‘Yes’ to all of this. The Nine-Month Cruise never required that customers pay for the entire thing in advance, unlike the failed business venture discussed in most of this thread. Royal Caribbean is a reputable company, too–another difference.
RC started by offering to sell quarters of the full nine-month itinerary, then when those didn’t sell out, started selling smaller segments, as you mention.
The ‘content creators stir up drama’ thing does appear to be quite true, from recent articles which emphasize the social-media aspect of this story. (A couple of them are linked below.)
I confess to having a personal interest: when news of the RC Nine-Month Cruise broke in December, I started working out one possible consequence of all the online attention, and wrote it up as a novel. I’m going to describe it in the Marketplace thread (with link).
Trying to enjoy cruising qua cruising while surrounded by content creators intent on creating buzz would be quite the challenge. I hope this doesn’t catch on.
I’ve been on over 20 cruises. The only drama has been rescues, medicals, one drunk guy who rolled into the pool, and one mother who had to be told that kids in diapers weren’t allowed in the hot tub and that further, forcing the kid to stay in the hot tub might constitute endangerment.
Another example of something like this already having been done – and still ongoing. A few differences: the “condos” on the ship cost millions, and are available by invitation only – you must be proposed by an existing resident, and seconded by another. The other key difference is that the wealthy residents on the ship are not there full time, but just board whenever it suits them, treating it as basically a vacation home that is continuously sailing around the world.
I can’t find a specific post to springboard off, but this seems to be a pattern. Advertise an Experience, but don’t show any photos, just AI art.
Scam Willy Wonka immersive event left children in tears. (There’s a “pure imagination” joke in there somewhere.) Hopefully, consumers will beware. Never sign up for an “experience” unless you get to see real photos of live people doing the thing.
I hadn’t heard of “Krabbyland”, founded by Spongebob’s boss, until I also heard about that Willy Wonka scam, but when I heard about all this, it reminded me of the “Van Gogh Experience” that was heavily advertised. I knew a few people who did pay the $35 admission and attended, but when I found out what it really was, I had no desire to go.
The Willy Wonka thing looked like a jerry-rigged miniature golf course.
I have not attended the Van Gogh experience, but arty types I know have and said it was spectacular. It’s been on my list, but has since departed my area. I’ll find one someplace and catch it.
It was. We saw it in Atlanta and felt it was worth every penny. And if you had any doubts, the videos they posted online accurately showed what you were going to see.
One thing about the Immersive Artist shows is that there were often 2 competing shows traveling to the same cities, without transparency about which were which. In Boston, they were selling tickets for one of the shows before they had a venue, which does set off some alarm bells. But reports were that the shows here were pretty good.
I read the article, and it doesn’t say why the passengers have to leave, or when they’re allowed back on. Do they spend nights on land? I sure hope the cruise line is picking up the tab.
The only thing I can think of is that there are workers on the ship during the day getting her ready to eventually sail. Then the workers leave at night, and the passengers can’t stay if there isn’t any staff. That’s just a guess, though.
Apparently, there are a number of problems still to be rectified, including the operation of fire doors.
I thought it was interesting that reporters were trying to find Mr or Mrs !ANGRY! but all the people they interviewed seem to be pretty happy with the situation.
The nine month cruise mentioned upthread is over. The social media (mostly TikTok) interest waned pretty quickly and the whole thing ended up being entirely mundane. A complete lack of drama and nothing interesting happened at all which is probably a good thing.
That was predictable. If the passengers had been stuck for nine months without ever being able to get off, and without re-supply—sure, THAT could have been dramatic. But the reality was more like a resort, with people coming and going (most passengers weren’t there for the entire nine months).
In my novel Nine Month Cruise, I worked on the assumption that this would be the case, and that drama would have to be created (in my story: created by a media company that wanted to attract a cable-TV audience). Which is pretty much the way all reality shows work, after all. Producers create the drama via various means of ginning up conflict between the participants.
I’m glad that the real-life passengers had an uneventful experience.