cruise ship badges

Understanding Cruise Ship Officer Stripes

Let’s talk about stripes, baby. Nope, we’re not talking about zebras, we are talking about the stripes on the shoulders and sleeves of so many uniforms onboard a cruise ship. These stripes, more formally known as epaulettes, denote not only what rank an officer is, but can also offer insight into which department they work in as well as in some cases what they do on onboard. This post will help you understand what cruise ship officer ranks correspond to what cruise ship officer stripes .

While most people know there are 3 departments onboard a cruise ship – Technical, Deck, and Hotel – when it comes to stripes though there are a few extra categories to know about, namely: medical, environmental, IT, and human resources.

Can You Still Have a Cruise Ship Officer Rank Without Stripes?

Now, not every crew member onboard a ship that has “officer privileges” wears a uniform with stripes. When I was working onboard I never had a uniform with epaulettes. There is a tricky category that exists in the cruise ship world known as “stripe equivalents”. These are crew that’s uniforms do not feature stripes but they get privileges and benefits as if they had that equivalent amount of stripes. These are hotel positions and are things like: Cruise Director, Cruise Staff, Shore Excursions, Youth Programs, Production Managers, Cast Members, etc. For a deeper understanding of overall cruise ship rank structure, take a look at this post Understanding Cruise Ship Ranks . (Note: on some cruise lines some of the above positions will be uniformed striped positions)

Take a look at the below guide to understand how cruise ship crew officer ranks affect how many stripes they wear. The next time you’re onboard you can play a little bit of I-Spy and who’s who and impress your friends! Onboard ship these stripes are part of a much larger cruise ship rank system and the jobs listed here are just a sampling of all of the different jobs that exist on a cruise ship. Understanding what the epaulettes mean is just part of understanding the complex system that keeps a cruise ship running.

Without any further a-do, let’s talk about stripes.

Note: For nearly everything below, aside from the top four or so positions and especially within the hotel department there are differences between cruise lines. This is to act as a general guide and not a definitive guide.

The Color Between the Stripes Denotes Department, Not Rank

You may have noticed while onboard that some of the stripes have colors between them. Here’s a quick outline of what those mean:

Note: 1) This outline is based on what it is on many cruise lines. It is not the same amongst every cruise line but the base concepts are the same. 2) Gold stripes are most conventional; however, silver stripes are sometimes used. These can for instance be seen on some TV shows showing yacht-life.

• Technical Department : Gold stripes, no cloth in between stripes, no loop at the top; they do sometimes have propellers at the top.
• Deck Department : Gold stripes, no cloth in between stripes, with a loop, diamond, or anchor at the top.
• Hotel Department : Gold stripes, white cloth in between stripes, no loop or propeller. **Reliable sources have told me that some cruise lines hotel departments have silver stripes instead of gold.**
• Medical : Gold stripes, red cloth in between, no loop or propeller
• Environmental : Gold stripes, blue cloth in between. No loop or propeller.
• Human Resources Department : Gold stripes, grey cloth in between. No loop or propeller.
• IT : Gold stripes, green cloth in between. No loop or propeller. (Green on some lines is for environmental)

Want to know more about cruise ship crew life? From dating onboard to how crew get their mail…here’s a guide to cruise ship crew life .

How Many Stripes Do Different Cruise Ship Officer Ranks Have?

As you may have guessed, with greater stripes comes greater responsibility. Yes, the more stripes you have the higher your rank.

Rank Affects Onboard Privileges

There are slight differences in privileges amongst the cruise ship officer ranks. The most notable (other than responsibility and salary) is cabin. Typically from two stripe up the cabin will have a porthole. Three stripe and up might even have a regular sized window.

There are some subtle other differences. Some cruise ship officers of a certain rank might get free dinners in certain specialty restaurants, may get a discount in the onboard shops, or might even get to sit on a bar stool in a passenger lounge. There are lots of subtle ways that how many stripes and the corresponding rank affect life onboard a cruise ship.

Half Stripes Are a Thing

Did you know that you can have a half stripe? Half stripes can appear in three ways. The first is the rank itself. You can be a 1/2 stripe officer, this could be as a cadet, or certain positions in the Hotel Department. The second is at the top of the epaulette. If the half stripe is at the top of the epaulette it means that it is a ranked position. (See below with Staff Chief Engineer being a half stripe below Chief Engineer).

Lastly, the last way a half stripe appears is in between two full sized stripes. This means that is the highest that your position can go, that you’ve been in the job for a set number of years – typically three or five, and normally that there isn’t a direct next step in advancement. This is sometimes referred to as a “frustration stripe”, as in, you are frustrated that you can’t move up or if there is an advancement opportunity you haven’t moved up (yet).

*Note: Below I have only noted 1/2 stripe cruise ship officer ranked positions versus writing out possible positions.

*Note: Amazon Affiliate. If you click on links from Amazon and make a purchase I may receive a small commission at no cost to you.

What Stripe Does the Captain Have?

4 stripe with a heavy bottom stripe and a loop (or diamond/ anchor / other insignia) :.

What Are 4 Stripe Officer Positions on a Cruise Ship? :

So, who has four stripes? The highest ranking officers onboard have four stripes. These are typically the Chief Engineer, Staff Captain, and Hotel Director. Some cruise lines will also have the Staff Chief Engineer as four stripes. These are all considered “staff officer” positions. (That particular title might differ between cruise lines but they’re the highest ranking that likely have additional privileges).

• On some cruise lines:  Staff Chief Engineer
• Staff Captain
•  Hotel Director (also known as Hotel Manager/Hotel General Manager)

3 ½  Stripe Officers:

• Staff Chief Engineer (Staff Officer Rank) Note: On some cruise lines this position has four stripes.
• Senior Doctor
• Assistant Hotel General Manager/Hotel Director

What Are 3 Stripe Officer Positions on a Cruise Ship? :

• 1 st Officer (sometimes called Safety Officer)
• Security Officer (on some lines this is 2 stripes)
• Environmental Officer (blue stripe in between)
• Senior Medical Officer 
• 1 st Engineering Officer (sometimes called AC Engineer)
• 2 nd Engineering Officer
• Chief Electrician
• Executive Housekeeper
• Culinary Operations Manager/Food and Beverage Director
• Guest Relations Manager
• Marketing Manager / Revenue Manager
• Shore Excursions Manager
• Entertainment Director
• Sports Manager
• Human Resource Manager (grey stripe in between)

2 ½ Stripes Officers:

What Are 2 Stripe Officer Positions on a Cruise Ship? :

• 2 nd Officer
• Security Officer (on some lines this is 3 stripes)
• Senior 3 rd Engineer
• 2 nd Electrician
• Hotel Service Engineer
• Event Manager – for some lines this is 1 stripe, and Entertainment Director role would often be 3 stripes
• Dining Room Manager
• Provision Master
• Bar Manager
• Assistant Housekeeping Manager
• Production Manager (sometimes 3 stripes)
• Broadcast Technician
• Crew Officer
• IT Officer (green stripe in between)

What Are 1 Stripe Officer Positions on a Cruise Ship?:

• 3 rd Officer
• Junior 3 rd Engineer
• 3 rd Electrician
• Assistant Hotel Service Engineer
• Assistant Dining Room Manager
• Specialty Dining Room Managers
• Guest Relations Supervisor
• Night Audit Officer
• Port Paper Officer
• Assistant Housekeeper

What Are the Officer Positions On A Cruise Ship?

It might seem like officer positions are the same on every cruise ship and with every cruise line, but that’s not the case! Specifically within the Hotel Department which positions are officers can be different by different cruise lines. The Technical (engineers) and Deck (Navigation) departments are much more consistent.

Want to know more about how cruise ship officer rank affects life onboard? Take a look at this post about Understanding Cruise Ship Ranks .

There Is a Lot to Understand about Cruise Strip Officer Stripes

Now, the next time you’re onboard you’ll have a better idea of what the cruise ship officer stripes mean and how to tell the different cruise ship officer ranks based on their epaulettes!

Curious what life is like onboard a cruise ship? Take a look at these FAQ’s About Living and Working on a Cruise Ship .

Thinking of Taking a Cruise?

Thinking of going on a cruise and not sure where to start? Talk to a travel advisor! My favorite local agency would be happy to help you. Call 1-877-MILNE4U or email me at [email protected] and I will get you in touch!

Ever wonder what it takes to become a cruise ship officer? Check out this interview with a cruise ship engineering officer to find out.

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The one surprising travel accessory you can't go on a cruise without

When I was in junior high, a solid three years before I could legally drive, I asked my parents for a lanyard. They were all the rage among teenagers — particularly high schoolers who used them to corral their car keys. Long gone are the days when my bright orange Adidas neck strap was stylish. That is, of course, unless I'm on a cruise, where passengers often use lanyards to secure their keycards. Keycards serve as both room keys and the only payment card accepted on cashless cruise ships, so wallets aren't necessary.

I've never actually brought my lanyard with me on a sailing, opting instead to carry my card in a pocket or my trusty, tiny Kate Spade crossbody (see below). But cruise lanyards are so popular among at-sea travelers — particularly children who might otherwise lose them and casino regulars, who need quick access for those slot machines — that I'd fit right in if I were to decide to go "vintage" (read: touristy).

Although these accessories don't seem like they'd require too much thought, you might be surprised at the variety available. From simple nylon numbers and flashy ones bedazzled with rhinestones for formal night to options that include protective plastic sleeves, here are some of the best cruise lanyards, along with a few non-lanyard alternatives.

Note: For some of these, you'll need to punch a hole in your keycard. Lines that don't automatically provide punched cards can usually accommodate the request at the front desk, but you might want to pack your own hole puncher, just in case. However, cruisers should be mindful that some keycards contain RFID technology that can be damaged by hole-punching.

For cruise news, reviews and tips, sign up for TPG's cruise newsletter .

Faux leather lanyards

For some classy flair, try a leather lanyard , which can be either dressed down for everyday use or dressed up to go with any dinner outfit during your cruise. This option is made of faux leather, which means it's vegan-friendly, and it comes in a variety of colors to boot. Amazon sells this lanyard in a two-pack, complete with a see-through cardholder so you won't have to punch a hole in your keycard, unless you'd rather use only the trigger clip.

Retractable lanyard necklaces

Necklace lanyards are a dressier way to wear your keycard around your neck. I like this two-pack, which comes with one silver and one rose gold lanyard, plus a removable, retractable clip that allows for extra length so you don't have to bend down to open your cabin door. You can also choose to attach your card with a keychain-style split ring, a lobster clasp or a clear, removable card pocket.

Crossbody phone holder

Personally, I'm always trying to juggle my phone and my keycard when I cruise; I usually put them in a small crossbody bag that holds both without being too cumbersome. I have a Kate Spade one , and I absolutely love it.

If that's too big or you're not someone who carries their phone around while they're sailing, I recommend a card holder . (I have a similar one, also by Kate Spade. The brand's now-defunct counterpart, Jack Spade, has a few still for sale out there, too. So do brands like Michael Kors, Herschel and Timberland.) The nice thing about a card holder is that it fits easily into a pocket, and both of these products are appropriate for everyday use, even when you aren't at sea.

Glitter lanyards

For passengers with the brightest of personalities, these sparkly rhinestone lanyards offer just the right amount of eye-catching glitz and glamour. Plus, they're versatile. You can choose to attach your punched keycard via a keychain-style ring, a standard trigger clip or a trigger clip that's attached to a retractable reel for easier access. This three-pack comes with one black, one silver and one pink lanyard.

Beaded lanyards

In my opinion, these silicone-beaded types are some of the most stylish lanyards available if you insist on wearing one. They look like necklaces but without the metallic or rhinestone touches. There are two ways to attach a punched card — with a metal trigger clip or a keychain-style split ring, both of which can be detached. They're sold in packs of two or three, each with a different design. They clasp in the back and can be adjusted to the desired length.

Stretchable wrist coils

If you just can't see yourself buying a lanyard for cruise use, these wrist coils are trendy, stylish and comfortable, as well as durable. They ensure your cruise keycard won't get lost but aren't as obtrusive as a neck lanyard. This pack offers six different colors so you and your travel companions can quickly tell whose is whose if you take them off. Bonus: Use them pre- or post-cruise for your keys, or remove the detachable split rings to use the coils as hair ties.

Basic nautical lanyards

For those who want a lanyard truly befitting a cruise experience, a nautical print is the way to go. This style is basic, featuring a metal trigger clip and a clear card protector, allowing you to choose whether you'd like to punch a hole in your card or put it in a protective sleeve. The order contains two lanyards in reverse blue-and-white color patterns so you and your travel companion can differentiate whose card is whose at a glance.

Detachable, retractable nautical lanyards

Similar to the basic nautical style above, this style offers a plastic clip that converts the lanyard to a smaller wristlet size that won't tangle in a purse or pocket. There's also a retractable cord that provides extra length so you can stretch your card to your cabin door card reader or the nearest onboard register without taking the lanyard off. This two-pack includes two identical lanyards , but unlike the ones above, they don't offer a clip or clasp option, making the plastic card sleeve a necessity.

Ridge minimalist slim wallet

For anyone looking for a cardholder without a strap, this industrial-style slim wallet by Ridge is made from military-grade RFID-blocking materials, fits easily into a pocket and features a lifetime guarantee. With its card slot and money clip, this wallet will not only secure your cruise keycard and small bills for tipping, but also it's great for everyday use when you're at home.

Basic solid lanyards

Whether you're traveling with a large group or need several lanyard colors to match all the outfits in your cruise wardrobe, this pack of eight basic solid-colored lanyards comes with swivel J hooks to keep your card secure and easily accessible. They're more traditional in that they aren't detachable or retractable, but they do come with plastic card sleeves.

Basic solid wrist strap lanyards

Want a less noticeable but equally effective way to tote your keycard? These basic solid-colored wrist straps , designed to carry USB drives, double as ideal lanyards for feather-light cruise cards. They have no extra bells or whistles, but they do come in a large pack with a variety of colors. To use them, you'll need to punch holes in your cards to take advantage of the small nylon thread loops.

Retractable belt clip badge holder

If you're in the market for a quick-draw utilitarian-style way to carry your card, consider a retractable one that clips handily to a belt , belt loop or purse with a carabiner clip. Attach your cruise keycard to it with a split ring by punching a hole in it, or use the provided tab to connect a clear plastic card holder (not included). This product also comes with a one-year warranty.

Woven wrist strap lanyards

Some of the most rugged and durable lanyards for cruises are these thick woven-style ones, which seem like they'd hold up for many voyages. They're shorter than a standard lanyard, come in lots of colors and patterns, and include a real leather fastener that connects to a round lobster clasp that's perfect for keycards with holes. This wristlet-style card wrangler is great for keeping your card close without wearing it around your neck.

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Cruise Lanyards – WHY & WHERE to buy these Cruise Essentials

Cruise Lanyards are an essential item to add to your packing list. We’ll tell you why you need these , what to look for , and where to buy the best lanyards for your cruise ship key cards.

Why do we need Cruise Lanyards?

A few reasons these are a “cruise essential” to add to your packing list.

The first time we cruised, we immediately noticed something similar about other passengers ( other than the cold drinks and big smiles ). They had lanyards for their key cards.

At first, I figured these were issued by the cruise ship. I checked my cabin hoping I’d find one waiting for me. No luck!

How else would this many people have lanyards? But, then I noticed that the sizes, styles, and complexity varied significantly. These weren’t standard issue. People brought these from off the ship. We’d felt like we missed a memo or something.

As a rookie, I didn’t immediately understand why you’d need a cruise lanyard. I soon found out.

Convenience

I’d love to do the following study: “how many times per day do I use my cruise key card?”

Here are just a few examples of when you’ll need it.

Expect to pull your cruise ship ID out of your pocket more than 50 times per day !

You’ll be changing outfits constantly. Whether headed to the pool, dinner, or dancing, you’ll have on a new set of digs with a different set of pockets. Some outfits (hey, ladies) won’t even have pockets. You’ll be constantly fishing for your cruise key card . At a packed bar, you don’t want to be “that guy” holding up your fellow passenger’s next mojito.

Consistency is key! Cruise lanyards are the answer. You’ll always know where to find your ID. Some lanyards even offer retractable reels or detachable buckets for added speed and convenience.

Save time and money

We lost a cruise key card on that first cruise. Getting a replacement didn’t cost any money, fortunately (some cruise lines charge a fee), but it did cost over an hour of precious cruise time . The customer service line was about 12 people deep. As I stood there listening to cranky cruisers arguing about gratuity, I vowed to never return. I could picture my husband smiling from the Lido Bar and made a note to punch him in the arm, which I later delivered even though completely my own fault.

Throughout the week, each of us left our cruise key cards in the room on several occasions. Sometimes we’d notice when halfway down the hallway. Other times, it wouldn’t hit us until headed to the bar for a drink. Instead of getting an ice-cold drink, we’d have to spend 20 minutes trekking down to the 5th deck to dig through our cabin to find the lost ID.

The cruise is only a week long. Don’t spend it looking for your key card.

Your cruise ship card is your ID , credit card , admission ticket , and passport wrapped in one. You do not want it falling in the wrong hands on your ship and definitely don’t want to lose it once off the ship.

You likely wouldn’t leave your passport in your jean-pockets while taking a dip in the ocean. Nor should you with your key card! Cruise lanyards are the hipper “fanny pack.” You’ll never be without your most valuable possession with it draped around your neck.

To store other valuables like cash and credit cards, get a cruise lanyard with a waterproof pouch (see below). This gives the added protection when taking a dip.

Wonderful Icebreaker

We always hope to make friends when we cruise. Last year we cruised from Australia and were excited to see a fellow passenger with a “Florida” lanyard around his neck. Also from the Sunshine State, we struck up a conversation and hung out all week long. We still keep in touch!

We’ve since seen other attention-grabbing cruise lanyards like these displaying home country or state and this elaborate style for someone that’s probably very interesting to talk to.

Great Souvenir

These make great keepsakes once the vacation is over . We buy a new set of cruise lanyards before every sailing so that we have a unique way to remember each. We’ve seen people print out their itinerary and place it in the plastic pouch, which is a great idea and we’ve been meaning to steal this idea.

Every set of keys we have has a lanyard attached to it. It always brings back great memories and makes us smile when starting the car and thinking about that amazing vacation.

What to look for in a Cruise Lanyard

Surprisingly, there’s a lot to consider when picking your perfect key card holder.

Which lanyard is right for you? That’s like asking, “which cruise should I do?” It’s going to vary by your personality and preferences. Before selecting your perfect one, here’s some added info you’ll want to consider.

Waterproof Pouch

To keep your cruise key card attached to your lanyard, you have a few options. The most popular is with a pouch. This provides a few advantages. First, it’s very easy to slide your card in and out of the top of the pouch. Second, it lets you add additional “essentials” like credit cards and cash. And finally, it keeps these items nice and dry which helps when carrying paper like money or an excursion pass. We advise that you purchase an item that includes a pouch. You don’t necessarily have to use it, but it’s good to have that option. You can always remove the waterproof pouch and attach the card directly!

Retractable Reel

Oh you fancy. The retractable reel lanyard is like the Cunard of lanyards. Seriously, though, this feature is very popular and found on most of them we’ve seen. The nifty reel lets you easily pull your ID out and it automatically retracts when you let go.

Cruise ID Attachment

You don’t need a plastic pouch. If going without, we like to call this the “naked” strategy. If going naked, you’ll want to consider what attachment you’ll want to use with your card. We advise using a “ lobster claw ” type attachment that lets you easily unhook your ID when needed. NOTE: some cruise lines (like Carnival) automatically punch a hole in the corner of your card. Others many not. If not done automatically, cruise staff will be happy to punch a hole in your card if taken to the customer service desk.

Detachable Buckle

The detachable buckle is different than the lobster clasp referred to earlier. This feature is typically up a few inches from the key card. The buckle offers “quick release” functionality that’s even easier than with the clasp. We love the buckle option. Bartenders don’t seem to mind when we hand them our card with buckle attached so that’s how we operate.

Style & Comfort

This is the fun part. Make sure to find a style that’s perfect for you both in terms of functionality and aesthetics. You might favor something simple or a fancier option. Maybe you want something super soft or as basic as possible. Perhaps you want your lanyard design to draw attention or maybe you want less eyeballs. There are plenty of options to choose from. Have fun with it!

All of these cruise lanyard features noted above are optional. It’s going to depend on your preferences which is right for you. Some want the very basic and cheapest lanyard to get the job done. Others want the “Cadillac” model that has all the bells and whistles.

Below, you’ll find the best cruise lanyards on Amazon to fit any of your needs.

Where to Buy Cruise Lanyards

Amazon (obvi) but be very wary to avoid the cheap junk!

We recommend buying a lanyard before cruise day. It’s possible to find one in the gift shop on your ship, but you’ll have just one or two overpriced options. Instead, buy it online and check this off your “vacation to do” list early.

CAUTION: Cheap Products & Bad Sellers

There’s a lot of junkie products on Amazon. We’ve tested a few items and sellers and have gotten ripped off so that you don’t have to. Avoid making the same mistake by selecting from a reputable provider!

When buying cruise lanyards online, you’ll have hundreds of options. We prefer Amazon due to the amazing selection and delivery speed . You’ll want to be careful, though . We’ve been disappointed by cheap and junkie items in the past and won’t make that mistake again.

Go with a reputable provider who will guarantee quality . You’ll find that to be true with all of these options below.

Cruise Lanyards on Amazon

Below you’ll find the best cruise lanyards on Amazon – all personally vetted!

#1 – Cheapest & Most Basic Lanyard

the “Inside Cabin” model

Here you’ll find the cheapest option for those only concerned with functionality. This model, we like to call the “Inside Cabin” of lanyards.

August 1, 2019

“it did the job. Held up all cruise long. Worked as expected. Cheap enough to toss out after the vacation was done. I’d recommend for anyone with a cruise planned” Mark R

#2 – Functional Cruise Lanyard with Style

the “Oceanview Cabin” model

This is a solid option. You have the extremely comfortable and wide nylon lanyards with the basic, waterproof pouch functionality. You have the option of inserting your cruise key card into the pouch or to the lobster claw without pouch.

August 7, 2019

“I bought these lanyards for a cruise and it was cute. The straps were soft and I wasn’t afraid that it was going to get disconnected. I like the clip on hook to the clear plastic holder. It was great that it was waterproof also so I can wear it when I went swimming. Item arrived fast.” S.S.

#3 – Lanyard with Key Card Holder, Reel, Buckle, etc

the “Balcony Cabin” model

Here is our favorite of all the cruise lanyards we’ve tried. It has both quick release features (the clasp and the buckle) as well as the waterproof pouch, silky-soft nylon material and even the retractable reel. We’ve tried many products for our cruise ID and this is by far the best!

January 11, 2018

“What a nice lanyard. Instead of the usual cord of plastic or woven Colton, this is a silky satin ribbon. Nice anchor design. It is versatile. It comes apart in a few ways to be used as you want or need. The reel in property is neat and practical. Will use it on my next cruise in2 weeks. It came in a pack of 2 so I will give the to my sister who is traveling with me.” Mary Gould

#4 – Cruise Lanyards & Luggage Tag Set

the “Captain’s Suite Cabin” model

The lanyards included here are the same as in option #3, but with them you also get cruise luggage tags. These are another “essential” item that we highly recommend. With the package deal, you’ll save a few bucks!

February 10, 2020

“We’ve cruised many many times and we’ve done the cruise ship “paper” luggage tags on all our previous cruises. We thought there had to be a better way to avoid tags being torn, ripped, or lost. We found on Amazon an offer of 4 tags and 2 Id holders specially made for Carnival tags. We placed our order this past Sunday afternoon and received our tags this afternoon (Monday). As soon as we opened the package and held onto our tags we immediately knew theses tag holders are “primo.” These will no doubt prevent what we thought was inevitable on any future cruise we might take. The holders are resealable and are made of durable clear plastic. We are so excited we’re planning a cruise we’ll take in about 2 months.” Luis Torres

#5 – Custom Cruise Lanyards

the “Cruise Director’s” choice

This is our favorite option on Amazon! We love to make friends when we cruise. There’s no better way than with a custom lanyard advertising your home state or country. Literally every time we’ve cruised with this, we’ve had multiple people comment on them. It’s by far the easiest way to make shipmates. Find your home country or home state cruise lanyards by clicking those links.

June 1, 2020

“We’ve proudly showed off our Australian lanyard for the past couple cruises. Every day we’ll get at least one comment. While at the bar, the comment usually has to do with kangaroos or boomerangs. We love it! It’s a great way to make friends.” Bethany Turns

#6 – The Non-Lanyard Key Card Holder

the “No-Neck” choice

This is a BRAND NEW product released for those that want even quicker access to their cruise ship ID cards. While the lanyards above are comfortable, they just aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Many out there would rather not have to remember one extra item to put and take off throughout the day. With this phone wallet, you cruise cards stay attached to your smartphone. And EVERYONE has an iPhone or Android phone on them at all times. This is the most convenient option and a brilliant new invention in the cruise world.

Aug 5, 2022

“We’ve used lanyards for years. They worked great.We saw this item and thought we’d give it a try. They are a game-changer. It’s incredibly easy and convenient to grab your cruise card throughout the day. We’ll never go back to lanyards.” Zoey Henry

If you weren’t able to find the perfect item above, don’t fret! There are even more options. Here you’ll find the best cruise lanyards on Amazon . You’re guaranteed to find something there that will fit your cruising needs.

Cruise Lanyard FAQs

Below, you’ll find the most commonly asked questions we get about cruise ship card holders. We hope these help for first-timers or anyone else looking for answers!

Where do I buy a cruise lanyards?

Does my cruise key card have a hole in the corner, does my cruise ship provide a lanyard, what size is my cruise id, what cruise lanyards should i get for royal caribbean, what cruise lanyards should i get for carnival cruise line.

We hope that this helped you choose your ideal Ship card holder. If you found it helpful, please share with your favorite cruise community!

For more cruise packing essentials, check out our post below!

10 Genius Cruise Accessories on Amazon [2023]

Above, you’ll find the most popular cruise accessories on Amazon. If you found these helpful, make sure to check out our piece, Cruise Cabin Essentials – 9 items to Cruise in Comfort. If you decide to purchase any of these items, let us know in the comments below. And if you have a favorite cruise…

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Collection: Cruise Lanyards with ID Holder - All Styles & Colors

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Imprint Plus – Cruise Ship Name Badge Solutions, Reusable Name Badges

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Cruise Ship Name Badges

Imprint Plus – Cruise Ship Name Badges, Reusable Cruise Ship Name Badges. Custom name badges by Imprint Plus™ can easily be personalized. They come in many shapes and sizes and are completely changeable by simply reprinting a new insert sheet. We’ve been in the name badge business for over 30 years and have developed many name badge products. In fact, we’ve patented many of the processes involved in the production and set the standard for the name badge industry! This “Do-It-Yourself” Name Badge System is the perfect tool for your front-line staff.

Reusable Cruise Ship Name Badges

Another feature of the Imprint Plus™ cruise ship name badge program that sets us apart is our reusable name badges are truly reusable. Sure, a lot of badge companies boast reusability, but are they truly reusable? Many employ adhesive tape to personalize the badges, so when you want to change the name, you have to un-stick and peel off the tape. Un-sticking tape from a badge (or anything really) can leave behind a sticky residue that is hard to clean off and ruins the professional look of the name badge. From our perspective, tape personalization is not true reusability-it’s more of a band-aid solution.

The reusable cruise ship name badge from Imprint Plus™ is truly reusable: The badge plate, personalized badge insert, lens cover and signature magnetic badge fastener fit together by design, not by tape. This means that they can be snapped together or snapped apart easily, and without damage. When a new team member comes on board and you need a new hospitality name tag, just toss out the old badge insert and slide in a new one. You won’t have to compromise at all on quality or style. The reused name badge will look exactly the same as the original one. We’re so proud of the innovative design and quality craftsmanship that went into our reusable name badges. We’re confident that you and your hospitality staff will love it, too.

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• Imprint Plus™ is the category leader for hospitality name badges
• 92% of the largest cruise ships in the world use Imprint Plus™* as their preferred, endorsed, or mandated supplier of reusable name badges including personalized cruise ship name tags, conference name tags, convention name tags, and restaurant name tags
• 417,666 name badges were sold to hospitality in 2011 alone!

Imprint Plus™ is the premier global supplier of luxury reusable name badges for the hospitality industry.

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Sometimes it seems as if the reusable name badge was made specifically for the hospitality industry. Here is a versatile name badge system that will support all your goals for your name badge and food service signage programs.

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Sea Scouts BSA

Resources for Leaders

Recognition

Ship Management

New Leader Resources

New Unit Organization Kit

Sea Scouter Recognition

Questions often asked are, “What about the Skipper and Mates?” and “Do they qualify for advancement the same way a Sea Scout does?” This question calls for a brief explanation of the purpose of Sea Scout advancement and a reminder of recognition recommended for adults in Sea Scouting.

The Sea Scout advancement program offers scouts a series of progressive experiences in various skills with standards for meeting them. Sea Scouts qualifying receive special badges and awards.  The sole purpose of advancement is to challenge members to engage in activities that will support the character and citizenship objectives of the Sea Scout program.

One can clearly see from this that advancement is for young adults. However, there are recognitions available to adult leaders. The training and service required to qualify for these recognitions bring satisfying prestige. In every case they require either significant training or a worthwhile contribution to the effectiveness of the Sea Scout program.

Long Cruise Badge

The Long Cruise badge may be earned by both youth and adults registered in Sea Scouts.  A Sea Scout must be Ordinary rank before they can start recording cruising time for the Long Cruise badge. The Sea Scout must cruise for two weeks on any vessel or boat provided by the local council or the ship, or their own vessel when authorized by an adult leader in that Sea Scout ship. Each additional long cruise earned is marked by a red arc around the badge, until five such cruises have been completed. Then a single white arc replaces them around the badge.  In the event that it is not possible to make a two-week cruise, a series of weekend or overnight cruises on any boat or ship may be made, provided that the total number equals 14 days.  An adult leader may qualify for the badge without qualifying for Ordinary rank.

By KaDarr , March 10, 2015 in First Time Cruisers

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How big is the ship card? Is it vertical or horizontal? What is the best way to carry it around? We got the beverage package on an Alaskan NCL ship so I know we have to have our cards with us just about all the time. A badge holder? Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

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Yes, I think a lanyard with a badge holder works great. Some folks have a hole punched in the card for greater safety.

It's the size of a credit card, or driver's lic....hubby puts his in his pocket, I carry a small purse, with my lipstick, comb, etc.....

How do you carry your room key at a hotel? Do the same! It's your cabin key....

Well, when we're in a hotel, I usually put it in my back pocket if I leave the room. I think I'm going to get these for my hubby and I. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0098XJUO2/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1XFYGAMJI0MPP&coliid=IXLZUW7GJTHZZ&psc=1

sg1phileshipper

Another vote for a lanyard. And if you take one that holds two, you can put your drivers licence in there when going ashore. Enjoy your cruise

Verzonden vanaf mijn iPad met Tapatalk

We also use lanyards. We go to the front desk and they will punch a hole in the card. (at least on Princess)

However, we do NOT use the lanyard ashore. There we put the card in our pockets. We do not want someone mistaking the lanyard for something of value and trying to grab it.

On Carnival Ships they will punch a hole and put it on a string for you in the casino... ;)

crystalspin

I got these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Rhinestone-Bling-Crystal-Cell-Phone-ID-Badge-Holder-Lanyard-Necklace-NWT-/221440684372?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item338ee4b154

For my mom and I on last cruise, and it was WAY too much trouble to take the cards out, we quickly ditched the "frame" thingee and had them punch holes in the cards at the main desk. However the price on Amazon is as good as any for just the string anyway. (You do know you linked to a package of FIVE lanyards, right?)

What I also discovered was that wearing it around my neck whilst also wearing my phone/phablet (as it is my camera as well) repeatedly de-magnetized the card. I didn't think it was so, as I carry a credit card in the same (non-neck) wallet as the phone at home, but I later read on these forums that it is true! So up-coming cruise, will carry my S&S card key on a keyring with mini-carabiner NOT on my neck.

I had an issue with my card "de-magnetizing" but it turned out it was due to the magnetic cover on my iPad.

Keeping the cruise card next to a camera or other device will de-magnetise it

Very good information, Thank you! I will do the same!

I use a dog show clip (if you google European dog show clip it will make sense) they come in all sorts of designs and pin onto clothing.

harleysmama

I have to wear a lanyard at work and don't want to wear one on vacation. So I just use my pockets or a very small purse.

Cru1s1ng2009

glad someone feels the same! It feels like work if I have a lanyard or a clip with a retractable cord. I would rather lose 5 cards and get new ones than use a lanyard on a cruise. I don't want anything to remind me of work.

Cruisin' Chick

I have a lanyard with a sleeve attached. It's easier for me to automatically put it on my neck, rather than worrying if I've stuck it in my purse (I might not always have a pocket to use). For going off the ship, I do put it in my purse once I've had it scanned on the gangway.

Steviewonder1

Never outside but when ashore drop it inside the shirt/t-shirt and re-check the collar to insure it is not visible. These are a most wanted item when off the ship in any foreign land, island, nation. Also wear "Grey Person" attire when off the ship so you do not get marked as a Tourist! That means nothing nothing fancy when you get off the ship. If you do you will get hits from all the local "You need this Salesfolks"

If you have ever been locked out of your room at midnight because you left your room key in your other pants pocket, as I have done, you will learn to appreciate a lanyard. It was a long walk to the Front Desk in my bare feet in Alaska to get a new card.

My lanyard now is around my neck from the time my feet hit the floor (with the exception of shower/shaving) until my feet go under the sheets at bedtime while aboard ship.

After being scanned off of the ship, the room-key lanyard goes into a pocket.

FWIW you can grey-out but your backpack, camera, ship's shopping bag, hairstyle, manner of walking, etc. are a dead giveaway that you are a tourist. If you go completely incognito with none of the above, your shoe style will shout "not local". You cannot fool the locals so just go "comfortable tourist" and when being confronted by an aggressive salesperson, let them know that your spouse has all of the money and you don't know where they might be.

I too wear a lanyard at work and it must have a breakaway as I work with power equipment. OHS requirement. I will wear the lanyard on the ship as sometimes I have no pockets. Swimsuit.

However, the lanyard from Princess does not have a breakaway and for the ship this is fine. Yet, on shore excursions having a solid lanyard is a liability from a personal safety point of view in public places. You are passing thru public streets with a solid rope about your neck. What could go wrong?

Move your card to wallet or pocket to get this small level of personal safety. My 3 cents.

Lulubelle45

Just a heads up on the lanyard. On Celebrity last year, a fellow passenger bought the lanyard with plastic case on the ship. While she was in port she lost her card, the plastic hole broke and she had no idea where it went. I also had the same lanyard and mine broke too before the cruise was over. I think k a hole punched in the card is far more secure.

If you have ever been locked out of your room at midnight because you left your room key in your other pants pocket, as I have done, you will learn to appreciate a lanyard. It was a long walk to the Front Desk in my bare feet in Alaska to get a new card.   My lanyard now is around my neck from the time my feet hit the floor (with the exception of shower/shaving) until my feet go under the sheets at bedtime while aboard ship.   After being scanned off of the ship, the room-key lanyard goes into a pocket.   FWIW you can grey-out but your backpack, camera, ship's shopping bag, hairstyle, manner of walking, etc. are a dead giveaway that you are a tourist. If you go completely incognito with none of the above, your shoe style will shout "not local". You cannot fool the locals so just go "comfortable tourist" and when being confronted by an aggressive salesperson, let them know that your spouse has all of the money and you don't know where they might be.

lol..exactly and 100% correct. I love the advice about blending in. They can spot a tourist, especially if it's a pick-pocket in Europe or someone that has bad intentions. Just be cautious, same as if you were a tourist in a city in the U.S. Be aware of your surroundings and enjoy getting to be a tourist in a wonderful place...and use a lanyard. I had to wear one when I was working to, but I was never able to use it to get a margarita or a frozen drink with an umbrella ;).

FIDDLE2FADDLE

I just place my card in the top part of my bra - easy to find and easy to put away and I always know where to find it!

What a novel idea. Now I can leave my bow tie at home to save luggage space and just wear my lanyard and room card with my tuxedo :D

It is the same size as a credit card. It is printed in portrait, but it depends on how you hold it as to whether is is vertical or horizontal. Personally I carry it in my pocket. However, if you are comfortable with it in a card older and allowing everyone to see it, then a card holder will work.

Honestly, I wear a lanyard as well. I think it's just the easiest thing I have found. Especially ladies, you know how sometimes you may have a sundress on or some type of slacks without pockets etc. I just like having somewhere to always have it. On our first cruise the first few days my husband offered to put it in his pocket for me, but if we would separate, sometimes he would forget and I would be without my card.

I obviously don't carry a purse anywhere on the ship, so yeah a lanyard just works so well.

Only trouble with a lanyard is my card demagnetized every time I used my ipad. Had to have my card replaced 5 times on my last cruise.

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Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship Ever

Seven agonizing nights aboard the Icon of the Seas

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Updated at 2:44 p.m. ET on April 6, 2024.

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MY FIRST GLIMPSE of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, from the window of an approaching Miami cab, brings on a feeling of vertigo, nausea, amazement, and distress. I shut my eyes in defense, as my brain tells my optic nerve to try again.

The ship makes no sense, vertically or horizontally. It makes no sense on sea, or on land, or in outer space. It looks like a hodgepodge of domes and minarets, tubes and canopies, like Istanbul had it been designed by idiots. Vibrant, oversignifying colors are stacked upon other such colors, decks perched over still more decks; the only comfort is a row of lifeboats ringing its perimeter. There is no imposed order, no cogent thought, and, for those who do not harbor a totalitarian sense of gigantomania, no visual mercy. This is the biggest cruise ship ever built, and I have been tasked with witnessing its inaugural voyage.

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“Author embarks on their first cruise-ship voyage” has been a staple of American essay writing for almost three decades, beginning with David Foster Wallace’s “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” which was first published in 1996 under the title “Shipping Out.” Since then, many admirable writers have widened and diversified the genre. Usually the essayist commissioned to take to the sea is in their first or second flush of youth and is ready to sharpen their wit against the hull of the offending vessel. I am 51, old and tired, having seen much of the world as a former travel journalist, and mostly what I do in both life and prose is shrug while muttering to my imaginary dachshund, “This too shall pass.” But the Icon of the Seas will not countenance a shrug. The Icon of the Seas is the Linda Loman of cruise ships, exclaiming that attention must be paid. And here I am in late January with my one piece of luggage and useless gray winter jacket and passport, zipping through the Port of Miami en route to the gangway that will separate me from the bulk of North America for more than seven days, ready to pay it in full.

The aforementioned gangway opens up directly onto a thriving mall (I will soon learn it is imperiously called the “Royal Promenade”), presently filled with yapping passengers beneath a ceiling studded with balloons ready to drop. Crew members from every part of the global South, as well as a few Balkans, are shepherding us along while pressing flutes of champagne into our hands. By a humming Starbucks, I drink as many of these as I can and prepare to find my cabin. I show my blue Suite Sky SeaPass Card (more on this later, much more) to a smiling woman from the Philippines, and she tells me to go “aft.” Which is where, now? As someone who has rarely sailed on a vessel grander than the Staten Island Ferry, I am confused. It turns out that the aft is the stern of the ship, or, for those of us who don’t know what a stern or an aft are, its ass. The nose of the ship, responsible for separating the waves before it, is also called a bow, and is marked for passengers as the FWD , or forward. The part of the contemporary sailing vessel where the malls are clustered is called the midship. I trust that you have enjoyed this nautical lesson.

I ascend via elevator to my suite on Deck 11. This is where I encounter my first terrible surprise. My suite windows and balcony do not face the ocean. Instead, they look out onto another shopping mall. This mall is the one that’s called Central Park, perhaps in homage to the Olmsted-designed bit of greenery in the middle of my hometown. Although on land I would be delighted to own a suite with Central Park views, here I am deeply depressed. To sail on a ship and not wake up to a vast blue carpet of ocean? Unthinkable.

Allow me a brief preamble here. The story you are reading was commissioned at a moment when most staterooms on the Icon were sold out. In fact, so enthralled by the prospect of this voyage were hard-core mariners that the ship’s entire inventory of guest rooms (the Icon can accommodate up to 7,600 passengers, but its inaugural journey was reduced to 5,000 or so for a less crowded experience) was almost immediately sold out. Hence, this publication was faced with the shocking prospect of paying nearly $19,000 to procure for this solitary passenger an entire suite—not including drinking expenses—all for the privilege of bringing you this article. But the suite in question doesn’t even have a view of the ocean! I sit down hard on my soft bed. Nineteen thousand dollars for this .

The viewless suite does have its pluses. In addition to all the Malin+Goetz products in my dual bathrooms, I am granted use of a dedicated Suite Deck lounge; access to Coastal Kitchen, a superior restaurant for Suites passengers; complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream (“the fastest Internet at Sea”) “for one device per person for the whole cruise duration”; a pair of bathrobes (one of which comes prestained with what looks like a large expectoration by the greenest lizard on Earth); and use of the Grove Suite Sun, an area on Decks 18 and 19 with food and deck chairs reserved exclusively for Suite passengers. I also get reserved seating for a performance of The Wizard of Oz , an ice-skating tribute to the periodic table, and similar provocations. The very color of my Suite Sky SeaPass Card, an oceanic blue as opposed to the cloying royal purple of the standard non-Suite passenger, will soon provoke envy and admiration. But as high as my status may be, there are those on board who have much higher status still, and I will soon learn to bow before them.

In preparation for sailing, I have “priced in,” as they say on Wall Street, the possibility that I may come from a somewhat different monde than many of the other cruisers. Without falling into stereotypes or preconceptions, I prepare myself for a friendly outspokenness on the part of my fellow seafarers that may not comply with modern DEI standards. I believe in meeting people halfway, and so the day before flying down to Miami, I visited what remains of Little Italy to purchase a popular T-shirt that reads DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL across the breast in the colors of the Italian flag. My wife recommended that I bring one of my many T-shirts featuring Snoopy and the Peanuts gang, as all Americans love the beagle and his friends. But I naively thought that my meatball T-shirt would be more suitable for conversation-starting. “Oh, and who is your ‘daddy’?” some might ask upon seeing it. “And how long have you been his ‘little meatball’?” And so on.

I put on my meatball T-shirt and head for one of the dining rooms to get a late lunch. In the elevator, I stick out my chest for all to read the funny legend upon it, but soon I realize that despite its burnished tricolor letters, no one takes note. More to the point, no one takes note of me. Despite my attempts at bridge building, the very sight of me (small, ethnic, without a cap bearing the name of a football team) elicits no reaction from other passengers. Most often, they will small-talk over me as if I don’t exist. This brings to mind the travails of David Foster Wallace , who felt so ostracized by his fellow passengers that he retreated to his cabin for much of his voyage. And Wallace was raised primarily in the Midwest and was a much larger, more American-looking meatball than I am. If he couldn’t talk to these people, how will I? What if I leave this ship without making any friends at all, despite my T-shirt? I am a social creature, and the prospect of seven days alone and apart is saddening. Wallace’s stateroom, at least, had a view of the ocean, a kind of cheap eternity.

Worse awaits me in the dining room. This is a large, multichandeliered room where I attended my safety training (I was shown how to put on a flotation vest; it is a very simple procedure). But the maître d’ politely refuses me entry in an English that seems to verge on another language. “I’m sorry, this is only for pendejos ,” he seems to be saying. I push back politely and he repeats himself. Pendejos ? Piranhas? There’s some kind of P-word to which I am not attuned. Meanwhile elderly passengers stream right past, powered by their limbs, walkers, and electric wheelchairs. “It is only pendejo dining today, sir.” “But I have a suite!” I say, already starting to catch on to the ship’s class system. He examines my card again. “But you are not a pendejo ,” he confirms. I am wearing a DADDY’S LITTLE MEATBALL T-shirt, I want to say to him. I am the essence of pendejo .

Eventually, I give up and head to the plebeian buffet on Deck 15, which has an aquatic-styled name I have now forgotten. Before gaining entry to this endless cornucopia of reheated food, one passes a washing station of many sinks and soap dispensers, and perhaps the most intriguing character on the entire ship. He is Mr. Washy Washy—or, according to his name tag, Nielbert of the Philippines—and he is dressed as a taco (on other occasions, I’ll see him dressed as a burger). Mr. Washy Washy performs an eponymous song in spirited, indeed flamboyant English: “Washy, washy, wash your hands, WASHY WASHY!” The dangers of norovirus and COVID on a cruise ship this size (a giant fellow ship was stricken with the former right after my voyage) makes Mr. Washy Washy an essential member of the crew. The problem lies with the food at the end of Washy’s rainbow. The buffet is groaning with what sounds like sophisticated dishes—marinated octopus, boiled egg with anchovy, chorizo, lobster claws—but every animal tastes tragically the same, as if there was only one creature available at the market, a “cruisipus” bred specifically for Royal Caribbean dining. The “vegetables” are no better. I pick up a tomato slice and look right through it. It tastes like cellophane. I sit alone, apart from the couples and parents with gaggles of children, as “We Are Family” echoes across the buffet space.

I may have failed to mention that all this time, the Icon of the Seas has not left port. As the fiery mango of the subtropical setting sun makes Miami’s condo skyline even more apocalyptic, the ship shoves off beneath a perfunctory display of fireworks. After the sun sets, in the far, dark distance, another circus-lit cruise ship ruptures the waves before us. We glance at it with pity, because it is by definition a smaller ship than our own. I am on Deck 15, outside the buffet and overlooking a bunch of pools (the Icon has seven of them), drinking a frilly drink that I got from one of the bars (the Icon has 15 of them), still too shy to speak to anyone, despite Sister Sledge’s assertion that all on the ship are somehow related.

Kim Brooks: On failing the family vacation

The ship’s passage away from Ron DeSantis’s Florida provides no frisson, no sense of developing “sea legs,” as the ship is too large to register the presence of waves unless a mighty wind adds significant chop. It is time for me to register the presence of the 5,000 passengers around me, even if they refuse to register mine. My fellow travelers have prepared for this trip with personally decorated T-shirts celebrating the importance of this voyage. The simplest ones say ICON INAUGURAL ’24 on the back and the family name on the front. Others attest to an over-the-top love of cruise ships: WARNING! MAY START TALKING ABOUT CRUISING . Still others are artisanally designed and celebrate lifetimes spent married while cruising (on ships, of course). A couple possibly in their 90s are wearing shirts whose backs feature a drawing of a cruise liner, two flamingos with ostensibly male and female characteristics, and the legend “ HUSBAND AND WIFE Cruising Partners FOR LIFE WE MAY NOT HAVE IT All Together BUT TOGETHER WE HAVE IT ALL .” (The words not in all caps have been written in cursive.) A real journalist or a more intrepid conversationalist would have gone up to the couple and asked them to explain the longevity of their marriage vis-à-vis their love of cruising. But instead I head to my mall suite, take off my meatball T-shirt, and allow the first tears of the cruise to roll down my cheeks slowly enough that I briefly fall asleep amid the moisture and salt.

I WAKE UP with a hangover. Oh God. Right. I cannot believe all of that happened last night. A name floats into my cobwebbed, nauseated brain: “Ayn Rand.” Jesus Christ.

I breakfast alone at the Coastal Kitchen. The coffee tastes fine and the eggs came out of a bird. The ship rolls slightly this morning; I can feel it in my thighs and my schlong, the parts of me that are most receptive to danger.

I had a dangerous conversation last night. After the sun set and we were at least 50 miles from shore (most modern cruise ships sail at about 23 miles an hour), I lay in bed softly hiccupping, my arms stretched out exactly like Jesus on the cross, the sound of the distant waves missing from my mall-facing suite, replaced by the hum of air-conditioning and children shouting in Spanish through the vents of my two bathrooms. I decided this passivity was unacceptable. As an immigrant, I feel duty-bound to complete the tasks I am paid for, which means reaching out and trying to understand my fellow cruisers. So I put on a normal James Perse T-shirt and headed for one of the bars on the Royal Promenade—the Schooner Bar, it was called, if memory serves correctly.

I sat at the bar for a martini and two Negronis. An old man with thick, hairy forearms drank next to me, very silent and Hemingwaylike, while a dreadlocked piano player tinkled out a series of excellent Elton John covers. To my right, a young white couple—he in floral shorts, she in a light, summery miniskirt with a fearsome diamond ring, neither of them in football regalia—chatted with an elderly couple. Do it , I commanded myself. Open your mouth. Speak! Speak without being spoken to. Initiate. A sentence fragment caught my ear from the young woman, “Cherry Hill.” This is a suburb of Philadelphia in New Jersey, and I had once been there for a reading at a synagogue. “Excuse me,” I said gently to her. “Did you just mention Cherry Hill? It’s a lovely place.”

As it turned out, the couple now lived in Fort Lauderdale (the number of Floridians on the cruise surprised me, given that Southern Florida is itself a kind of cruise ship, albeit one slowly sinking), but soon they were talking with me exclusively—the man potbellied, with a chin like a hard-boiled egg; the woman as svelte as if she were one of the many Ukrainian members of the crew—the elderly couple next to them forgotten. This felt as groundbreaking as the first time I dared to address an American in his native tongue, as a child on a bus in Queens (“On my foot you are standing, Mister”).

“I don’t want to talk politics,” the man said. “But they’re going to eighty-six Biden and put Michelle in.”

I considered the contradictions of his opening conversational gambit, but decided to play along. “People like Michelle,” I said, testing the waters. The husband sneered, but the wife charitably put forward that the former first lady was “more personable” than Joe Biden. “They’re gonna eighty-six Biden,” the husband repeated. “He can’t put a sentence together.”

After I mentioned that I was a writer—though I presented myself as a writer of teleplays instead of novels and articles such as this one—the husband told me his favorite writer was Ayn Rand. “Ayn Rand, she came here with nothing,” the husband said. “I work with a lot of Cubans, so …” I wondered if I should mention what I usually do to ingratiate myself with Republicans or libertarians: the fact that my finances improved after pass-through corporations were taxed differently under Donald Trump. Instead, I ordered another drink and the couple did the same, and I told him that Rand and I were born in the same city, St. Petersburg/Leningrad, and that my family also came here with nothing. Now the bonding and drinking began in earnest, and several more rounds appeared. Until it all fell apart.

Read: Gary Shteyngart on watching Russian television for five days straight

My new friend, whom I will refer to as Ayn, called out to a buddy of his across the bar, and suddenly a young couple, both covered in tattoos, appeared next to us. “He fucking punked me,” Ayn’s frat-boy-like friend called out as he put his arm around Ayn, while his sizable partner sizzled up to Mrs. Rand. Both of them had a look I have never seen on land—their eyes projecting absence and enmity in equal measure. In the ’90s, I drank with Russian soldiers fresh from Chechnya and wandered the streets of wartime Zagreb, but I have never seen such undisguised hostility toward both me and perhaps the universe at large. I was briefly introduced to this psychopathic pair, but neither of them wanted to have anything to do with me, and the tattooed woman would not even reveal her Christian name to me (she pretended to have the same first name as Mrs. Rand). To impress his tattooed friends, Ayn made fun of the fact that as a television writer, I’d worked on the series Succession (which, it would turn out, practically nobody on the ship had watched), instead of the far more palatable, in his eyes, zombie drama of last year. And then my new friends drifted away from me into an angry private conversation—“He punked me!”—as I ordered another drink for myself, scared of the dead-eyed arrivals whose gaze never registered in the dim wattage of the Schooner Bar, whose terrifying voices and hollow laughs grated like unoiled gears against the crooning of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”

But today is a new day for me and my hangover. After breakfast, I explore the ship’s so-called neighborhoods . There’s the AquaDome, where one can find a food hall and an acrobatic sound-and-light aquatic show. Central Park has a premium steak house, a sushi joint, and a used Rolex that can be bought for $8,000 on land here proudly offered at $17,000. There’s the aforementioned Royal Promenade, where I had drunk with the Rands, and where a pair of dueling pianos duel well into the night. There’s Surfside, a kids’ neighborhood full of sugary garbage, which looks out onto the frothy trail that the behemoth leaves behind itself. Thrill Island refers to the collection of tubes that clutter the ass of the ship and offer passengers six waterslides and a surfing simulation. There’s the Hideaway, an adult zone that plays music from a vomit-slathered, Brit-filled Alicante nightclub circa 1996 and proves a big favorite with groups of young Latin American customers. And, most hurtfully, there’s the Suite Neighborhood.

I say hurtfully because as a Suite passenger I should be here, though my particular suite is far from the others. Whereas I am stuck amid the riffraff of Deck 11, this section is on the highborn Decks 16 and 17, and in passing, I peek into the spacious, tall-ceilinged staterooms from the hallway, dazzled by the glint of the waves and sun. For $75,000, one multifloor suite even comes with its own slide between floors, so that a family may enjoy this particular terror in private. There is a quiet splendor to the Suite Neighborhood. I see fewer stickers and signs and drawings than in my own neighborhood—for example, MIKE AND DIANA PROUDLY SERVED U.S. MARINE CORPS RETIRED . No one here needs to announce their branch of service or rank; they are simply Suites, and this is where they belong. Once again, despite my hard work and perseverance, I have been disallowed from the true American elite. Once again, I am “Not our class, dear.” I am reminded of watching The Love Boat on my grandmother’s Zenith, which either was given to her or we found in the trash (I get our many malfunctioning Zeniths confused) and whose tube got so hot, I would put little chunks of government cheese on a thin tissue atop it to give our welfare treat a pleasant, Reagan-era gooeyness. I could not understand English well enough then to catch the nuances of that seafaring program, but I knew that there were differences in the status of the passengers, and that sometimes those differences made them sad. Still, this ship, this plenty—every few steps, there are complimentary nachos or milkshakes or gyros on offer—was the fatty fuel of my childhood dreams. If only I had remained a child.

I walk around the outdoor decks looking for company. There is a middle-aged African American couple who always seem to be asleep in each other’s arms, probably exhausted from the late capitalism they regularly encounter on land. There is far more diversity on this ship than I expected. Many couples are a testament to Loving v. Virginia , and there is a large group of folks whose T-shirts read MELANIN AT SEA / IT’S THE MELANIN FOR ME . I smile when I see them, but then some young kids from the group makes Mr. Washy Washy do a cruel, caricatured “Burger Dance” (today he is in his burger getup), and I think, Well, so much for intersectionality .

At the infinity pool on Deck 17, I spot some elderly women who could be ethnic and from my part of the world, and so I jump in. I am proved correct! Many of them seem to be originally from Queens (“Corona was still great when it was all Italian”), though they are now spread across the tristate area. We bond over the way “Ron-kon-koma” sounds when announced in Penn Station.

“Everyone is here for a different reason,” one of them tells me. She and her ex-husband last sailed together four years ago to prove to themselves that their marriage was truly over. Her 15-year-old son lost his virginity to “an Irish young lady” while their ship was moored in Ravenna, Italy. The gaggle of old-timers competes to tell me their favorite cruising stories and tips. “A guy proposed in Central Park a couple of years ago”—many Royal Caribbean ships apparently have this ridiculous communal area—“and she ran away screaming!” “If you’re diamond-class, you get four drinks for free.” “A different kind of passenger sails out of Bayonne.” (This, perhaps, is racially coded.) “Sometimes, if you tip the bartender $5, your next drink will be free.”

“Everyone’s here for a different reason,” the woman whose marriage ended on a cruise tells me again. “Some people are here for bad reasons—the drinkers and the gamblers. Some people are here for medical reasons.” I have seen more than a few oxygen tanks and at least one woman clearly undergoing very serious chemo. Some T-shirts celebrate good news about a cancer diagnosis. This might be someone’s last cruise or week on Earth. For these women, who have spent months, if not years, at sea, cruising is a ritual as well as a life cycle: first love, last love, marriage, divorce, death.

Read: The last place on Earth any tourist should go

I have talked with these women for so long, tonight I promise myself that after a sad solitary dinner I will not try to seek out company at the bars in the mall or the adult-themed Hideaway. I have enough material to fulfill my duties to this publication. As I approach my orphaned suite, I run into the aggro young people who stole Mr. and Mrs. Rand away from me the night before. The tattooed apparitions pass me without a glance. She is singing something violent about “Stuttering Stanley” (a character in a popular horror movie, as I discover with my complimentary VOOM SM Surf & Stream Internet at Sea) and he’s loudly shouting about “all the money I’ve lost,” presumably at the casino in the bowels of the ship.

So these bent psychos out of a Cormac McCarthy novel are angrily inhabiting my deck. As I mewl myself to sleep, I envision a limited series for HBO or some other streamer, a kind of low-rent White Lotus , where several aggressive couples conspire to throw a shy intellectual interloper overboard. I type the scenario into my phone. As I fall asleep, I think of what the woman who recently divorced her husband and whose son became a man through the good offices of the Irish Republic told me while I was hoisting myself out of the infinity pool. “I’m here because I’m an explorer. I’m here because I’m trying something new.” What if I allowed myself to believe in her fantasy?

“YOU REALLY STARTED AT THE TOP,” they tell me. I’m at the Coastal Kitchen for my eggs and corned-beef hash, and the maître d’ has slotted me in between two couples. Fueled by coffee or perhaps intrigued by my relative youth, they strike up a conversation with me. As always, people are shocked that this is my first cruise. They contrast the Icon favorably with all the preceding liners in the Royal Caribbean fleet, usually commenting on the efficiency of the elevators that hurl us from deck to deck (as in many large corporate buildings, the elevators ask you to choose a floor and then direct you to one of many lifts). The couple to my right, from Palo Alto—he refers to his “porn mustache” and calls his wife “my cougar” because she is two years older—tell me they are “Pandemic Pinnacles.”

This is the day that my eyes will be opened. Pinnacles , it is explained to me over translucent cantaloupe, have sailed with Royal Caribbean for 700 ungodly nights. Pandemic Pinnacles took advantage of the two-for-one accrual rate of Pinnacle points during the pandemic, when sailing on a cruise ship was even more ill-advised, to catapult themselves into Pinnacle status.

Because of the importance of the inaugural voyage of the world’s largest cruise liner, more than 200 Pinnacles are on this ship, a startling number, it seems. Mrs. Palo Alto takes out a golden badge that I have seen affixed over many a breast, which reads CROWN AND ANCHOR SOCIETY along with her name. This is the coveted badge of the Pinnacle. “You should hear all the whining in Guest Services,” her husband tells me. Apparently, the Pinnacles who are not also Suites like us are all trying to use their status to get into Coastal Kitchen, our elite restaurant. Even a Pinnacle needs to be a Suite to access this level of corned-beef hash.

“We’re just baby Pinnacles,” Mrs. Palo Alto tells me, describing a kind of internal class struggle among the Pinnacle elite for ever higher status.

And now I understand what the maître d’ was saying to me on the first day of my cruise. He wasn’t saying “ pendejo .” He was saying “Pinnacle.” The dining room was for Pinnacles only, all those older people rolling in like the tide on their motorized scooters.

And now I understand something else: This whole thing is a cult. And like most cults, it can’t help but mirror the endless American fight for status. Like Keith Raniere’s NXIVM, where different-colored sashes were given out to connote rank among Raniere’s branded acolytes, this is an endless competition among Pinnacles, Suites, Diamond-Plusers, and facing-the-mall, no-balcony purple SeaPass Card peasants, not to mention the many distinctions within each category. The more you cruise, the higher your status. No wonder a section of the Royal Promenade is devoted to getting passengers to book their next cruise during the one they should be enjoying now. No wonder desperate Royal Caribbean offers (“FINAL HOURS”) crowded my email account weeks before I set sail. No wonder the ship’s jewelry store, the Royal Bling, is selling a $100,000 golden chalice that will entitle its owner to drink free on Royal Caribbean cruises for life. (One passenger was already gaming out whether her 28-year-old son was young enough to “just about earn out” on the chalice or if that ship had sailed.) No wonder this ship was sold out months before departure , and we had to pay $19,000 for a horrid suite away from the Suite Neighborhood. No wonder the most mythical hero of Royal Caribbean lore is someone named Super Mario, who has cruised so often, he now has his own working desk on many ships. This whole experience is part cult, part nautical pyramid scheme.

From the June 2014 issue: Ship of wonks

“The toilets are amazing,” the Palo Altos are telling me. “One flush and you’re done.” “They don’t understand how energy-efficient these ships are,” the husband of the other couple is telling me. “They got the LNG”—liquefied natural gas, which is supposed to make the Icon a boon to the environment (a concept widely disputed and sometimes ridiculed by environmentalists).

But I’m thinking along a different line of attack as I spear my last pallid slice of melon. For my streaming limited series, a Pinnacle would have to get killed by either an outright peasant or a Suite without an ocean view. I tell my breakfast companions my idea.

“Oh, for sure a Pinnacle would have to be killed,” Mr. Palo Alto, the Pandemic Pinnacle, says, touching his porn mustache thoughtfully as his wife nods.

“THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S your time, buddy!” Hubert, my fun-loving Panamanian cabin attendant, shouts as I step out of my suite in a robe. “Take it easy, buddy!”

I have come up with a new dressing strategy. Instead of trying to impress with my choice of T-shirts, I have decided to start wearing a robe, as one does at a resort property on land, with a proper spa and hammam. The response among my fellow cruisers has been ecstatic. “Look at you in the robe!” Mr. Rand cries out as we pass each other by the Thrill Island aqua park. “You’re living the cruise life! You know, you really drank me under the table that night.” I laugh as we part ways, but my soul cries out, Please spend more time with me, Mr. and Mrs. Rand; I so need the company .

In my white robe, I am a stately presence, a refugee from a better limited series, a one-man crossover episode. (Only Suites are granted these robes to begin with.) Today, I will try many of the activities these ships have on offer to provide their clientele with a sense of never-ceasing motion. Because I am already at Thrill Island, I decide to climb the staircase to what looks like a mast on an old-fashioned ship (terrified, because I am afraid of heights) to try a ride called “Storm Chasers,” which is part of the “Category 6” water park, named in honor of one of the storms that may someday do away with the Port of Miami entirely. Storm Chasers consists of falling from the “mast” down a long, twisting neon tube filled with water, like being the camera inside your own colonoscopy, as you hold on to the handles of a mat, hoping not to die. The tube then flops you down headfirst into a trough of water, a Royal Caribbean baptism. It both knocks my breath out and makes me sad.

In keeping with the aquatic theme, I attend a show at the AquaDome. To the sound of “Live and Let Die,” a man in a harness gyrates to and fro in the sultry air. I saw something very similar in the back rooms of the famed Berghain club in early-aughts Berlin. Soon another harnessed man is gyrating next to the first. Ja , I think to myself, I know how this ends. Now will come the fisting , natürlich . But the show soon devolves into the usual Marvel-film-grade nonsense, with too much light and sound signifying nichts . If any fisting is happening, it is probably in the Suite Neighborhood, inside a cabin marked with an upside-down pineapple, which I understand means a couple are ready to swing, and I will see none of it.

I go to the ice show, which is a kind of homage—if that’s possible—to the periodic table, done with the style and pomp and masterful precision that would please the likes of Kim Jong Un, if only he could afford Royal Caribbean talent. At one point, the dancers skate to the theme song of Succession . “See that!” I want to say to my fellow Suites—at “cultural” events, we have a special section reserved for us away from the commoners—“ Succession ! It’s even better than the zombie show! Open your minds!”

Finally, I visit a comedy revue in an enormous and too brightly lit version of an “intimate,” per Royal Caribbean literature, “Manhattan comedy club.” Many of the jokes are about the cruising life. “I’ve lived on ships for 20 years,” one of the middle-aged comedians says. “I can only see so many Filipino homosexuals dressed as a taco.” He pauses while the audience laughs. “I am so fired tonight,” he says. He segues into a Trump impression and then Biden falling asleep at the microphone, which gets the most laughs. “Anyone here from Fort Leonard Wood?” another comedian asks. Half the crowd seems to cheer. As I fall asleep that night, I realize another connection I have failed to make, and one that may explain some of the diversity on this vessel—many of its passengers have served in the military.

As a coddled passenger with a suite, I feel like I am starting to understand what it means to have a rank and be constantly reminded of it. There are many espresso makers , I think as I look across the expanse of my officer-grade quarters before closing my eyes, but this one is mine .

A shocking sight greets me beyond the pools of Deck 17 as I saunter over to the Coastal Kitchen for my morning intake of slightly sour Americanos. A tiny city beneath a series of perfectly pressed green mountains. Land! We have docked for a brief respite in Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts and Nevis. I wolf down my egg scramble to be one of the first passengers off the ship. Once past the gangway, I barely refrain from kissing the ground. I rush into the sights and sounds of this scruffy island city, sampling incredible conch curry and buckets of non-Starbucks coffee. How wonderful it is to be where God intended humans to be: on land. After all, I am neither a fish nor a mall rat. This is my natural environment. Basseterre may not be Havana, but there are signs of human ingenuity and desire everywhere you look. The Black Table Grill Has been Relocated to Soho Village, Market Street, Directly Behind of, Gary’s Fruits and Flower Shop. Signed. THE PORK MAN reads a sign stuck to a wall. Now, that is how you write a sign. A real sign, not the come-ons for overpriced Rolexes that blink across the screens of the Royal Promenade.

“Hey, tie your shoestring!” a pair of laughing ladies shout to me across the street.

“Thank you!” I shout back. Shoestring! “Thank you very much.”

A man in Independence Square Park comes by and asks if I want to play with his monkey. I haven’t heard that pickup line since the Penn Station of the 1980s. But then he pulls a real monkey out of a bag. The monkey is wearing a diaper and looks insane. Wonderful , I think, just wonderful! There is so much life here. I email my editor asking if I can remain on St. Kitts and allow the Icon to sail off into the horizon without me. I have even priced a flight home at less than $300, and I have enough material from the first four days on the cruise to write the entire story. “It would be funny …” my editor replies. “Now get on the boat.”

As I slink back to the ship after my brief jailbreak, the locals stand under umbrellas to gaze at and photograph the boat that towers over their small capital city. The limousines of the prime minister and his lackeys are parked beside the gangway. St. Kitts, I’ve been told, is one of the few islands that would allow a ship of this size to dock.

“We hear about all the waterslides,” a sweet young server in one of the cafés told me. “We wish we could go on the ship, but we have to work.”

“I want to stay on your island,” I replied. “I love it here.”

But she didn’t understand how I could possibly mean that.

“WASHY, WASHY, so you don’t get stinky, stinky!” kids are singing outside the AquaDome, while their adult minders look on in disapproval, perhaps worried that Mr. Washy Washy is grooming them into a life of gayness. I heard a southern couple skip the buffet entirely out of fear of Mr. Washy Washy.

Meanwhile, I have found a new watering hole for myself, the Swim & Tonic, the biggest swim-up bar on any cruise ship in the world. Drinking next to full-size, nearly naked Americans takes away one’s own self-consciousness. The men have curvaceous mom bodies. The women are equally un-shy about their sprawling physiques.

Today I’ve befriended a bald man with many children who tells me that all of the little trinkets that Royal Caribbean has left us in our staterooms and suites are worth a fortune on eBay. “Eighty dollars for the water bottle, 60 for the lanyard,” the man says. “This is a cult.”

“Tell me about it,” I say. There is, however, a clientele for whom this cruise makes perfect sense. For a large middle-class family (he works in “supply chains”), seven days in a lower-tier cabin—which starts at $1,800 a person—allow the parents to drop off their children in Surfside, where I imagine many young Filipina crew members will take care of them, while the parents are free to get drunk at a swim-up bar and maybe even get intimate in their cabin. Cruise ships have become, for a certain kind of hardworking family, a form of subsidized child care.

There is another man I would like to befriend at the Swim & Tonic, a tall, bald fellow who is perpetually inebriated and who wears a necklace studded with little rubber duckies in sunglasses, which, I am told, is a sort of secret handshake for cruise aficionados. Tomorrow, I will spend more time with him, but first the ship docks at St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Charlotte Amalie, the capital, is more charming in name than in presence, but I still all but jump off the ship to score a juicy oxtail and plantains at the well-known Petite Pump Room, overlooking the harbor. From one of the highest points in the small city, the Icon of the Seas appears bigger than the surrounding hills.

I usually tan very evenly, but something about the discombobulation of life at sea makes me forget the regular application of sunscreen. As I walk down the streets of Charlotte Amalie in my fluorescent Icon of the Seas cap, an old Rastafarian stares me down. “Redneck,” he hisses.

“No,” I want to tell him, as I bring a hand up to my red neck, “that’s not who I am at all. On my island, Mannahatta, as Whitman would have it, I am an interesting person living within an engaging artistic milieu. I do not wish to use the Caribbean as a dumping ground for the cruise-ship industry. I love the work of Derek Walcott. You don’t understand. I am not a redneck. And if I am, they did this to me.” They meaning Royal Caribbean? Its passengers? The Rands?

“They did this to me!”

Back on the Icon, some older matrons are muttering about a run-in with passengers from the Celebrity cruise ship docked next to us, the Celebrity Apex. Although Celebrity Cruises is also owned by Royal Caribbean, I am made to understand that there is a deep fratricidal beef between passengers of the two lines. “We met a woman from the Apex,” one matron says, “and she says it was a small ship and there was nothing to do. Her face was as tight as a 19-year-old’s, she had so much surgery.” With those words, and beneath a cloudy sky, humidity shrouding our weathered faces and red necks, we set sail once again, hopefully in the direction of home.

THERE ARE BARELY 48 HOURS LEFT to the cruise, and the Icon of the Seas’ passengers are salty. They know how to work the elevators. They know the Washy Washy song by heart. They understand that the chicken gyro at “Feta Mediterranean,” in the AquaDome Market, is the least problematic form of chicken on the ship.

The passengers have shed their INAUGURAL CRUISE T-shirts and are now starting to evince political opinions. There are caps pledging to make America great again and T-shirts that celebrate words sometimes attributed to Patrick Henry: “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” With their preponderance of FAMILY FLAG FAITH FRIENDS FIREARMS T-shirts, the tables by the crepe station sometimes resemble the Capitol Rotunda on January 6. The Real Anthony Fauci , by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears to be a popular form of literature, especially among young men with very complicated versions of the American flag on their T-shirts. Other opinions blend the personal and the political. “Someone needs to kill Washy guy, right?” a well-dressed man in the elevator tells me, his gray eyes radiating nothing. “Just beat him to death. Am I right?” I overhear the male member of a young couple whisper, “There goes that freak” as I saunter by in my white spa robe, and I decide to retire it for the rest of the cruise.

I visit the Royal Bling to see up close the $100,000 golden chalice that entitles you to free drinks on Royal Caribbean forever. The pleasant Serbian saleslady explains that the chalice is actually gold-plated and covered in white zirconia instead of diamonds, as it would otherwise cost $1 million. “If you already have everything,” she explains, “this is one more thing you can get.”

I believe that anyone who works for Royal Caribbean should be entitled to immediate American citizenship. They already speak English better than most of the passengers and, per the Serbian lady’s sales pitch above, better understand what America is as well. Crew members like my Panamanian cabin attendant seem to work 24 hours a day. A waiter from New Delhi tells me that his contract is six months and three weeks long. After a cruise ends, he says, “in a few hours, we start again for the next cruise.” At the end of the half a year at sea, he is allowed a two-to-three-month stay at home with his family. As of 2019, the median income for crew members was somewhere in the vicinity of $20,000, according to a major business publication. Royal Caribbean would not share the current median salary for its crew members, but I am certain that it amounts to a fraction of the cost of a Royal Bling gold-plated, zirconia-studded chalice.

And because most of the Icon’s hyper-sanitized spaces are just a frittata away from being a Delta lounge, one forgets that there are actual sailors on this ship, charged with the herculean task of docking it in port. “Having driven 100,000-ton aircraft carriers throughout my career,” retired Admiral James G. Stavridis, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, writes to me, “I’m not sure I would even know where to begin with trying to control a sea monster like this one nearly three times the size.” (I first met Stavridis while touring Army bases in Germany more than a decade ago.)

Today, I decide to head to the hot tub near Swim & Tonic, where some of the ship’s drunkest reprobates seem to gather (the other tubs are filled with families and couples). The talk here, like everywhere else on the ship, concerns football, a sport about which I know nothing. It is apparent that four teams have recently competed in some kind of finals for the year, and that two of them will now face off in the championship. Often when people on the Icon speak, I will try to repeat the last thing they said with a laugh or a nod of disbelief. “Yes, 20-yard line! Ha!” “Oh my God, of course, scrimmage.”

Soon we are joined in the hot tub by the late-middle-age drunk guy with the duck necklace. He is wearing a bucket hat with the legend HAWKEYES , which, I soon gather, is yet another football team. “All right, who turned me in?” Duck Necklace says as he plops into the tub beside us. “I get a call in the morning,” he says. “It’s security. Can you come down to the dining room by 10 a.m.? You need to stay away from the members of this religious family.” Apparently, the gregarious Duck Necklace had photobombed the wrong people. There are several families who present as evangelical Christians or practicing Muslims on the ship. One man, evidently, was not happy that Duck Necklace had made contact with his relatives. “It’s because of religious stuff; he was offended. I put my arm around 20 people a day.”

Everyone laughs. “They asked me three times if I needed medication,” he says of the security people who apparently interrogated him in full view of others having breakfast.

Another hot-tub denizen suggests that he should have asked for fentanyl. After a few more drinks, Duck Necklace begins to muse about what it would be like to fall off the ship. “I’m 62 and I’m ready to go,” he says. “I just don’t want a shark to eat me. I’m a huge God guy. I’m a Bible guy. There’s some Mayan theory squaring science stuff with religion. There is so much more to life on Earth.” We all nod into our Red Stripes.

“I never get off the ship when we dock,” he says. He tells us he lost $6,000 in the casino the other day. Later, I look him up, and it appears that on land, he’s a financial adviser in a crisp gray suit, probably a pillar of his North Chicago community.

THE OCEAN IS TEEMING with fascinating life, but on the surface it has little to teach us. The waves come and go. The horizon remains ever far away.

I am constantly told by my fellow passengers that “everybody here has a story.” Yes, I want to reply, but everybody everywhere has a story. You, the reader of this essay, have a story, and yet you’re not inclined to jump on a cruise ship and, like Duck Necklace, tell your story to others at great pitch and volume. Maybe what they’re saying is that everybody on this ship wants to have a bigger, more coherent, more interesting story than the one they’ve been given. Maybe that’s why there’s so much signage on the doors around me attesting to marriages spent on the sea. Maybe that’s why the Royal Caribbean newsletter slipped under my door tells me that “this isn’t a vacation day spent—it’s bragging rights earned.” Maybe that’s why I’m so lonely.

Today is a big day for Icon passengers. Today the ship docks at Royal Caribbean’s own Bahamian island, the Perfect Day at CocoCay. (This appears to be the actual name of the island.) A comedian at the nightclub opined on what his perfect day at CocoCay would look like—receiving oral sex while learning that his ex-wife had been killed in a car crash (big laughter). But the reality of the island is far less humorous than that.

One of the ethnic tristate ladies in the infinity pool told me that she loved CocoCay because it had exactly the same things that could be found on the ship itself. This proves to be correct. It is like the Icon, but with sand. The same tired burgers, the same colorful tubes conveying children and water from Point A to B. The same swim-up bar at its Hideaway ($140 for admittance, no children allowed; Royal Caribbean must be printing money off its clientele). “There was almost a fight at The Wizard of Oz ,” I overhear an elderly woman tell her companion on a chaise lounge. Apparently one of the passengers began recording Royal Caribbean’s intellectual property and “three guys came after him.”

I walk down a pathway to the center of the island, where a sign reads DO NOT ENTER: YOU HAVE REACHED THE BOUNDARY OF ADVENTURE . I hear an animal scampering in the bushes. A Royal Caribbean worker in an enormous golf cart soon chases me down and takes me back to the Hideaway, where I run into Mrs. Rand in a bikini. She becomes livid telling me about an altercation she had the other day with a woman over a towel and a deck chair. We Suites have special towel privileges; we do not have to hand over our SeaPass Card to score a towel. But the Rands are not Suites. “People are so entitled here,” Mrs. Rand says. “It’s like the airport with all its classes.” “You see,” I want to say, “this is where your husband’s love of Ayn Rand runs into the cruelties and arbitrary indignities of unbridled capitalism.” Instead we make plans to meet for a final drink in the Schooner Bar tonight (the Rands will stand me up).

Back on the ship, I try to do laps, but the pool (the largest on any cruise ship, naturally) is fully trashed with the detritus of American life: candy wrappers, a slowly dissolving tortilla chip, napkins. I take an extra-long shower in my suite, then walk around the perimeter of the ship on a kind of exercise track, past all the alluring lifeboats in their yellow-and-white livery. Maybe there is a dystopian angle to the HBO series that I will surely end up pitching, one with shades of WALL-E or Snowpiercer . In a collapsed world, a Royal Caribbean–like cruise liner sails from port to port, collecting new shipmates and supplies in exchange for the precious energy it has on board. (The actual Icon features a new technology that converts passengers’ poop into enough energy to power the waterslides . In the series, this shitty technology would be greatly expanded.) A very young woman (18? 19?), smart and lonely, who has only known life on the ship, walks along the same track as I do now, contemplating jumping off into the surf left by its wake. I picture reusing Duck Necklace’s words in the opening shot of the pilot. The girl is walking around the track, her eyes on the horizon; maybe she’s highborn—a Suite—and we hear the voice-over: “I’m 19 and I’m ready to go. I just don’t want a shark to eat me.”

Before the cruise is finished, I talk to Mr. Washy Washy, or Nielbert of the Philippines. He is a sweet, gentle man, and I thank him for the earworm of a song he has given me and for keeping us safe from the dreaded norovirus. “This is very important to me, getting people to wash their hands,” he tells me in his burger getup. He has dreams, as an artist and a performer, but they are limited in scope. One day he wants to dress up as a piece of bacon for the morning shift.

THE MAIDEN VOYAGE OF THE TITANIC (the Icon of the Seas is five times as large as that doomed vessel) at least offered its passengers an exciting ending to their cruise, but when I wake up on the eighth day, all I see are the gray ghosts that populate Miami’s condo skyline. Throughout my voyage, my writer friends wrote in to commiserate with me. Sloane Crosley, who once covered a three-day spa mini-cruise for Vogue , tells me she felt “so very alone … I found it very untethering.” Gideon Lewis-Kraus writes in an Instagram comment: “When Gary is done I think it’s time this genre was taken out back and shot.” And he is right. To badly paraphrase Adorno: After this, no more cruise stories. It is unfair to put a thinking person on a cruise ship. Writers typically have difficult childhoods, and it is cruel to remind them of the inherent loneliness that drove them to writing in the first place. It is also unseemly to write about the kind of people who go on cruises. Our country does not provide the education and upbringing that allow its citizens an interior life. For the creative class to point fingers at the large, breasty gentlemen adrift in tortilla-chip-laden pools of water is to gather a sour harvest of low-hanging fruit.

A day or two before I got off the ship, I decided to make use of my balcony, which I had avoided because I thought the view would only depress me further. What I found shocked me. My suite did not look out on Central Park after all. This entire time, I had been living in the ship’s Disneyland, Surfside, the neighborhood full of screaming toddlers consuming milkshakes and candy. And as I leaned out over my balcony, I beheld a slight vista of the sea and surf that I thought I had been missing. It had been there all along. The sea was frothy and infinite and blue-green beneath the span of a seagull’s wing. And though it had been trod hard by the world’s largest cruise ship, it remained.

This article appears in the May 2024 print edition with the headline “A Meatball at Sea.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

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