You're listening to the Cruise Tips TV Unplugged podcast.
Today, we're talking about 10 kind of strange things
that you can only do on a cruise ship.
♪
Welcome to Cruise Tips TV Unplugged.
I'm your host, Sherry, and we invite you
to join our Cruise Loving family
as we travel the world creating cruise videos and vlogs.
In this podcast, we talk tips, tactics, and strategies
to help you make every cruise your dream cruise.
All right, that sounds fun.
Yeah, it sounds kind of fun.
I am ready to get unplugged.
I'm glad you're ready to get unplugged.
This is a really fun topic.
I don't know where I saw inspiration for this.
I think I saw an article that said something like,
the age weirdest things that cruisers do,
and I thought, well, that's kind of fun,
but I want to talk about like,
what are just things that people do
or that occur on cruise ships?
Doesn't you have to be like, you know,
something that you do as physically as a cruiser?
But what is it that's just super unique
about cruising in and of itself?
So maybe something that you wouldn't do on land
that you would do on a cruise ship?
Yeah, yeah, or just like infrastructure things
about the ships too that are very unique
that I've thrown into this,
because I find them quite strange or unique
and worth talking about.
And I think that this is a good conversation piece
because if you're riding in your car
and you're like heading to an appointment
or commuting to work,
or maybe you're like listening to us
while you're doing housework,
and you're thinking, oh gosh,
what is it that people do on ships that's kind of out there
or that is just weird and unique to cruising itself?
Send me a DM and maybe let me know if I missed anything.
We're not talking about like really weird,
scandalous things that people do.
Like I know this last week there was a news report
about somebody who got caught fishing off their balcony
and they got banned from the cruise line forever.
Like literally fishing pole, fishing off their balcony.
So apparently that's totally banned.
Hilarious.
Isn't that funny?
Who would think?
Oh my God.
You're really bored on the cruise,
you had to get at your pole.
Wait, how old was this person, do you know?
I don't know, I just really didn't wanna watch the story,
but I think it's really funny.
And also what about all the people below you?
You've got a hook, hook line and sinker
going over the edge of the ship
and you're like flinging that pasta.
Okay, let's just see the show on this
because here's my next question.
Okay, right.
What do they plan on doing with the fish they caught?
That is a great point.
Somebody, I saw someone say like,
what were you planning to do with it?
Were you going to eat it?
Isn't that funny?
Here's a picture, do you wanna see it?
I just found it on the interwebs.
They actually caught a fish.
I mean, that's a nice little fish.
Again, what are you gonna do with it though?
I don't know.
That is crazy.
So somebody, oh actually, is this a person
that was doing the fishing?
This is the person who's doing the fishing.
So they're like, they posted their own photos
of themselves fishing.
That's about incriminating.
Isn't that funny?
He's got like the fish flopping around on the teak deck.
Is this a princess cruise ship or carnival ship?
Carnival, you can tell by the chair.
This is not fair to our listeners
because we're looking at this,
but it doesn't look like an older person.
I'm not super now.
That I'm just looking at arms here,
but I'm thinking late 30s.
He looks like he's like fishing with dental floss.
Like look how thick that is.
That's not, there's not like a fishing line.
It looks like dental floss.
I don't know, it's crazy.
I understand that.
But anyway, back to the show, am I right?
Yeah, so well this person though,
they reeled in the fish.
So this is, we do not condone doing this.
This was actually not on the list of my weird things.
But this, this-
No, you don't condone it.
No, I don't.
Oh, thanks for clarifying.
No, I'm sorry.
Wait, did I just say that?
Yeah, you said I don't condone it.
I do condone it.
No, you don't condone it.
Oh, I'm tired, Mr. Cruise, I don't condone it.
Please do not fish off your balcony.
Do not fish off your balcony.
It will get you banned from the cruise line for life.
Apparently this guy,
he somehow attached a lure to some kind of a weight.
And I don't know, I don't know.
But somebody, some,
Cruise Hive is reporting that they caught themselves
a buffalo trunk fish,
also known as a cow fish, box fish or shale fish.
I don't know, but don't do that.
So that's not what we're talking about today.
We're gonna talk about a little bit more mainstream things here.
So let's talk about like weird things
that you're gonna see on a cruise ship
that you're just not gonna see anywhere else.
Number one, Mr. Cruise Subs TV.
Who to thunk it and where else are you ever gonna have
someone leave a towel animal on your bed?
That's a good one.
So we're starting the show now.
We're starting the show now.
We're not talking about, we're building the hook.
Get it hook fishing.
I like it.
Yeah.
So towel animal.
Towel animals are doubt.
I know where.
I don't think I've ever, okay.
So maybe when we were at an all inclusive resort,
they left like a swan on the bed
with rose petals one night.
Actually that's true.
But like do you go anywhere else in life
and come back to a towel animal on your bed?
Pretty rare.
Now granted not all cruise ships or cruise line students,
but this is very unique to cruising.
And I'm gonna tell you, I think it's kind of strange,
but I do love it.
And I will sometimes save and hoard all of my towel animals
for the whole week.
Line them up on a little countertop, right?
Junior and I can like adorn them with things.
You can put your sunglasses on them throughout the week
or leave them hanging from the curtains
where they were so eloquently placed.
I like it when they put a monkey hanging from the curtains.
That's like actually one of my favorites.
It's the little hanging monkey guy.
Yeah, the monkey, that's the big deal one.
Yeah, it is.
So of course in true, sherry fashion,
I've been doing this for 10 years.
I went to our community and said,
hey peeps, help me out here.
What do you think?
What are some strange things people do?
And this is the most popular thing that people said
is this next one.
I would have never thought about this,
but it's so funny and so true.
And that is that people wear matching clothes on cruise ships.
So they will get full, they'll get t-shirts made.
And I think this is cute.
I don't think it's strange or weird.
I find it endearing.
So please don't think I'm like calling you weird
if you do this.
In fact, we have had clothes embroidered for cruise ships
and engraved and designed.
But you'll see people wearing like,
you'll see groups of 30 or 40 people on a family room
and they are all wearing the t-shirt.
You'll also see like couples wearing matching outfits,
you know, anything from like a cute Hawaiian shirt on the guy
and a Hawaiian matching matchy dress on the girl,
you and junior wore matching hoodies in Japan
and we like purpose bought matching hoodies
because we thought it was cool.
This is funny.
This is not like, you don't really go and see people doing this.
Maybe Disneyland, maybe resorts, but like it is a thing.
Matchy matchy clothes on cruise is a thing.
Well, I can tell you that people in Korea,
you know, our massive Korea fan base is listening and going,
no, we do this all the time.
In Korea?
In Korea, it's a couple of things.
Aww.
So for all of you people there in Korea,
we, you know, hats off to you.
Yeah.
We admire you.
We seek to be more like you.
I love matching clothes.
If you'd let me, I'd somehow try to find them for every cruise.
Hey, I'm okay with that.
But you said we've had things embroidered.
Not embroidered.
I'm just tired today.
I'm saying we're things.
But I got to call you out on that.
It's so funny though because it's an older thing.
I knitted it with my own hands.
Be an embroider thing.
You're right.
I mean, because people used to.
They did use embroider things.
Yeah, the Laverne L.
Yes.
That thing on Laverne and Shirley.
But people did use to do that and they don't do it anymore.
No one embroiders anymore.
Can I ask you a question?
Yes, please.
Because you know, you did have a birthday last week and now you're old.
So I've to ask you this.
Oh, that was a low blow.
He looked at me like, really?
No, I am.
I look in the mirror.
I have a mirror.
I know I'm old.
It's horrible.
I'm just kidding.
I love you.
Um, does your sewing machine have an embroidery feature like where you could put.
Yeah.
See for CTV.
Doesn't it have like, can't you embroider using your sewing machine?
Yeah.
Although when you're, I don't know if they call an embroidering when you're using a sewing
machine.
Or if it's like a monogram or something.
Yeah, kind of like a monogram feature.
No, I don't, I don't do any of that kind of stuff with it.
I'm more of a, you know, kind of.
Yeah.
Like repair the pillow case kind of a guy, yeah.
Or like make it absolute actual like a pholstery for a chair or, you know, you have also, for
those of you who are interested in Mr.
Cruz CTV sewing proclivities, he also took an old gorgeous cedar chest, a hope chest,
took a beautiful teal fabric that we found, put a pad on top of it and made like a bench.
A gorgeous aqua bench out of something that someone might have thrown away.
But this cedar chest somewhere reef, do we find it a garage sale or something?
I don't know where you got it.
I found it on the side of the road.
I mean, they were, they were giving it away.
It was perfect inside.
Somebody had, had thrown it.
Yeah.
Cedar inside.
You got like horrible outside inside.
Yeah.
It was perfect.
I'm so beautiful now.
This is worth saving.
I love that thing.
You know, I, I really do like sewing, but unfortunately being creative, sewing, those
days are kind of over and it's now a utilitarian.
Right.
I just do it, you know, when I need to do it, but I would, yeah, I would love to.
When I was, when I was younger, when I was junior's age, I sewed a lot.
Yeah, you made like clothes.
I made clothes that were things that I wanted that my parents wouldn't or couldn't buy me.
And so I made it myself.
I think the maids are dresses for my sister.
You did all precious.
Yeah.
I bet they were nice too.
Yeah, not bad.
Well, I'm glad you know how to sew because I am not handy in that way.
I made a sports coat one time.
So cool.
And that was, that was a challenge.
I bet it was hard for you to, when you had to finally say goodbye to that sports coat,
I bet it was kind of like, oh man.
Yeah, you know, usually things that I make, I'm never that thrilled with.
So I was like, yeah, get out of here.
Well, thank you for hemming my dresses and my jumpsuits on for my five foot self that
never fit.
I appreciate it.
Okay.
Where were we?
Oh, we were talking about matching clothes.
That's how we got onto that topic, right?
So yeah, I mean, the matching clothes things is kind of a strange thing.
Some people do want to cruise ships, cruise ship us included.
In fact, most of the things on this list we all participate in.
This is not a judge list.
This is like, it's just a fact that cruises are weird.
We do not fish off the balcony, that wasn't on the list.
So that just got as a bonus hook.
Okay.
Mr. Chris of Stevie.
Yeah, I don't vote.
I don't vote.
Okay.
Number three, whack-a-doodle thing that this is now, this is really unique to cruise ships.
Is it?
We decorate our cabin doors.
You don't do that when you go to an all-inclusive resort.
You don't pop up like a fish or like your family name or something.
And I think that this has a lot to do with the fact that cruising is like community-based.
It's very social.
You like to A, be able to find your state room because heck, it's hard to navigate a
state like a hallway, right?
So people sometimes do them for identification of their room, but also, cruising is so much
about community if you want it to be.
And it's fun.
It's fun to add a little bit of personality to your door.
I've seen some wild stuff over the years though.
I've seen like, we've talked about this before.
I know I've said these exact words before, but where somebody like took the Oriental Trading
Catalog, you guys know what that is, the Oriental Trading Company Catalog.
And they like ordered the multi-pack Hawaiian set.
It comes with like 42 lays and it comes with like a hula skirt.
And somebody got this like this multi-pack kit and they like somehow got all this stuff
on their door.
I have seen people put $95 worth of Oriental Trading stuff on their door before and it's
hilarious.
And then I've seen like these beautiful understated pieces of art on a door.
I saw someone who once took their cruise cards and they made their cruise cards.
Into a piece of art.
Now they like cut them up and then like somehow put them in sort of a mosaic and it was absolutely
stunning.
Like they put it on a magnet I'm assuming and somehow put it on their door.
But you can do so many fun things to kind of insert a bit of personality and character
into your cruise state room.
And I just think it's really neat to see what people do.
Sometimes I will go.
I'll take my phone because it has a camera.
And I will walk around a ship and I will film people's state rooms and then put it up on
Instagram because I just think it's so cool and unique to see what people are doing.
And people usually love seeing what others can dream up.
We should ask at some point what the strangest thing you've ever seen on a door because there's
some wild ones.
Yeah.
And I'm sure the cruise line is not crazy about the wild ones.
No.
But right now they're allowing it.
Yeah.
For the most part.
Yep.
I have to talk Mr. Chris of Sivina.
This is going to be another a little bit of what I call Captain obvious.
But the number four weird thing that happens on a cruise ship is muster drills, right?
Like you don't show up to a resort and have to go through safety protocols.
Must like goodness.
Goodness.
Right.
Like it's only on a cruise ship.
There are laws that require this industry to make sure that their passengers are safe.
But it is really super duper unique to the industry.
That would be horrible.
Yeah.
That would be horrible.
Please come to the multipurpose room for your training seminar.
Right.
A report to your evacuation station.
Okay.
This next one is my personal favorite thing that's weird about cruise ships for the whole
show.
So not our community.
The community is most popular one that they said that they thought was like this is weird.
That was matching clothes.
My personal favorite.
And I just don't think a lot of people know about this.
Is that when you are on a cruise ship, you are very likely going to be drinking desalinated
water.
Meaning that the drinking water is either distilled from seawater or potentially could
have been loaded on board.
But the vessel sanitation program that like governs right along with the US public health
service.
I think it's just called the US public health service.
They all have said that this is a perfectly safe way to provide drinking water to your
community.
So they are literally taking water out of the ocean, desalinating it into fresh water.
And I don't think a lot of people understand that that happens.
I think they assume they don't think about it.
You don't think how does my drinking water get on board?
Because you don't think about it with other things.
But in my opinion, this is genius and totally an engineering marvel that they can do this.
That they can actually make fresh water for consumption on a ship.
And the process is absolutely fascinating.
If anyone wants to read a little bit more about how they get the fresh water, go to
marine insight.com and search for cruise ships and you will see how they actually do this
and how this water, like they need water for a lot of things, right?
Like for drinking, they need the kitchens or the galleys.
They need it for laundry, they need it for cleaning and pressure washing, heating systems,
cooling systems, like they need water for a million different things.
But they've got to find ways to make sure that they can create fresh water that's safe
for drinking.
So they do all kinds of different things.
It's really super duper interesting to read about it and read about how these water processes
work and how everything gets put into like these systems that have pumps and condensation
units and evaporation units and it's intense, you guys.
It's really super fascinating.
But one of these days, I really want to do like one of those behind the scenes tours
and hopefully they would let us see the desalination process.
I don't know if that's even possible, but if anybody out there can get me in to see a
desalination plant on a ship, I think it's fascinating.
And I think there's got to be a way that we can do this on land too.
I mean, we live in a drought-stricken area.
Yeah, we can, but we don't.
It's fascinating though.
So isn't that cool, Mr. Christmas TV, don't you think that's kind of wild?
It's amazing.
So something to think about.
It's possible that maybe like it resorts, they might desalinate their water too.
I don't know.
I'm assuming that's probably a thing in the hospitality industry too, but I think it's
really unique.
Okay.
So that's my favorite.
Number six is a strange thing on a cruise ship that freaks out new cruisers.
They're always like, what is that?
And that is the toilets on cruise ships.
It is really strange and alarming when you're a first-time cruiser to go into the restroom
for the first time and then press the button.
And the amount of suction and sound that comes out of that little unit is shocking,
right?
It's whack and weird, but these marine toilet systems, in order to keep working properly,
which believe me, they don't always do, there's plumbing issues on ships all the time.
But they got to really, you know, they really got to suck it out of there.
So if you've ever been on a boat or like a house boat or something like that and you've,
you know, you've hit the foot pump on the, you know, on the toilet, I grew up on boats.
So this was very common.
You might have had a little taste.
The taste is a bad word to use when I'm talking about this.
You might have a little idea for what to expect from these, you know, high-pressure marine
toilets, but it's literally so powerful that I would recommend that you get off of the
toilet for sure before you flush it because you might feel like a very scary whoosh of
air down there.
That's not good.
It's kind of scary and strange, but it's a gross tip to me.
I think I've rendered him silent.
Helpful advice from Sherry.
Yes.
Get off the toilet.
Get off the toilet before flushing.
Yep.
No.
All right.
Something more light-hearted.
The next strange thing that you're probably going to do on a cruise ship, but some people
have told me that they actually have done this on land and other places too.
That is this whole cruise ducks thing.
So cruise ducks is this wild tradition where people who are going on a cruise, they prepare
ahead of time, they buy small rubber duckies and they adorn them with little tags.
And these tags have very specific information on them.
What sailing your own?
What date?
The family name of the person providing the duck.
And potentially where to share said duck photo or selfie once you find the duck.
It's a thing.
So if you've never heard of cruise ducks, Google it.
I do recommend participating in it either as a duck hunter or a duck lever.
It is a blast and it's really fun.
But there are people who do this duck thing outside of cruising.
I just didn't know that when I was riding this episode.
But people told me, they're like, oh yeah, we do it in our Jeep Club and other things
too, which I think is really fun.
We've actually made our own custom ducks.
We have.
I 3D printed them.
It did.
And it was fun.
And it's somebody out there has custom cruise tips, TV, duck.
That was really fun, wasn't it?
And it was our first time doing the whole duck thing.
So Junior and I, we made the labels.
And then you did the 3D printing of the ducks.
And they were cool.
They looked really neat.
They were kind of like terminated ducks.
Yeah, they were not.
Yeah, they weren't ordinary ducks.
They were special ducks.
Yep.
All right.
Another weird thing that we do or strange thing that we do as cruisers is we take our
room keys and we carry them around our neck, like on lanyards.
I don't.
Well, you have.
Nah.
Yes, you have.
No.
Someone bought you a lanyard once and you tried it out for a cruise.
You don't remember that.
It's been many years.
So yes, we do.
This a thing.
Lanyards around your neck with your cruise card on it is kind of one of those things
that, I don't know, I don't really feel like I'm when I'm at an all inclusive resort
or a hotel.
I don't see people like rocking their room key.
And that makes sense.
Why would they?
Because their room card is probably not used to make purchases, right?
Like it's the fact is that when you're on a cruise ship, unless you're on princess and
you have like the medallion, right, you're probably using that card for a number of things.
Getting yourself in and out of your room, you're making purchases with it.
You're getting yourself on and off the ship, checking in with it.
So it's like critical to keep it on your person.
So I think that's unique and kind of strange.
I think this one may go the way of the dodo because I think that more and more you're
going to have some kind of personal device like princess and like royal Caribbean has.
Yes.
So.
Royal Caribbean brought back the bands, I think on a few ships recently.
Yeah.
It needs to happen because it's really weird that we have to put around our neck.
Let's go the way of princess.
Carnival corporation really is who invented the medallion and we didn't really know it
was going to be a princess thing at first.
It was all carnival corp, right?
When the medallion technology was announced and it was, you know, some kind of a technology
conference of some sort, they brought it out.
It wasn't, no one said necessarily, oh, this is a princess thing.
It was carnival corp.
And anyway, okay.
Moving on.
Another thing that's kind of strange about cruise ships that a lot of people don't know,
but I'm actually really thankful for this, is that cruise ships have full on medical
centers.
Basically, little miniature hospitals and they come complete with some really wild things,
including a morgue or a place where if someone passes away where they can keep that person's
body.
And I think a lot of people are really surprised to hear that about cruise ships, but it is
a fact and I'm so thankful for that.
I know that obviously a lot of resorts and things have doctors and things too, but cruise
ships have full medical centers complete with doctors and nurses.
And depending on the size of the cruise ship, they may have a team of doctors and nurses.
Some smaller ships, you know, expedition ships, smaller luxury ships may have just one doctor,
one nurse, but then when you're getting into the mega ships, they have full teams.
You know, you go on those are receptionist desk and there may be multiple people on
staff who are rotating, but I think that's kind of fascinating.
Pretty cool stuff.
All right.
Another interesting thing about cruise ships that is definitely strange when you first
start cruising is that the walls in your cabin are metal and that presents some possibilities
of like putting magnets on your walls.
And I think that's a little bit odd, right?
You don't go to a hotel and think, Oh gosh, I'm going to put a magnet on the wall.
No, cruise ships are always thinking about fire safety.
And so for that reason and for many other construction efficiency reasons, the cabins
are made typically in part out of metal, which means that you have metal walls that can
hold a magnet, right?
Kind of interesting.
Okay, Mr. Cruise, Stevie, how are you doing?
How are you holding up?
Fine.
You doing okay?
Yeah.
Okay.
A couple more.
We're going to go through a couple more and we'll wrap it up.
I promise you just a few more things that are kind of weird.
Um, number, I'm going to say this is like probably number 11 or something is formal
night.
Number something.
Number something is formal nights.
What other method of travel can you think of?
And I'm sure there's some where you actually culturally as an entire type of travel have
something where you actually go full on and dress up prom slash wedding guests slash tuxedo
or evening gown style.
Well, this is something that was different many years gone by because I can remember
you would dress up when you took a flight.
Mm.
I mean, it's not the same.
Like a suit and hat.
Yeah, it's not the same thing because you're dressing up for a specific event during your
travel.
But I do remember dressing up for a flight.
Like you would get on your best clothes for a flight.
Right.
And now people put on their worst leggings just to be cozy.
You see people in pajamas.
Oh heck yeah.
Yup.
With a pillow to sleep in said pajamas.
So yeah, it's I mean, it's a thing.
It's part of the cruising culture formal nights.
And if you're new to cruising, you might be like, wait, what?
I remember when I first cruised with my extended family and one of my brothers and their family
members and their kids, they're like super cash.
They were like, they're flip flops every day kind of people because, you know, we're
Californians.
We tend to be flip flops every day kind of people.
We had like a family meeting about the cruise and they were like, okay, formal night.
Wait, what?
What?
Like kids and we figured it out.
Like we put the kids and just like, you know, a little Easter dress for the girl and for
the boy, we did like jeans and a little bow tie.
And then for the mom, we just did like a, you know, a fancier top and some regular black
pants and we just like figured it out.
So if you're freaked out about formal nights, don't be.
There's always a way to kind of make that work or you can skip formal night altogether.
Yeah.
And formal nights have gotten quite loose these days.
So yeah.
There are a few lines that go full traditional like Cunard.
Yeah.
You're not going to have a problem on carnival or royal Caribbean.
Yeah, they're always going to have casual options.
Or Norwegian.
Right.
Is there even a formal night on Norwegian?
They have optional formal nights on Norwegian.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like dress up or not night.
You know?
I don't know what it's called these days, but we'll have to get back on Norwegian sometime
to kind of check it out.
Okay, the last thing that I think is kind of wacky and our community agreed with this.
It's kind of strange about cruising is that there's actually some strange service limitations
on cruise ships.
So because of regulations.
Like you can't fish off the balcony.
Kind of.
Yeah.
A little more specific.
It's more about spending money.
So due to some regulations that make it so that in most ports of call, you are more like
apt to spend your money in those ports of call.
Retail shops and casinos can only open up in international waters.
So sometimes cruise ships, not always, but sometimes they have to get about 12 miles
off land in order to open their shops and casinos.
And that can be super confusing and strange.
When you're a new cruiser and you're like, why can't I go to the gift shop?
It's six o'clock.
What's going on?
We're like, oh, we're not in international waters yet, ma'am.
It's weird.
It's strange.
It's unique to cruising.
It's unique to the industry.
But I think that it kind of belongs in the, you know, the strange things category.
It is.
I mean, once you understand why, then it's very clear and it makes sense.
But it is kind of startling when you go down there expecting something to be open and it's
not and you can't figure out why.
Yeah.
Like, okay, on sea days, they might open at 8 a.m.
The same shop might be open all day, but then you can't literally get there until the evening
on a day when you're in port.
So I think this is probably sort of morphed over the years to into being a convenience
for the cruise line.
You know, they're thinking, well, okay, maybe somebody is not really, they don't want to
man the shops and they may just know that everyone's a shore.
So why bother?
But I think it's interesting.
Anyhow, I hope you guys enjoyed this list.
We certainly enjoyed talking about it.
I think it's a fun, unique topic and special thanks to our peeps on Facebook who kind of
weighed in on the strange things that you can experience and do and and and be a part
of on a cruise.
It was awesome.
All right, friends.
Thank you so much for listening.
Go have a wonderful remainder of your week and until next time we'll see you on the high
seas.
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