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9 Cruise Ship Deck Names To Know (And What To Find On Each)

Whether it’s your first time on a cruise or you’re a seasoned pro, it’s good to know the common decks found on cruise ships and what you’ll find on each.

Get ready to navigate your next cruise ship with confidence and discover the unique offerings of every deck, so you can take full advantage of your vacation…

Table of Contents

What Are The Decks On A Cruise Ship?

Cruise ships feature a diverse range of decks, each designed for a unique function.

Below are some of the most frequently encountered decks:

• Bridge deck
• Landing deck
• Promenade deck
• Sports deck
• Weather deck

These are the most common deck names you’ll encounter on most cruise ships around the world, plus some others we will get into…

Cruise Ship Deck Basics

Deck layout.

When you first step onto a cruise ship, it’s natural to feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer size and complexity of the vessel.

However, navigating the decks can be quite simple once you grasp the general layout. Cruise ships are typically designed with multiple decks (or floors), each serving a specific purpose to enhance your vacation experience.

Some decks are dedicated to guest accommodations, while others are reserved for dining, entertainment, and recreational activities.

As you familiarize yourself with the ship’s layout, you’ll find it much easier to navigate and locate the different amenities on board.

Deck Names Relevance

Cruise ship deck names aren’t just arbitrary; they often hold significance that can help you understand the purpose of the deck.

For example, the Sun Deck is usually the highest deck on a cruise ship, providing ample space for sunbathing and enjoying panoramic ocean views.

Additionally, the Lido Deck is often a popular gathering area, which typically features a pool, hot tubs, and nearby eateries.

There might be a Sports Deck or an Activities Deck too, offering various recreational activities like mini-golf, basketball, or even rock climbing.

While exploring the ship, you might also come across the Promenade Deck or the Main Deck. These decks are situated in the middle of the ship and can be home to shops, dining options and even entertainment venues, like a theater.

The Bridge Deck is where you’ll find the ship’s navigation center, where the captain and their crew make all the important decisions.

Understanding the relevance of deck names can make your cruise experience even more enjoyable, as it becomes easier to locate and appreciate the different areas of your floating vacation home.

Types of Cruise Ship Decks

There are some common decks on cruise ships you will encounter and want to be aware of.

Each deck has its unique features and amenities, catering to different needs and preferences.

The Lido deck is often considered the heart of a cruise ship. It’s typically the top-most open deck, where most of the outdoor activities take place.

You’ll find swimming pools, hot tubs, water slides, bars, and open-air cafes on this lively deck. The Lido deck is the perfect spot for sunbathing, relaxing, and grabbing a refreshing drink.

While many casually dub it the ‘pool deck’, the term ‘Lido’ has a richer history. It traces its origin to the Lido di Venezia district in Venice, Italy.

This district’s name is derived from the Latin word ‘litus’, signifying ‘shore’. On the Lido Deck, passengers can bask in the sun beside pools, indulge in beverages, and dine from various outdoor eateries

Amenities also include nearby showers and restrooms.

Essentially, “lido” signifies an open-air public pool, a perfect descriptor for this deck’s ambiance on a cruise ship.

Promenade Deck

The Promenade deck is a popular spot for taking leisurely strolls. This deck usually features a wrap-around walking path, offering breathtaking views of the ocean.

This deck is a favorite for many: walkers taking leisurely strolls, enjoying the sea breeze; runners clocking miles with marked distances for convenience; and observers engaging in people-watching or soaking in the ocean’s vastness.

In addition, you can find dining and entertainment venues, such as restaurants, bars, and shops, lining the perimeter of this deck.

Plus, it’s common to spot the ship’s lifeboats suspended along the sides of the Promenade Deck.

The term ‘promenade’ is rooted in the idea of a walk, often associated with seaside walkways. However, not all cruise ships possess these decks, and when they do, the design and accessibility can vary widely.

Sports Deck

If you’re looking for physical activities during your cruise vacation, the Sports Deck is the place to go.

This deck includes various sports facilities, such as basketball courts, mini-golf courses, and jogging tracks. Some ships also offer rock-climbing walls and even ice-skating rinks on their sports decks.

From the classic basketball and tennis courts to more specialized attractions like rock climbing walls and surfing machines, there’s an activity for everyone

The deck’s elevated position doesn’t just serve a functional purpose. It also offers passengers breathtaking panoramic views, enhancing their sporting experience.

On some ships, the Sports Deck doubles as the launch point for exhilarating waterslides, even though riders make their splashy exits on lower levels.

In essence, the Sports Deck is the ship’s energetic heart, offering a blend of sporty activities amidst the vast backdrop of the ocean.

The Sun Deck is an ideal location for those who want to soak up the sun and enjoy the fresh sea breeze.

Nestled at the highest point of a cruise ship, the Sun Deck stands as a serene escape for passengers.

This deck usually features comfortable lounge chairs, inviting you to unwind and lose yourself in a good book, listen to music, or take a nap.

Sunbathing, lounging, and taking in the vast, uninterrupted horizon views. Given its purpose, the name “Sun Deck” is rather fitting—it’s the go-to spot for those seeking to bask in the sun’s warmth.

Whether you’re diving into a captivating book or simply savoring the sunlight, this deck provides a tranquil backdrop.

While many Sun Decks are equipped with luxury amenities like pools and hot tubs, others maintain a more minimalistic approach, adorned solely with deck chairs and loungers.

Yet, regardless of its amenities, one activity remains a favorite among passengers: sipping on a cocktail while watching the breathtaking play of colors during sunrise or sunset.

Bridge Deck

This deck is where the ship’s command center and navigational equipment are located.

Here, the ship’s captain and crew pilot the vessel, utilizing state-of-the-art navigation equipment and controls. Because of its critical nature, the bridge, positioned at the ship’s bow, is typically restricted to passengers.

However, select cruises might grant enthusiasts an exclusive behind-the-scenes look through special tours and meet the officers in charge.

Interestingly, the term “Bridge Deck” isn’t universally applied. While the forward section of this deck houses the pivotal bridge, the remainder often contains regular cabins and amenities.

This dual functionality stems from the deck’s traditional significance.

Historically, raised platforms on ships, resembling bridges, facilitated better visibility for the captain. These “bridges” became crucial vantage points, allowing captains to steer and instruct their crew with a comprehensive view of their surroundings.

Today’s Bridge Deck, with its panoramic vistas, pays homage to these old maritime practices, even though much of its expanse is indistinguishable from other deck areas.

Still, its core remains the ship’s guiding heartbeat, often veiled in mystery but essential to every voyage.

Situated closer to the waterline, the Main Deck stretches from the ship’s front , the bow, right to its tail, the stern, making it an essential part of any cruise vessel.

However, its function isn’t set in stone and can shift based on the cruise line’s design and intent.

On many ships, the Main Deck predominantly hosts cabins, offering passengers their personal slice of the sea journey. But its expansive nature allows for varied uses.

Instead of just lodging, certain cruise lines transform parts of this deck into lively communal spaces. Here, an atrium might rise in splendor, or guests might find themselves mingling in restaurants, sipping cocktails at bars, or getting engrossed in theatrical performances.

Additionally, it could serve as a hub for guest services, featuring the ship’s main reception or lobby, ready to address any passenger inquiries.

In a nutshell, while the Main Deck might imply a standard function, its true role is as fluid as the waters the ship sails on, changing in tune with the cruise line’s vision.

The term “upper deck” often paints a picture of a ship’s highest surface, stretching seamlessly from the bow at the front to the stern at the back. But in modern conversations about cruise ships, “upper decks” often refers not just to a single deck but to the multiple elevated levels, especially when compared to the ship’s lower floors.

These lofty decks, boasting sweeping views of the horizon, are the heart of outdoor relaxation and recreation on most cruise vessels.

They are the go-to spots to find shimmering pools, inviting hot tubs, and sun-drenched lounging areas. It’s where many travelers get their quintessential cruise experience, basking in the sun or taking a refreshing dip with the vast expanse of the sea around them.

Historically speaking, the term “upper deck” holds deeper connotations. Back during the era of sail-powered ships, this elevated space was a coveted zone, usually reserved for the ship’s officers, dignitaries, and other esteemed guests.

In contrast, the lower decks, often less comfortable and more cramped, were designated for the crew and passengers of lower socioeconomic status. But times have changed.

Today, the designation of “upper deck” isn’t about social hierarchies. Instead, it denotes the location of certain amenities or accommodations aboard the ship.

The Main and Upper Decks are now mostly dedicated to passenger accommodations, with cabins and suites of varying types and sizes.

In addition to staterooms, you may find common areas, such as lounges, libraries, or smaller cafes, on these decks as well.

The Crew Deck is reserved for the staff who work on the ship and is mainly off-limits to passengers.

This deck has crew cabins, dining areas, and recreational spaces, ensuring that those who keep the ship running smoothly have a comfortable living environment.

Oftentimes you won’t even see this deck on the ‘map’ as it’s off-limits. There will be cabins for the staff as well as communal spaces, storage, and other backstage activities.

Contemporary cruise ships don’t feature poop decks , but the term often piques curiosity. Contrary to what the name might suggest, it’s unrelated to excrement.

Historically, the “poop deck” described a platform situated at the ship’s aft (back) above the primary deck. It functioned mainly as a vantage point for officers for observation and navigating the vessel.

Now, as for its peculiar name, there’s some debate. Some suggest its origins lie in the French term “la poupe,” signifying the ship’s stern. Another interpretation traces it to the Latin word “puppis,” also indicating the stern of a ship. A more light-hearted (yet unsubstantiated) theory suggests the deck’s placement at the ship’s back allowed any unpleasant odors from waste (or “poop”) to be whisked away by the breeze.

While modern cruise ships lack a designated poop deck, the term still occasionally emerges in conversations, adding a touch of maritime history.

Essentially, the “poop deck” refers to the elevated platform at a ship’s stern, often granting expansive views. And rest assured, its name has no connection to the modern English slang interpretation of “poop.”

Understanding Deck Names

Bow Decks refer to the decks located at the front part of a cruise ship. These areas often host spectacular views and some key facilities, such as the ship’s bridge.

The bridge deck, for instance, houses navigation and command systems, making it a vital component of the vessel’s operation.

Allowing access to the bow can make your cruise experience richer as you get to witness the ship cutting through the waves while enjoying the sea breeze.

Just bear in mind the possible risks that come with walking these decks, like stronger winds and the chance of getting wet from sea spray.

Midship Decks

Midship Decks are found in the central part of a cruise ship, providing a wide range of facilities and public spaces to cater to passengers’ needs and wants.

One essential deck you’ll encounter here is the Promenade Deck, designed for leisurely strolls and fresh air – it often houses shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues.

Similarly, the Lido Deck is a popular area among cruisers, featuring an open-air swimming pool and lounging areas perfect for relaxing under the sun.

Whether you’re seeking tranquility or entertainment, the midship decks is where the majority of stuff is happening…

Stern Decks

Stern Decks are situated at the back of the cruise ship, offering stunning views of the ship’s wake as it powers through the oceans.

One deck to highlight here is the Sun Deck, primarily dedicated to sunbathing and enjoying panoramic vistas.

You can lay back on a deck chair, relax and take in the serene beauty of the ocean. Stern decks usually have multiple levels and even extend to the aft balcony cabins, where you can enjoy the views from the privacy of your stateroom.

These decks give you the opportunity to appreciate gorgeous sunsets and sunrises, making them an essential part of your cruise journey.

Do All Cruise Ships Have The Same Deck Names?

If you’ve been on multiple cruise ships, you’ve likely noticed there is a ‘Lido deck’ on both. And if you’re anything like me, it’s made you stop and wonder, do all cruise ships have the same decks?!

At first glance, if you’ve been on a couple of cruises, you might think, “Yes, they all seem to have similar names.” And to some extent, you’d be right.

However, all cruise ships don’t have the same deck names.

There are certain deck names that have become common favorites across many ships and cruise lines.

Names like Lido Deck , Promenade Deck , or Sun Deck are like old friends that you might run into on various ships. They’re familiar, welcoming, and give passengers a sense of comfort.

However, here’s where the waves get a little choppier. Each cruise line often adds its own flair and flavor to their ships.

Think of them as artists, and their ships as canvases.

Two artists might use the same blue paint, but one might paint a calm ocean, while the other crafts a stormy night sky.

Similarly, while some cruise lines might have a Bridge Deck , another might call it the Navigator’s Deck or some other imaginative title.

For example, if you were to hop aboard a Disney cruise, you might come across deck names that are sprinkled with a touch of pixie dust.

Their names resonate with the whimsy and magic of the brand, like Wonder Deck or Magic Deck . Meanwhile, another cruise line might choose names that evoke luxury and opulence, perhaps naming a deck the Gold Tier or Diamond Lounge .

Another thing to keep in mind: the ship’s purpose and destination. An expedition ship, designed for braving the icy waters of Antarctica, might have decks named after famous explorers or polar phenomena.

On the flip side, a ship tailored for tropical escapades could have names inspired by islands, beaches, or sunny paradises.

What Is The Highest Deck On A Cruise Ship?

The highest deck on a cruise ship is typically the sun deck.

This vantage point offers passengers sweeping, uninterrupted views, allowing them to soak in the vastness of the ocean from every angle.

However, while the sky deck may sit atop the list of decks, it’s worth noting that it isn’t always the absolute highest point on a cruise ship. Other structural elements, like the ship’s funnel or mast, might rise even further into the blue yonder.

Descending just a tad, the highest full deck on many cruise vessels is typically named the sports deck or sun deck.

As the name suggests, it’s a space often dedicated to recreational activities and sunbathing. But, as with many things in the world of cruising, there’s no strict standard.

Depending on the cruise line or even the specific ship within a fleet, this deck might bear a different name or serve a slightly different purpose.

How Many Decks Does The Average Cruise Ship Have?

Cruise ships come in a lot of sizes, each with its own architectural blueprint. On average, you’ll find that a standard cruise ship boasts somewhere between 10 and 15 decks.

However, there are behemoths in the cruising world that break this mold.

Take, for instance, Royal Caribbean’s “Wonder of the Seas,” a titanic presence on the waters, towering with an impressive 22 decks.

The design and number of decks aren’t arbitrary. They are closely tied to the ship’s intent and the waters it sails.

A river cruise, with its narrower confines and calmer waters, will typically have fewer decks in comparison to its ocean-going counterparts. This is both a matter of practicality and the distinct experience each type of cruise aims to offer.

Cruise Ship Operators Deck Naming Conventions

Carnival Cruise Line

Carnival Cruise Line is known for its fun and lively atmosphere, which extends to their deck naming conventions.

On their ships, you’ll find Promenade Deck for strolling and taking in the sights, Lido Deck for pools and outdoor activities, and Spa Deck for relaxation and rejuvenation.

Additionally, Carnival features themed decks such as Riviera and Atlantic Deck , which are often inspired by famous cities or regions around the world.

Royal Caribbean

Royal Caribbean’s fleet has a sense of grandeur and elegance in their deck names. On their ships, you’ll find notable decks like Sun Deck , a perfect spot for sunbathing and enjoying the view, and Pool Deck , where you can splash around in the swimming pools or relax in the hot tubs.

Royal Caribbean also includes unique deck names like Central Park Deck , which offers a lush, green space with outdoor dining and activities, and Boardwalk Deck , where you can enjoy arcade games and entertainment venues.

Norwegian Cruise Line

Norwegian Cruise Line is known for its Freestyle Cruising concept, which translates into flexible and innovative deck names.

On their ships, you’ll discover decks such as Waterfront Deck , where you can stroll along the oceanfront promenade, and Observation Deck , which offers panoramic views and a tranquil setting.

Norwegian also features deck names like The Haven , an exclusive area for guests staying in luxurious suites, and Spice H2O , an adults-only retreat with a bar, pool, and lounge area.

Celebrity Cruises

Celebrity Cruises have a modern luxury vibe, and their deck naming conventions reflect that sophisticated ambiance.

On their ships, you’ll notice decks like Sunset Deck , a prime spot for watching the sun go down, and Resort Deck , which includes pools, lounges, and open-air dining.

Additionally, they feature the unique Magic Carpet Deck on some of their ships, which is a multi-functional platform that can move up and down the side of the ship, transforming into a restaurant, lounge, or disembarkation platform.

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Cruise Ship Crew Accommodations

One of the most common questions cruise ship job applicants have is what the crew cabins and facilities like onboard a cruise ship. Find out where the cabins are located and what to expect from your home away from home. Learn where the crew eat and where they can spend their free time onboard.

Location of Crew and Officer Cabins

There is a misconception that all crew and officers live below the water line. The fact is that there are crew accommodations throughout almost all the decks of the ship. It is true that the lowest ranking crew have their cabins on deck two and three below the water line, here is where else they live.

Some departments have their officers on decks that are close to where they work. For example, most engineer officers will have their cabins on the same deck as the engine control room which is located around deck four. This deck is just above the water line and many junior engine officers will typically have a porthole.

There are many cabins located on that particular deck because the whole deck is a crew only area. Typically that deck (usually deck 4) houses all provisions, food prep areas, the crew mess, crew office, and a corridor that goes from one end of the ship to the other.

Comparatively, most deck officers will have their cabins close to the bridge at the forward part of the ship. On many cruise ships, the forward part of deck 5 and deck 6 are also officer cabin areas with the outside cabins occupied by senior officers.

Layout of Crew and Officer Cabins

With every new ship built, cruise lines are taking the comfort of their crew into consideration. For example on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas there are more single cabins for crew compared to other cruise ships (see video of at single cabin on Oasis of the Seas, last video on this page.)  Note that this type of single cabin shares a bathroom with their next door neighbour. Here are the other types of crew and officer cabins that you can expect on a cruise ship:

Captain’s Cabin – This cabin is the biggest and best cabin out of all the officer’s cabins, obviously. But, the size and amenities of the Captain’s cabin varies from cruise line to cruise line and from ship to ship. Some of the largest Captain’s cabins feature a separate bedroom, a living room, dining room, bathroom with bathtub, and an office. He also has access to his own pantry and his own conference room.

Senior Officer Cabin – This type of cabin also varies from ship to ship, but is considered the best after the Captain’s cabin. They usually have a separate bedroom, a living room and a bathroom with a bathtub. Their office is typically located within their department rather than close to their cabin.

Junior Officer Cabin – Depending on the cruise line will determine if you are considered a junior officer and thereby get a better cabin than other crew. These types of cabins may also be given to staff holding a managerial position. A junior officer cabin is a single cabin where you don’t have to share your room or your bathroom. It may or may not have a porthole or window, depending on rank.

Deluxe Crew Cabin – This type of cabin is where two crew members share a cabin, typically with bunk beds. They also share a bathroom with each other. These types of cabins are small and don’t have a porthole or a window.

Amenities in the Crew Accommodation

Depending on how new the cruise ship is will determine how well the cabin is set up and how new the amenities are inside the cabin. Typically each cabin has one TV. Sometimes, you may get lucky that a previous crew member has left behind a DVD player or a stereo. There is always a mini fridge to be shared with your cabin mates.

The bathrooms are small in even the largest of cabins. There isn’t a lot of space to put toiletries especially if you have to share the space. There is a single wardrobe for each crew member and the space to keep your empty luggage comes down to creativity. There may be space under a bed or above a wardrobe.

Where Crew Eat On Board Cruise Ships

Where you will eat will also depend on your cruise job which is categorized by rank. Lowest ranking crew have only one option, the crew mess. The crew mess is a cafeteria style setting. There are TVs and some crew like to bring their laptops there because there is typically a WiFi signal there.

On large ships there is a Staff Mess which is offered for people that work for one of the onboard concessions such as spa, the gift shops and the photographers. The Staff Mess is typically a mini-crew mess.

There is also an Officer’s Mess onboard each cruise ship. Depending on what the cruise line considers an officer will determine who is allowed to eat there. This is a sit down service where officers are given a menu that they me choose their meal off of.

Officers and some crew members are also allowed to eat in the passengers’ buffet restaurant. Most crew are also permitted to eat in the specialty restaurants on the ship. Generally, they must pay the price that the passengers pay and they may need approval from their head of department for this occasion.

Crew Facilities on a Cruise Ship

Depending on the cruise ship, there are also a range of crew facilities (usually the bigger and newer the ship, the better the facilities). Most cruise ships have at least a crew recreation area that can be used as a crew internet area and a disco in the evening hours. On bigger ships, these facilities are separated into three separate areas. These spaces are equipped with table games, board games, library of books and DVDs and comfortable sitting areas.

Other facilities for crew include a number of crew and officer launderettes, a crew gym, and a crew store. Officers and some crew members are also permitted to use the passenger gym facilities. More and more cruise ships are making all crew cabins wireless (need to purchase prepaid internet card).

Videos of Cruise Ship Crew Accommodations

Princess Cruises:  Crew cabin on board Golden Princess

Carnival Cruise Lines: Crew Cabin on Carnival Dream

Norwegian Cruise Lines: Officer Cabin on Norwegian Jewel

Royal Caribbean: Crew Areas on Voyager of the Seas

Royal Caribbean: Crew Cabin on Oasis of the Seas

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Celebrity Blog

• Choosing a Cruise
• Planning / Booking A Cruise
• Preparing For Your Cruise
• Special Occasions
• What To Expect On A Cruise
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What Deck Is Best on a Cruise Ship?

By Sue Bryant

Last updated: March 13th, 2023

• Find a Cruise

A cruise ship is like a small, deluxe, floating city, and like any city, there are different neighborhoods to suit different tastes. Most cruise lines allow you to select your stateroom at the time of booking, but if you’ve never cruised before, where do you start? How do you even know which deck to go for?

Perhaps you want to be high up on the ship, where the finest suites are located. Or maybe a stateroom near the spa would work best for you.

If you have mobility challenges, choosing the right deck is important to ensure you have the perfect cruise. Or maybe you’re traveling as a family, in which case, proximity to the pool deck would be a priority.

With all this in mind, read on to narrow down what deck is best on a cruise ship to meet your personal sailing style.

Find Your Way Around

Resort Deck on Celebrity Beyond

Before you start thinking about which would be the best deck for you, a word about numbering. The lowest deck on the ship won’t necessarily be Deck 1. Remember, there are hundreds of crew to be accommodated, too, and their decks are below the guest areas.

Not all decks have accommodation; on Celebrity’s ships, you’ll generally find entire decks dedicated to restaurants, bars, shops, and entertainment spaces. Much higher up, you’ll find sparkling pools, and on Solstice-series ships, the lush Lawn Club. There’s no Deck 13; seafarers are a superstitious crowd and the number is considered unlucky.

Read: Cruises vs Resorts: Which Is Best?

Best Decks For Families

Celebrity Beyond Pool

Anyone with children in tow can understand how frustrating it can be to get settled in your poolside deck chair and suddenly remember you’ve forgotten something—the sunblock, for example.

You then have to go all the way back to your stateroom to find the offending item, which on a large ship, can take time.

So if your family loves to splash around and you think you’ll be by the pool a lot, the best deck on a cruise ship for you would be high up, as close to the pool (which is always on one of the upper decks) as possible.

You’re also in a convenient location for the delicious wares of the Oceanview Café, which on all Celebrity ships is located near the pools. This airy buffet restaurant is where you’ll most likely find your teens, who may well gravitate towards fresh-made pizza or sizzling burgers. Mast Grill is also nearby, a favorite spot for burgers and fries.

Penthouse Suite on Celebrity Edge

When cruising with kids , families may also want to consider decks where there are interconnecting staterooms. Choose adjacent staterooms with a door between them and you’ve created a single family space that still allows some privacy.

On Solstice-series ships, most of these are on Decks 6, 7 and 8, although others are scattered around the ship. They’re clearly marked on the deck plans.

Alternatively, savvy parents may choose a veranda stateroom for themselves and an interior across the corridor for their kids. On some ships, the lower decks have more interior accommodation, although Celebrity’s Edge-series are different, with interiors opposite veranda staterooms on Decks 7 through 12 inclusive.

Read: How to Plan a Cruise for a Large Family

Best Decks For Luxury

Celebrity Edge Villa

On most cruise ships, the most luxurious accommodation is on the upper decks. Here, you’ll find a selection of elegant suites, with generous outdoor space, separate living areas, and amenities ranging from all-inclusive drinks to the service of a concierge. An exception is Celebrity’s Millennium-series ships, where you’ll find the Penthouse Suite on Deck 6.

On Celebrity’s ships, this ultimate luxury vacation experience is called The Retreat® . Opt for The Retreat and you’ll enjoy exclusive dining at the chic restaurant, Luminae at The Retreat, featuring signature dishes by Celebrity’s Global Culinary Ambassador and world-renowned chef, Daniel Boulud.

The Retreat Sundeck on Celebrity Beyond

You’ll also enjoy access (on certain ships) to The Retreat Sundeck, an outdoor sanctuary of sumptuous deck chairs, a private pool or hot tub, drinks service, and The Retreat Lounge, a serene space exclusive to guests of The Retreat, perfect for unwinding or enjoying a cocktail.

So if you’re a devotee of the good life, you’ll find your happy place mainly on decks 10, 11, and 12 on Solstice- and Edge-series ships.

Even more luxurious is the accommodation on Decks 15 and 16 on Edge-series ships. These magnificent duplex Edge Villas come with their own private plunge pool and floor-to-ceiling glass.

Or consider the two Iconic Villas on Deck 12; on top of the navigation bridge, these are some of the most lavish accommodations anywhere at sea, where you’ll enjoy a view as good as the captain’s.

Best Decks For Romantics

Infinite Veranda Stateroom on Celebrity Beyond

The romantic potential of any setting is, of course, highly subjective, but there’s something special on a cruise about gazing out over the wake as the ship sails to its next port.

If you love the idea of this, then choose a stateroom at the very stern (back) end of the ship, and for the best views, opt for the highest deck possible.

Sunset Veranda Stateroom on Celebrity Edge

On Celebrity’s Edge-series ships, these Sunset Veranda staterooms are located on Decks 7 to 12 and have deeper verandas than the accommodations on the sides of the ships. You’ll find them on other classes of ship, too, in various categories.

Best Decks For Spa Fans

AquaClass Sky Suite on Celebrity Beyond

Celebrity’s ships have the perfect accommodations for spa lovers, called AquaClass®, generally located on the higher decks.

Choose AquaClass and you’ll enjoy all sorts of benefits, from healthy cuisine in the exclusive Blu restaurant to yoga mats, in-room bottled water (daily), premium bath products, well-being on demand TV, and a luxurious,king-size cashmere™ mattress in your stateroom, featuring Celebrity eXhale bedding.

Sea Thermal Suite on Celebrity Beyond

Possibly the best feature of AquaClass is unlimited access to the plush surroundings of the thermal suite in the spa. This is called the Persian Garden on Millennium- and Solstice-series ships and the Sea Thermal Suite on Edge-series.

Celebrity Beyond Spa

If you intend to make full use of the steam rooms, saunas, and heated mosaic loungers with dreamy sea views, it makes sense to choose a stateroom near the spa, especially if you’re likely to wander between the spa and your stateroom in your robe (which is perfectly acceptable but could feel awkward in a busy elevator).

All Celebrity’s ships are slightly different, but on Celebrity Reflection, for example, the gorgeous Aqua Sky Suites, the finest AquaClass accommodations, are on Deck 12, right next to the spa.

Read: Cruise Ship Spas: Everything You Need to Know

Best Decks For Views

Infinite Veranda Stateroom on Celebrity Apex

The higher up the ship you are located, the more dramatic the views. If you want to take in those extraordinary Alaskan mountains and glaciers, or gaze over the cliffside villages and tiny fishing harbors of Italy’s Amalfi Coast from your private veranda, aim for a deck as high up the ship as you can.

Others might argue that the best decks for closer views of the sea and what’s going on outside are the lower decks. It really depends on your itinerary.

If, for example, your cruise takes you into the Panama Canal, a lower deck with veranda staterooms, say Deck 6 or Deck 7, would get you closer to the action as your ship glides through the locks of this engineering marvel.

Humpback whale

In a lower deck stateroom, you’ll also get closer to wildlife in places where it’s common to spot marine creatures from the ship .

In Alaska, dolphins and whales are frequent sightings. Install yourself on your veranda with a pair of binoculars and you could see these magnificent mammals surprisingly close up.

Best Decks For Fitness Fanatics

Resort Deck

Enjoying a luxurious cruise can go hand-in-hand with maintaining your fitness routine, especially on Celebrity’s ships, all of which have excellent fitness centers and a wide range of classes and activities, like basketball and pickleball. Keep your motivation up and stay fit on a cruise by choosing a stateroom on a deck close to the fitness center.

On Solstice-series ships, this is Deck 12. You can leap straight out of bed, no excuses, and head straight for the treadmill. One deck higher, Deck 14, has a wonderful running track that looks down on the pool and out to sea. Go for your morning jog while breathing in the sea air and taking in the views.

Fitness Center on Celebrity Beyond

On Edge-series ships, the Fitness Center is on Deck 15 and the running track spans both Deck 15 and Deck 16, so opt for a stateroom forward on Deck 11 or Deck 12 and you’ll never be too far from your Peloton bike.

Choosing a stateroom high up on the ship is a good discipline, too, if you can get into the habit of using the stairs rather than the elevator (you could perhaps excuse yourself in the evenings when wearing high heels).

Wear a fitness tracker on your cruise and you’ll be amazed at how many steps you can amass by walking up and down the stairs.

Read: Things to Do Outdoors on a Cruise Ship

Best Decks For The Less Mobile

Accessible Stateroom on Celebrity Apex

If you study the deck plans of your chosen ship, you’ll see that some staterooms are indicated with a wheelchair sign. These are accessible staterooms, adapted for wheelchair users. Generally speaking, although not exclusively, they’re near the elevators for reasons of convenience.

If you don’t use a wheelchair but are nonetheless a little challenged when it comes to mobility, think about how you will get around the ship. Are you likely to spend all of your time on the sun deck? In that case, opt for a stateroom near the elevators, high up.

Or do you think you’ll split your time between the sun deck and the entertainment spaces on the lower decks? If this is you, then choose a stateroom close to the elevators on one of the middle accommodation decks, say, Deck 7 or Deck 8, putting you in the heart of the ship without having to tackle long walks.

Read: Accessible Travel Guide

Best Decks For Speedy Trips Ashore

This may seem like a minor consideration but if you’re the kind of person who takes a while to get organized in the mornings, but you want to get ashore and explore a new port as soon as possible, choose a stateroom on a lower deck.

While the gangway on a ship isn’t always in the same place because of tidal ranges and the different docking facilities in each port, you can pretty well guarantee that it’s going to be low down.

So get a head start. Prepare all your belongings for the adventure of the day. Have breakfast in one of the ship’s main dining rooms, which are always located on a lower deck. Then stroll back to your stateroom with no need to wait for an elevator, and head straight for the gangway, giving yourself maximum time to enjoy the delights that await ashore.

Read: Port Vs. Starboard: What Side of the Ship Is Best?

Best Decks For Getting Your Sea Legs

Infinite Veranda Stateroom on Celebrity Edge

Motion sickness is something a lot of new cruisers fear, often without need, as contemporary ships are smooth and stable. But if you do worry that you might feel a little unwell, think about the location of your stateroom.

The most stable part of the ship is its lowest point of gravity, so on a lower deck, at the center. You’d feel a lot less motion here than, say, in a stateroom on the upper decks a long way forward or aft (towards the back of the ship).

Iconic Suite on Celebrity Edge

Having a stateroom with a window is a good idea; the vast majority of staterooms on Celebrity’s ships have either a window or a private veranda, so you can keep your eyes on the horizon, which works for a lot of people.

Or if you feel comforted by private outside space open to the sea breezes, then opt for a veranda stateroom on the lowest possible deck, at the center.

Celebrity Beyond Villa

Ready to choose the best deck on a cruise ship for your dream vacation? Browse Celebrity’s itineraries and plan the voyage of a lifetime.

Sue has been writing about cruising for 20 years and is lucky enough to have sailed all seven continents. She lives in London, where she is cruise editor of The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers, as well as a freelance contributor to magazines and websites worldwide.

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Crew Life on Cruise Ships: Ship Life & Crew Areas | Ultimate Guide

All You Need to Know about Crew Life onboard a Cruise Ship: Ship Life & Crew Areas

Before I joined a cruise ship for the first time as a Shore excursions staff , I couldn’t imagine how the life onboard cruise ships actually looked like. All I knew was that I was going to spend seven months at sea, with people I didn’t know and doing a job that I didn’t know much about.

The first few days on a cruise ship were confusing, both fun and challenging… On the first day, I didn’t manage to find my cabin for 45 minutes. I was literally wandering around corridors trying to figure out the ship’s layout. The first days were stuffed with trainings, familiarization with the crew areas, rules, regulations, ship in general, and learning about the job itself, of course.

Whether you are joining a ship as a new hire , or you are just curious to see how the crew life onboard a cruise ship looks like, in this article, I share with you useful insider information and an insight into the crew areas and how we spend our days at sea.

Cruise Ship Crew Life – What to Expect

One of the things you will often hear people saying is that once you experience life at sea, the life on land will never be the same – and I couldn’t agree more.

Living and working on a cruise ship is one of the most rewarding experiences you can get for a lifetime. It involves not only getting paid for what you do but also traveling and seeing the world, interacting with people from different social backgrounds, meeting new cultures and traditions. Working on cruise ships is more of a lifestyle than a simple job where you get to earn money for what you do.

Depending on the ship’s size, you will be sharing your living space with hundreds and thousands of people from all around the world. You will be eating, sleeping, working, hanging out, partying, and spending time together. You will make new friends, relationships, experience break-ups, tough times with your coworkers, go through ups and downs.

Be prepared for hard work! Your free time will mainly depend on your job position, as well as your “privileges” and rights. However, whatever your job position is, we all get the same chance to enjoy the ship life and the opportunities offered.

Suggested articles:

10 Things to Know Before You Apply for a Cruise Ship Job

11 Things You Would Never Expect to Be Part of Your Cruise Ship Job

In the sections below, I want to share with you some basic things you need to know about the organization of crew life on a cruise ship and walk you through the crew areas where the crew spends most of their free time.

Disclaimer: Keep in mind that many things have changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and that rules, regulations, and ship life organization mainly depend on current cruise line policies and health protocols. 

Given the fact that crew members’ contracts vary from 2 to 9 months, crew life is organized in a way to facilitate the crew members’ life onboard. Accommodation, food, and the use of crew areas are free for all crew members during the whole duration of their contract, which allows us to save money and not spend it on basic life needs.

The majority of crew areas are located on decks zero, 1, 2, or 3, however, this varies by ship size and layout. Read below about the main crew areas onboard cruise ships.

1. Crew Cabins

Most people and new hires are curious to know how our crew cabins look like. First of all, there are two types of crew cabins – single-shared and double-shared cabins , meaning that most of us need to share a cabin with a roommate, usually from the same or similar department.

They are normally located on decks zero, 1, and 2, whereas Bridge officers have their cabins on higher decks closer to the bridge.

Crew cabins are tiny and usually consist of a bunk bed, a closet (with drawers and shelves), a mini-fridge, a TV, a small desk, a chair or two, and a bathroom. Each cabin has its own bathroom, which is good because you share it with only one person.

Depending on your job position and title, you may be assigned a single cabin, meaning that you will have your own privacy and most probably housekeeping service.

If you want to read an in-depth review of crew cabins, I suggest you read my article Inside Cruise Ship Crew Cabins Full Review (2021)

2. Main Crew Corridor

Known as I-95 onboard Royal Caribbean cruise ships (named after the famous highway in the USA), every cruise ship has the main crew corridor that runs from the aft (the back of the ship) to the forward of the ship on deck 1.

The majority of the crew cabins are located around this main corridor, which can get extremely busy during the embarkation/debarkation times.

On the surrounding walls, you will find numerous boards filled with important ship rules, regulations, announcements, trainings, activities, and all relevant information for the crew.

While walking down the i-95 corridor, make sure you wear appropriate footwear as it can be very slippery and busy with trolleys and working crew.

Suggested article: Life Onboard a Cruise Ship: 18 Crew Cabins Must-Haves

3. Crew Mess

Crew members onboard cruise ships have their own places to eat, known as “crew mess” and “staff mess”. These are practically buffet-style canteens offering various food choices, from Asian to international cuisine. Depending on the ship size and the number of crew members, there might be a couple of these, two or more, onboard each ship.

Accommodation and food are free for all crew members. Besides the three main meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner), there are snacks in between and you can always go for filtered coffee, tea, or water in a crew mess. If you want to drink a cappuccino or more quality coffee options, you can order it in a crew bar for an extra fee.

Water on cruise ships is usually potable, however, it is strongly recommended to use bottled water that you can buy in a crew shop for a reasonable fee. You can always buy a case of water and store them in your cabin.

Now, the canteens for crew members are known as crew mess and staff mess .

“Crew mess” is normally dedicated to crew members without stripes, and the food served here is usually Asian cuisine, as the majority of crew members come from the Philipines, India, and other Asian countries.

“Staff mess” usually offers international cuisine and is dedicated to staff and officers.

However, there is usually no difference and everyone is allowed to eat whenever they want.

Based on your rank or title, you may be allowed to eat in guest areas and restaurants in the evening, and this applies only to staff members and higher positions. You may also be allowed to have dinner at specialty restaurants for an extra fee with discounts applied.

Bridge officers and higher management positions are welcome to eat in guest restaurants whenever they want.

4. Crew Bar

Crew bar is one of the most lively areas on a cruise ship. Based on the size of the ship, there might be one or more crew bars on each ship.

It normally consists of an inside area and so-called “back deck”, an open deck where smoking is allowed and where parties and crew events take place. You need to pay for the drinks in a crew bar (starting at $2 per drink), except when the HR department throws theme or “all crew parties” where they offer free soft drinks and beers for all crew members.

There are various events organized on a weekly level, including bingo, raffle, music and food events (wine and cheese, fish and chips nights, etc.), movie nights, and more. These are announced on an information board that you will find in crew areas hanging on the wall.

However, keep in mind that due to the new regulations following the Covid-19 pandemic these might be limited, and vary by companies’ and ships’ management.

5. Crew Laundry Area

Crew members have their own dedicated laundry area that consists of a multitude of washing and dryer machines that are operational 24/7.

The laundry service is free and every crew member is responsible for washing their own clothes and uniforms (although there is an option to have your uniforms washed by the laundry department, however, this takes a few days and I always used to wash uniforms on my own).

You need to use your own washing products that you can purchase in a crew shop known as “slop chest”. Inside the laundry area, you will find ironing boards where you can iron your stuff as ironing inside the crew cabins is not allowed.

As for your cabin sheets, pillowcases and towels, you don’t need to wash these – You can simply discharge the dirty items in the main laundry room and ask the laundry crew to get you the clean ones. Here, you can also grab toilet paper and cleaning products for your bathroom.

Useful tip: I mentioned that the laundry is operational 24/7, however, it usually gets busy during specific peak hours when the majority of crew members have their break. If you are planning to wash your stuff, make sure you avoid these hours.

6. Slop Chest

Every cruise ship has its own slop chest, which is basically a store where the crew can buy snacks, water, soft drinks, hygiene products, cleaning items, and more.

Prices here may be higher than if you buy the products outside in port, so I suggest you buy all you need in a supermarket/shops outside the ship if you find any because that will most probably save you some money.

7. Crew Gym

Every cruise ship has a dedicated gym for its crew members. The size of a gym varies by the ship size and the number of crew members, and these are free, fully equipped, and open 24/7.

Some job positions (staff members, stripe officers) are allowed to use the guest gym at specific time slots (mostly in the evening) however this is now vastly limited and is nowadays based on the Covid-19 regulations.

8. Internet Cafe

Cruise ships feature an internet cafe where crew members can surf and chat with their friends and family back home. This room is equipped with a multitude of computers that crew members can also use to do their job duties, more specifically the company-assigned tasks and trainings, and other online and IT-related jobs.

Some programs and websites can be accessed for free (if it’s for business purposes), however, you need to pay for the internet you use.

Wi-fi internet can be quite expensive and there are several packages you can opt for (daily, weekly, monthly packages). During the Covid-19 pandemic, many companies have provided their crew with an hour or more of free internet.

9. Playroom/Crew Lounge

Besides the crew bar and a coffee shop, there is normally a dedicated area for the crew who wants to play pool table games, table tennis, table football, darts, and other social games.

There is also a library filled with books that the crew members can borrow for free.

10. Incinerator Room

You have probably been wondering where the crew members throw their garbage. Saving and taking care of the environment is a high priority for cruise lines, and there are numerous programs applied to maintain and save the ocean and the environment in general.

Recycling is widely promoted among the crew members and there is a multitude of trainings that enforce us to take the whole save-the-environment concept very seriously.

All crew members collect the garbage inside their crew cabins (bins are available) and once it’s full, the trash needs to be taken to the incinerator room where the items are sorted into differently designated bins. There are bins for glass, paper, plastic, electronics, cans, and there are a couple of incinerators where the rest of the trash is burnt under the supervision of trained staff working in that division.

The incinerator room is normally smelly and can be very slippery, so it’s very important to wear comfortable shoes while walking around (avoid flip-flops, slippers, etc.).

The incinerator crew is always there to assist you to separate the trash in case you need it.

11. Medical Facility

Guests’ and crew members’ health is a top priority for cruise lines and there is a dedicated medical facility onboard each cruise ship for both guests and crew. This medical facility is usually located on deck 1 and is shared, however, there are separate entrances for guests and crew.

All crew members are provided with health insurance and medical care free of charge during the whole duration of their contract. Depending on a cruise ship size, there are a couple of doctors and nurses in charge of the Medical department that you can always address to.

Besides performing their job duties, crew members spend most of their free time outside in ports when available, or inside the crew areas that I mentioned above.

The crew life is organized in a way to make life easier and fun for all crew members, and the department in charge of this is the crew HR department.

Crew HR Department

Every cruise ship has a dedicated HR department that takes care of crew members’ needs, paperwork, payments, crew activities, and everything related to the crew members in general.

This is the first place where you’ll go once you join the cruise ship, regardless of whether you are a new hire or a returning crew member.

The HR department will assign you a cabin based on your job position and vacancies available; they will issue you a cabin key, an ID card that you’ll use for payments onboard the ship, exiting/entering the ship, etc., an emergency card…

If you have some special requests, or you want to complain about something, you can head to the HR team who will help you resolve your issues.

The HR department is also responsible for organizing all crew-related activities, including parties, bingo, raffle, movie nights, and more. These can widely depend on the HR team and HR manager themselves, so the organization of the crew life is not the same on all the ships.

There are usually a couple of crew ATMs onboard each ship and they are located within crew areas. They allow you to withdraw your money in dollars and there is a small fee to pay for each withdrawal transaction (around $2 per transaction). In case that these don’t work, you can go to the HR department who will assist you.

Crew Drills

Safety and security are the top priorities for all crew members working onboard a cruise ship. There are drills organized every cruise, and each crew member is assigned an emergency function and muster station during the whole duration of their contract.

All crew members must be familiarized with the ship’s layout, fire zones, main crew/guest areas, emergency stations, and all relevant to the ship’s safety and how to manage emergency situations.

There are many trainings that all crew members need to go through, both online and onboard, and these are constantly updated.

Whether you are joining a ship as a new hire or a returning crew member, there will be a lot of trainings that you need to do, both online before joining a ship and onboard.

The trainings are organized on various topics, including environmental topics, zero tolerance, safety and security topics, crowd management, and many others.

You will be advised which trainings to do by your direct supervisor or a dedicated app.

In this article, I did my best to give you a simple overview of our crew life and areas where we spend our time when working on a cruise ship.

However, bear in mind that many rules and regulations have changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and these widely depend on the cruise companies’ health protocols and policies.

If you want to read more about crew life, I suggest you take a look at my articles:

Working on Cruise Ships: How to Apply for a Cruise Ship Job?

Inside Crew Cabins on Cruise Ships – Full Review 2021

Food and Beverage Department – Working as a Cruise Ship Waiter?

10 Things to Know before Applying for Cruise Ship Job

Security Jobs onboard Cruise Ships – What You Need to Know

New Hire? This is How Your First Day on a Cruise Ship Looks Like

Life Onboard a Cruise Ship: 18 Crew Cabins Must-Haves

Life of a Cruise Ship Photographer – Crew Member’s Story

Working as a Guest Services Representative on a Cruise Ship

This article may contain Amazon affiliate / compensated links. For full information, please see my disclaimer here.

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Cruise Ship Jobs - Deck Officers / Ratings and Security Positions

Back to All Shipboard Positions

The Deck Department on a cruise ship is a part of the Marine Operations division. The primary responsibilities of the Deck Officers and Ratings are the safe navigation of the vessel plus all safety and security aspects of the ship's operations, including guests, officers, crew and staff members. Although the actual head of the department is the Staff Captain, the highest ranking person aboard - the Captain/Master of the ship (at least due to the nature of his profession - a Deck Officer) is considered a member of the Deck department. There are in general two different types of positions - Deck Officers (Captain; Staff Captain; 1st, 2nd, 3rd Officers; Safety Officer; Security Officer; Deck Cadet) and Deck Ratings - Boatswain/Bosun, Carpenter, Able Seaman Unlimited, Ordinary Seaman Entry Level and Deckhand.

Please, click on each position in order to review job description, duties, responsibilities and salary range:

Captain / Master

The Captain is the highest ranking officer and the Master of the cruise ship. He/she has a full authority to make executive decisions in order to preserve the life and safety of the ship's personnel and guest and must apply extreme care and proper judgement according to...

Staff Captain

Safety officer, environmental compliance officer.

The ECO (or just EO) is a three-stripe, non-watch standing officer responsible for oversight and verification of the cruise line environmental policies, the training, implementation, and verification of regulatory compliance as it relates to applicable environmental laws. The EO reports directly to...

1st Officer - Navigation

The Officer of the Watch (OOW) is a designated navigation officer and on behalf of the Master is responsible for all navigational and watch keeping issues. Reports ot the Staff Captain and...

2nd Officer

The 2nd Officer is a two-stripe Navigation and Watch Keeping Officer and Bridge Team Member. During his/her watch the OOW is representing the Master and is in command on...

3rd Officer

The Third Officer is an assistant to the OOW or the Junior Watch Keeping Officer on the ship. Reports to the Officer of the Watch (either 1st or 2nd Officer) for navigation and watch keeping aspects and to the Staff Captain for all other...

Apprentice Deck Officer

This position should not be mixed up with a Deck Cadet Program. The candidates for Apprentice Deck Officer must be Nautical School students or graduates who are seeking practical experience or young Navigation Officers working aboard merchant or...

Some cruise lines offer fantastic Deck Cadet training programs for young people who wish to pursue a career as a Deck (Navigation) Officer aboard cruise ships. The best thing about these programs is that they are fully sponsored by the companies - once a candidate is selected, the company is paying the tuition fees and even pays a salary during the training. Upon...

Chief Security Officer

The Chief Security Officer is a three-stripe officer who is in charge of implementing the company security policies and all security operations on board the cruise ship both at sea and while in port. He/she must be professionally trained security expert, familiar with illegal drugs trafficking and anti-terrorist countermeasures...

Deputy Security Officer

The Deputy Security Officer is a two-stripe officer. His/her main responsibility is to control and supervise all points of entry to the cruise ship - gangways and tender docking stations...

Security Guard

The Security Guard controls points of entry to the ship and the screening process of guests, crew and their luggage. While the ship is in port the Security Guard operates at the Gangway, while on anchor...

Bosun (Boatswain)

The Bosun or also named Boatswain is an experienced sailor and the head of the unlicensed deck crew (ratings) aboard the cruise ship. In conjunction with the Staff Captain the Bosun plans and schedules all activities in regards to ...

Quartermaster (Helmsman) - QM

The Quartermaster (QM), also named Helmsman is an unlicensed member of the deck crew, an Able Seaman who is performing also Bridge Watch Keeping duties. The main duties and...

Able Seaman - AB

The Able Seaman (AB) is a non-officer member of the deck crew (deck rating position) responsible for routine maintenance of the deck and hull of the ship, operation of tenders, lifeboats and rescue boats and...

Ordinary Seaman - OS

The Ordinary Seaman (OS) is is an unlicensed member of the deck department of the cruise ship. This is the entry level non-watch standing position in the department and the OS acts as an apprentice of...

The Carpenter is a member of the Deck Department and is responsible for all carpentry work and various woodwork and general repairs aboard the cruise ship during the voyage. One of...

Fireman - Firefighting Team Leader

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Deck Overview

The onboard Deck departments are responsible for the navigation and safety of each ship within the iconic Cunard fleet. The Captain, Deputy Captain, and Safety Officer all work together to ensure the safe navigation, passage and safety of the ship and her guests 24 hours a day. In addition to the Deck team, the Security and Marine departments (responsible for the seagoing maintenance of the ship) also report in to the Deputy Captain. The Captain/ Master is the head of the ship and all aspects of its operation.

Career Path

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Royal Caribbean

Adventure Of The Seas Overview   |  Deck Plans    |  Cabins

Brilliance Of The Seas  Overview   |  Deck Plans    |  Cabins

Freedom of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Grandeur of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Liberty of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Rhapsody of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Serenade of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Spectrum of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Utopia of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Explorer of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Mariner of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Navigator of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Oasis of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Odyssey of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Quantum of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Anthem of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Enchantment of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Harmony of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Jewel of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Ovation of the Seas Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Cruise

Carnival Breeze  Overview   |  Deck Plans    |  Cabins

Carnival Conquest  Overview   |  Deck Plans    |   Cabins

Carnival Glory Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Jubilee Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Firenze Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Liberty Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Horizon Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Sunrise Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Legend Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Paradise Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Celebration Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Radiance Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Magic Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Miracle Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Freedom Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Dream Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Panorama Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Vista Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Elation Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Carnival Sunshine Overview  |  Deck Plans   |   Cabins

Norwegian Cruise Line

Norwegian Bliss  Overview   |  Deck Plans    |  Cabins

Norwegian Breakaway  Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Viva Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Pride of America Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Sun Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Jade Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Dawn Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Encore Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Epic Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Escape Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Gem Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Getaway Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Jewel Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Joy Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Pearl Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

Norwegian Prima Overview  |  Deck Plans   |  Cabins

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How to Select Cruise Cabin for a Perfect Journey?

Welcome to Cruise Deck Info , your one-stop solution to know all things about cruise ships! We have detailed overviews of major ocean cruise ships from all the major cruise lines. For each ship, you get up-to-date cruise deck plans , giving you the complete information for planning your cruise trip before you sail.

Our website helps you in selecting the perfect cruise for your next adventure. Find extensive cabin information, including types, categories, and accessible room options. 

Find complete details about the cruise line, individual ships, and a comprehensive breakdown of each deck to make an informed decision, tailored to your desires and expectations. Each ship page contains cabin photos and detailed descriptions of amenities and square footages.

Our website offers a detailed overview of the cruise ships, deck plans with room numbers,  and major On board activities. We aim to provide all cruise information you need to make a decision for your next Cruise trip..

But we don’t stop there! We also provide each ship’s list of onboard activities, entertainment & dining options, and much more. We have mentioned what’s not available on each ship, to have all the facts at your fingertips.

Scroll through actual photos of the ships and their decks to get to know about the cruise life. Whether you’re planning your next trip or just dreaming of the open ocean, Cruise Deck Info makes researching your perfect cruise fun. Find everything you need, all in one place, with just a few clicks.

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Explora I Decks and Cabins

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Explora I cruise ship weighs 64k tons and has 461 staterooms for up to 922 passengers served by 700 crew . There are 13 passenger decks, 5 with cabins. You can expect a space ratio of 69 tons per passenger on this ship. On this page are the current deck plans for Explora I showing deck plan layouts, public venues and all types of cabins including pictures and videos.

LIVE SHIP TRACKING

STATEROOM CABINS COMPLETE LIST BELOW

OWNERS RESIDENCE SUITE

Floor Diagram

Sleeps up to: 2 1 Cabins Cabin: 1668 sqft (157 m 2 ) Balcony: 1345 sqft (126 m 2 )

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Deck locations, stateroom cabin features, stateroom cabin perks, cocoon residence suite.

Sleeps up to: 2 2 Cabins Cabin: 797 sqft (75 m 2 ) Balcony: 807 sqft (76 m 2 )

SERENITY RESIDENCE SUITE

Sleeps up to: 2 4 Cabins Cabin: 646 sqft (61 m 2 ) Balcony: 570 sqft (54 m 2 )

RETREAT RESIDENCE SUITE

Sleeps up to: 2 6 Cabins Cabin: 678 sqft (64 m 2 ) Balcony: 151 sqft (14 m 2 )

COVE RESIDENCE SUITE

Sleeps up to: 2 10 Cabins Cabin: 603 sqft (57 m 2 ) Balcony: 151 sqft (14 m 2 )

GRAND PENTHOUSE SUITE

Sleeps up to: 2 10 Cabins Cabin: 506 sqft (48 m 2 ) Balcony: 104 sqft (10 m 2 )

 Accessible Info [+/-]

Premier penthouse suite.

Sleeps up to: 2 40 Cabins Cabin: 452 sqft (42 m 2 ) Balcony: 108 sqft (10 m 2 )

DELUXE PENTHOUSE SUITE

Sleeps up to: 2 10 Cabins Cabin: 409 sqft (38 m 2 ) Balcony: 108 sqft (10 m 2 )

PENTHOUSE SUITE

Sleeps up to: 2 7 Cabins Cabin: 366 sqft (34 m 2 ) Balcony: 97 sqft (9 m 2 )

OCEAN GRAND TERRACE SUITE

Sleeps up to: 2 70 Cabins Cabin: 301 sqft (28 m 2 ) Balcony: 118 sqft (11 m 2 )

OCEAN TERRACE SUITE

Sleeps up to: 2 301 Cabins Cabin: 301 sqft (28 m 2 ) Balcony: 75 sqft (7 m 2 )

Explora I Deck Page Menu

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The Parts of the Cruise Ship You Don't Get to See: What Do the Crew Quarters Look Like?

Hidden belowdecks, they've got their own gyms, bars, hair salons, mess halls and more.

Your average cruise ship can have hundreds to thousands of crew members on board. While it's obvious that they must have their own bunks, passengers may not realize that crew members have an entire ecosystem hidden belowdecks.

Crew members have to be physically fit to meet the demands of the job, and staff must be physically presentable as they're in the hospitality industry. They need to blow off steam between shifts, and eat, and drink, and party. Mingling with guests is a no-no, so crew members have separate gyms, hair salons, laundromats, restaurants, bars, clubs, jacuzzis, swimming pools and more. The quality of these differs from ship to ship, and we'll take a look at a range of them here.

Cruise Hive is an enthusiast website run by Emrys Thakkar, a longtime cruise ship employee. On the site he provides a guided tour of the crew facilities on a Carnival ship :

The Main Corridor

Thakkar refers to this as "I-95," as it's the main corridor that crew members use to travel the length of the ship.

Laundry Facilities

The crew laundry, along with ironing stations so staff member stay crisp-looking.

Internet Cafe

While crew members have WiFi throughout their quarters, the dedicated crew internet cafe is where the signal is strongest.

Crew Barber

Since crew members are out to sea for months at a time, they need a dedicated place to manage those coifs.

Not just a dining area, but the after-shift hangout spot where crew members can watch sporting events on the TV. And Thakkar provides this poignant bit of information: "One of the best times to eat in the mess is at midnight, it is when food not used in the guest dining rooms head on down to the crew," i.e. the fancy desserts that guests have taken a pass on.

There's a distinction between crew and staff. The former help operate the ship and its systems, while the latter are the retail and hospitality employees. Staff dine in a separate area from crew.

Officers Dining Rooms

Thakkar says there are two side-by-side dining rooms that only the Captain and the Officers are allowed to use. Inside they are waited on, like guests.

It doesn't offer the ocean view that the guest gyms do, but there's plenty of iron to pump.

The social hotspot for crew members, it opens every night and gets "really busy" around 9 or 10pm, Thakkar writes. And drinks here cost a lot less than they do abovedecks: "Prices are very cheap, I'm not going to tell you how much because it is so cheap you won't like it!"

Crew Pools and Jacuzzis

"You might have wondered what that area is with the jacuzzis or small pool down below near the ship's bow. This is an area where the crew can head on out for some fresh air. When off-duty they can relax in the pools as much as they want and enjoy the stunning ocean views."

You'll notice there are no shots of sleeping quarters. I couldn't find any on the site, but I did find this YouTube video of a crew or staff member on an unnamed ship giving a tour of her room. It's pretty dang tight:

Depending on the cruise line, facilities can get a lot swankier, as we'll see next.

Crew Center is a website run by ex-crew members who share experiences and offer helpful tips to newbies. On their Crew Facilities section, they feature photographs from different ships to give you a sense of the range. For instance, check out the facilities on a Celebrity Cruises Edge Class ship :

Crew Bar/Lounge

Crew Game Room

Crew Outdoor Lounge

Crew Coffee Shop

Not too shabby, eh? And I have to say it goes up a level from there on an AIDA Cruises Hyperion Class ship:

Crew Restaurant

Crew Hair Salon

Crew Jacuzzi (w/ hilarious slogan)

Crew Laundry

Crew Recreation Room

Crew Bar, Open Deck

Of those three companies, I know which cruise company I'd prefer to work for! (I mean, like, in a parallel universe where people were taking cruises.)

The Part of the Plane You Never Get to See: What Do Cabin Crews' Chillaxation Spots Look Like?

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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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Tangled in Steel With No Way Out: How the Crew Stuck in Baltimore Is Faring

Twenty-two seafarers from India find themselves not only trapped in the ship that struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, but also in an unexpected spotlight.

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By Eduardo Medina

Reporting from Baltimore

Even from miles away, the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is a jarring visual: Chunks of steel jut above the water like metallic icebergs. Twisted gray beams protrude in crooked positions. From a park near Fort McHenry, visitors can see the giant cargo ship that struck the bridge and remains lodged in the wreckage.

Less visible, however, are the 22 crew members from India who have remained on the ship, named the Dali, since the disaster on Tuesday.

Little is publicly known about them other than that they are seafarers who embarked on a journey aboard the 985-foot-long cargo ship that was on its way to Sri Lanka, carrying 4,700 shipping containers, when it lost power and struck the Key Bridge, causing the structure to collapse.

Since the accident, which killed six construction workers, the crew members have found themselves in an unexpected spotlight. While keeping the ship operable, they are answering a deluge of questions from officials investigating the nighttime catastrophe, as the evidence of what occurred lies around them in mangled ruins stretching across the bow and deck.

While officials investigate what could have caused the tragedy, another question has emerged this week: What could the crew members, who have limited access to the outside world, be going through right now?

“They must feel this weight of responsibility that they couldn’t stop it from happening,” said Joshua Messick, the executive director of the Baltimore International Seafarers’ Center , a religious nonprofit that seeks to protect the rights of mariners.

Even so, officials have praised the crew’s swift mayday message that was transmitted over the radio as the ship lost power on Tuesday. Before the Dali struck the bridge, traveling at a rapid eight knots, the mayday call helped police officers stop traffic from heading onto the bridge, most likely saving many lives, the authorities said. A local harbor pilot with more than 10 years of experience was onboard, as well as an apprentice pilot in training.

As the ship remains stuck in the Port of Baltimore, where it may remain for weeks, the lives of the crew members have entered an uncertain phase. But one thing is certain: They will no longer cruise through the sea around South Africa toward their destination in Sri Lanka anytime soon.

But they are not going to imminently dock at the port either, as they must wait for enough debris to be cleared to free the ship and reopen the channel to one of the busiest ports in the United States. On Saturday, the governor of Maryland said officials planned to remove the first piece of the debris.

So, for now, crew members are most likely working a grueling schedule to maintain the ship that is similar to the one they would be if they were out at sea. The difference, though, is that they are in an immobile state as the eyes of the world fixate on them, experts said.

“The captain of the vessel and the crew have a duty to the ship,” said Stephen Frailey, a partner at Pacific Maritime Group, which helps with marine salvage and wreck removal.

According to Chris James, who works for a consulting firm assisting the ship’s management company, Synergy Marine, the crew members have ample supplies of food and water, as well as plenty of fuel to keep the generators going. Indeed, when Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, went onboard the ship this week, she observed the cook cooking. “It smelled very good,” she said.

But there is still no exact timeline for when the ship might be extracted from the wreckage, Mr. James said. Once the N.T.S.B. and the Coast Guard finish their investigations, he said, “we’ll look at potentially swapping the crew out and getting them home.”

India, the home country of the crew members, is one of the world’s largest hubs for seafarers, according to John A. Konrad, a ship captain and the chief executive of gCaptain, a maritime and offshore industry news website. Though Indian captains and engineers are paid less than their American counterparts, Mr. Konrad said, they make a decent living when they work for three or more months out of the year at sea.

Working on a cargo ship, he said, is a 24-hour ordeal with no weekends off: Every day, decks are checked for maintenance and safety, cooks and cleaners serve the other members, and workers in the engine room keep things on track.

Cargo ship crew members do have some leisurely activities available to them onboard, though, such as video game breaks in cabins, workouts in gyms, table tennis sessions and movie nights. The Dali crew has at least a TV, magazines and books onboard, said Andrew Middleton, who runs Apostleship of the Sea, a program that ministers to sailors coming through the port.

Clistan Joy Sequeira, an Indian seafarer who was not on the Dali but who docked in Baltimore from another cargo ship on Friday, said in an interview that he feared the repercussions that the bridge collapse could have on his industry and his country.

“I’m scared that because this crew is Indian, our international image will suffer,” said Mr. Sequeira, 31. “Maybe we lose jobs.”

Some in Baltimore’s port community have had some contact with the Dali crew, albeit brief, through third parties or WhatsApp. Mr. Messick said he sent the crew two Wi-Fi hot spots on Friday because they did not have internet onboard.

Mr. Middleton said he had been keeping in touch with two crew members, reminding them that “we’re here for them.”

“When I’ve asked how they’re doing, their answers range from ‘good’ to ‘great,’” he said. “So, by their own accounts, they’re OK.”

Mr. Messick said he had also sent a care package to the crew through a salvage company helping with operations. In the package were candy, home-baked muffins from a concerned local and thank-you cards from children.

With so many questions still unanswered about the crew members’ next steps, Mr. Messick said he was eager to provide them with trauma care and emotional support. On Friday, he wrote a letter to the captain, which was delivered by another vessel.

“We’re here to support you,” it read.

Mike Baker contributed reporting.

Eduardo Medina is a Times reporter covering the South. An Alabama native, he is now based in Durham, N.C. More about Eduardo Medina

Dad Takes Aim at Cruise Staff After 20-Year-Old Son’s Fatal Jump

Francel Parker told his hometown newspaper that his family doesn’t drink, so he’s unsure how his son got so drunk just before he leaped to his death in the Caribbean.

Josh Fiallo

Breaking News Reporter

Getty Images/Bruno Vincent

The dad of Levion Parker , the 20-year-old Florida outdoorsman who drunkenly leaped to his death in front of his family on a Royal Caribbean cruise last week, is now questioning how his son was able to get so drunk despite being underage.

In an interview with his hometown newspaper, The Daily Sun , Francel Parker insisted that his son wasn’t suicidal and that they weren’t arguing before his fatal plunge—a statement that contradicts what others onboard told the New York Post they witnessed.

Instead, Francel told the paper his son’s spontaneous jump was done out of drunken ignorance—something he suggested should have been avoidable.

“We don’t drink,” he told the Sun . “I’d like to know how my son was served so much alcohol.”

Despite being over international waters at the time of the fatal plunge, roughly midway between Grand Inagua Island and Cuba, cruises that depart and return from U.S. ports are barred from serving alcohol to anyone under 21. Royal Caribbean has released a statement on the incident, but has not addressed witness statements that claimed Levion was drunk.

Parker added that he’s holding out hope his son, an outdoorsman who won a saltwater fishing tournament just last month, is still alive somewhere in the Caribbean—despite Thursday making it a full week since he disappeared into ocean, and two days since the U.S. Coast Guard called off its search.

“As soon as he went off the side, I prayed over him,” he said, adding that his son was a skilled diver. “I was confident the prayers I said over my son were heard. I stand on the word of God. I believe he is alive.”

The tragedy unfolded around 4 a.m. on April 4, on the 11th deck of the massive Liberty of the Seas cruise liner. Witnesses told the Post last week that Levion was hanging out in a hot tub with his brother when he was approached by his dad, who appeared angry that he’d been drinking.

After what he perceived as being an argument, the witness Bryan Sims told the Post he heard Levion tell his dad, “I’ll fix this right now.” Moments later, he jumped into the dark ocean below—an incident Sims described as being an “impulsive leap.”

Sims added that the ship was moving “pretty fast” and that Francel screamed for staff to alert the captain, which brought the ship to a complete stop within 20 minutes. The vessel launched rescue boats, but to no avail—Levion was nowhere to be found.

Francel told the Sun he flung six life rings off the ship hoping one would reach his son, who he said accompanied him on board along with his younger brother to take a break from his work on a commercial fishing boat.

Social media posts showed Levion graduated from North Port High School, in southwest Florida between Sarasota and Fort Myers, in 2022. He played football there, and regularly posted about fishing and hunting.

In in its lone statement on the incident, Royal Caribbean said last week it was “providing support and assistance” to Levion’s family.

“The ship’s crew immediately launched a search and rescue effort alongside the U.S. Coast Guard,” it said, adding, “For the privacy of the guest and their family, we have no additional details to share.”

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20-year-old man missing after jumping off a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, report says

• A 20-year-old man on holiday with his family went overboard from a Royal Caribbean cruise. 
• The man, who's been missing since early Thursday morning, may have jumped, a report said. 
• The US Coast Guard has launched a search operation. 

A 20-year-old man who was vacationing with his family on a cruise may have jumped overboard, The New York Post reported.

Royal Caribbean confirmed that a passenger, whose identity has not been revealed, went overboard near The Bahamas at about 4 a.m. on Thursday and has been missing since then.

The US Coast Guard launched a search for the passenger on Thursday.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told Business Insider that the cruise line's "Care Team is providing support and assistance to the guest's family during this difficult time."

Bryan Sims, a fellow cruise passenger, told The New York Post that he'd hung out with the passenger in the hot tub until 3:30 a.m. Sims said the man appeared to be "pretty drunk."

Sims told the Post that after leaving the hot tub, they encountered the passenger's father while approaching the elevators.

"His dad was fussing at him for being drunk," Sims said.

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Deborah Morrison, another passenger on board the cruise, told the Post that "there was a lot of yelling and that the crew was alerted immediately."

"The ship's crew immediately launched a search and rescue effort alongside the US Coast Guard, who has taken over the search," the Royal Caribbean spokesperson said.

#Breaking @USCG crews are searching for a 20-year-old man who went overboard from the Liberty of the Seas cruise ship 57 miles from Great Inagua this morning. USCG Cutter Seneca and Air Station Miami HC-144 crews are conducting the search. #USCG #SAR pic.twitter.com/zZPpKOdyCn — USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) April 4, 2024

The Liberty of the Seas departed from South Florida and was 57 miles from Great Inagua in The Bahamas when the passenger went overboard.

The cruise ship has 18 decks and can accommodate up to 3,634 passengers. It's served by a crew of about 1,300.

The chances of falling overboard on a cruise ship are extremely low .

In 2023, about 31 million passengers traveled on a cruise, and at least 10 people went overboard, with two of them surviving, Business Insider reported .

"Even one incident is one too many," a spokesperson for Cruise Lines International Association told Business Insider, adding that "the vast majority of cases are either reckless behavior or some form of intentional act. People don't just inadvertently fall over the side of a ship."

Last month, a 23-year-old man who felt seasick fell overboard from the MSC Euribia cruise ship while crossing the North Sea in Europe and was presumed dead.

In December, an MSC Cruises passenger jumped from one of its ships while sailing from Europe to South America.

According to a CLIA report, only 28.2% of passengers who fell overboard between 2009 and 2019 were successfully rescued.

Watch: Sub taking tourists to see the Titanic goes missing

• Main content

US Coast Guard no longer searching for 20-year-old who jumped from Royal Caribbean cruise

T he United States Coast Guard is no longer searching for a 20-year-old man who jumped overboard on a Royal Caribbean cruise, the military branch reportedly said.

The Coast Guard began scouring the seas last Thursday, but has since called off its unsuccessful search for the unidentified passenger, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

The vacation became a tragedy for one family when their loved ones helplessly saw the young man jump over the side of the deck, which some onlookers said appeared to be an impulsive leap.

The 18-story Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas was sailing between Cuba and the Bahamas’ Grand Inagua Island during the shocking moment.

One passenger previously told The Post the man was pretty drunk before jumping and appeared to be bickering with his father.

“As we were walking from the hot tub back to the elevators, his dad and brother were walking towards us. His dad was fussing at him for being drunk, I guess,” Bryan Sims said.

“When we got to them, he said to his dad, ‘I’ll fix this right now.’ And he jumped out the window in front of us all.” 

Royal Caribbean said last week its crew quickly began looking for the man along with the Coast Guard before the federal government took over the search. 

The Post has sought comment from the Coast Guard.

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