A 9-Month Cruise Is TikTok’s Favorite New ‘Reality Show’

31.12.2023 - 10:45 / nytimes.com / Royal Caribbean

In the last few months, Beth Fletcher, a 39-year-old photographer in Derbyshire, England, built a small following on TikTok by recapping and analyzing the British reality show “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!”When the latest season ended in early December, Ms. Fletcher was at a loss for content because, she said, “we don’t have another good reality TV show on until summer.”

Then the TikTok algorithm delivered: a video of Brooklyn Schwetje, a graduate student and influencer, sharing a day in her life on the Ultimate World Cruise, a nine-month-long, round-the-world voyage with Royal Caribbean. Ms. Fletcher was instantly rapt. “I’ve never been on a cruise, and the idea of a nine-month cruise blew my mind,” she said. After finding more videos from other passengers on the cruise, something clicked: “Maybe this is our own reality TV show, but better.”

Since the ship launched from Miami on Dec. 10, TikTok has been flooded with posts from voyeurs on land, dissecting the videos shared by cruise passengers and speculating on the ship’s potential as a floating arena for high-level drama. Some are declaring it a “nine-month TikTok reality show,” with the passengers becoming unintentional celebrities.

Videos with the hashtag #UltimateWorldCruise have had more than 138 million views on the social media app.

This isn’t the first time TikTok creators — competing for views with millions of other accounts — have mined videos posted by others to manufacture their own genre of online reality TV. In 2021, the University of Alabama’s sorority rush became an internet fixation known as #BamaRush (and eventually, a Max documentary). But much as on reality TV, the truth behind the content can seem beside the point.

With a 274-night itinerary, the Ultimate World Cruise is the longest cruise ever offered by Royal Caribbean. Fares for the full trip — which stops in 65 countries — start at $53,999 per person and can go up to $117,599, excluding taxes and fees, according to Royal Caribbean’s website. The ship, called the Serenade of the Seas, has capacity for 2,476 guests, although a Royal Caribbean representative would not confirm how many are currently on board.

From England, Ms. Fletcher started posting videos of herself talking about the cruise, introducing passengers that she identified through their TikTok accounts as “cast members” and sharing tidbits about their life aboard the ship gleaned from their videos.

More accounts dedicated to the cruise emerged: One creator refers to herself as TikTok’s “sea tea” director, updating her followers with “breaking news” (claiming that someone had left the cruise, and another had tested positive for the coronavirus). Another TikToker made a virtual bingo card with predictions