment on specific issues relating to their cruises.
Then there was a delay caused by protestors in Amsterdam – “They chained themselves to a bridge,” said Kenney, “protesting over-tourism and [damage to] the environment” – and a rerouting due to conflicts in the Middle East.
Remaining boat-bound for bum excursions, of course, was an option. But Martucci felt compelled to not miss out on things he had paid for. “You spent the money, you planned on seeing things, so you went. But some ports were disappointing.”
Besides, extended periods of time on the ship did not always feel like a pleasure cruise.
While closing in on the Antarctic, temperatures were too frigid for passengers to spend much time on deck. So most of them gravitated to the Centrum, the central space on the boat.
“Normally we were spread out in different locations,” Kenney, a professional videographer, told The Post. “But for those days, most of us were in the same place. So, you’d have people wanting to quietly drink morning coffee while other were doing loud Zumba. Then there would be an egg drop competition and guitar music.”
For Kenney, retreating to his cabin was not always an option: “If your room is at the front of the ship, then you are most susceptible to movement from rough seas. We had that room. I got pretty sick at the beginning, and there were a couple days when I walked in the room and I was, like, ‘I have to get out. I can’t stay here.’”
Being jammed up with souvenirs might not have helped. Magnets from various places were stuck to the metal walls, and, according to Andrew’s wife Ale Kenney, 30, “we’re big Disney fans. We hit every park on the trip – Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris. Of course we bought [Disney’s] specialty popcorn containers and souvenirs from the Olympics in France. Then there was the sound-bath equipment from India. It just grows.”
One thing that did not expand was Martucci’s love of lobster. Prior to shoving off, it ranked among his favorite delicacies. “I probably had lobster 20 times on the cruise; it was just too much,” he said, acknowledging that he’s not sure when he will crack crustacean shells again.
Getting frisky with other passengers might have been an option – upside down pineapples, a cruise symbol to signify a cabin’s occupants are open to swinging, were apparently affixed to some of the doors – but a desire to get soused while aboard only got passengers so far.
“We had a term called ‘getting watered,’” said Andrew. “Basically [when passengers were becoming overly tipsy], the bartenders would stop giving them drinks and start giving them bottles of water. They were very polite with it; and it was not a hard cut off. But we all took care of each other.”
At least most of them did. It was not long into the trip before the public became curious about the super cruise and what went on aboard the boat. While a few dozen of the passengers innocently took to posting on social media – Martucci’s tongue-in-cheek handle: Spendingourkidsmoney – there were at least two who got carried away in the name of bulking up their followings.
One, Martucci remembered, tried to take advantage of the on-board deaths. “A social media person dramatized the whole thing,” he said. “She posted that she walked down the hallway and saw [the deceased lady] being taken out of a cabin. That was not true. Her TikTok [about the incident] was taken down.”
That may have been forgivable, but another TikTok rip was not. Despite best watering efforts, one passenger managed to get what Andrew characterized as “very drunk” and made a TikTok post in which he “said a lot of racist things about minorities. I don’t think he had a very good time on the boat after that.”
On the other hand, Brandee Lake, cruising with her sister Shannon and their parents, was unstoppable in her quest for good times. Brandee – who cashed in her living inheritance so she could join the family on Serenade of the Seas – rode a train to the Taj Mahal, got her hair braided in an African beauty parlor, ran with the bulls in Pamplona and took pasta making lessons in Tuscany.
“This trip was a dream come true,” Brandee, who quit her advertising-agency job right before shoving off and gave up her apartment in Los Angeles, told The Post.
“My favorite part is that this was a family trip and that my parents are both in good enough health for it to happen.”
While Lake says she’s game to hop another trip around the world, not everyone feels that same. “Nine months is way too long,” said Martucci, leaving the impression that his days as a deep sea marathoner are over.
That said, however, none of the passengers interviewed by The Post are turned off on cruising as a concept. In fact, they can’t wait to do it again. “As soon as they announced the reunion cruise,” said Kenney, “we booked!”
