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19-Year-Old Who Went Overboard on Cruise Ship Yet to Be Found: 'We Need to Apply Pressure'

A rep for the Royal Caribbean cruise line confirmed to PEOPLE that "the ship's crew immediately launched a search and rescue operation and is working closely with local authorities"

A 19-year-old Texas man is still missing amid an ongoing search after he went overboard in the Caribbean while on the Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas cruise ship on Tuesday.

A rep for the Royal Caribbean cruise line said in a statement to PEOPLE: “On August 29, a guest sailing on  Wonder of the Seas  went overboard. The ship's crew immediately launched a search and rescue operation and is working closely with local authorities. Out of respect for the family, we will not share further details about this unfortunate event.”

The missing passenger was identified by his sister Savannah on Facebook as Sigmund Ropich. She is urging everyone to contact the Cuban Border Guard to “keep searching until they find him” as they have “the right to stop at any time.”

It remains unclear how Ropich went overboard after the vessel set sail for a seven-day voyage from Port Canaveral, Florida, on Aug. 27.

However, in a voice recording captured by passenger Jenna Izzo and obtained by CNN . the ship captain announced on the intercom at the time of Ropich's disappearance: “We actually have report of a man overboard. We have slowed the ship down.”

“We just want our brother home. They’re taking too long and barely telling us anything," Savannah told the outlet.

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She said in a separate statement to Insider : "We were told by the Cuban officials that they are done searching in the ocean. They are continuing only on the coast and land. I have a strong feeling they're going to end this search.”

"We are very hopeful if they open [the] search back in the ocean," she continued. "We need them to open it again."

Savannah wrote in an Aug. 31 Facebook post, “We need to apply pressure... Sigmund is not just ‘a man.’ HE IS A SON, A BIG AND A LITTLE BROTHER, A COUSIN, AN UNCLE, A NEPHEW, A FRIEND, A HOMIE, A CLASSMATE, A CO-WORKER, A NEIGHBOR!!!”

She later added, “THEY NEED TO KNOW THAT THIS BOY IS NOT JUST A RANDOM PERSON... THERE IS AN ARMY THAT IS ROOTIN FOR HIM TO COME HOME. I am begging anyone and everyone... Please.. I just want my brother home.”

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Teen passenger who fell overboard from world’s largest cruise ship is identified as search continues

Sigmund ropich, 19, was named as the passenger who went overboard from the wonder of the seas last week, article bookmarked.

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The passenger who went overboard on the largest cruise ship in the world has been named as 19-year-old Sigmund Ropich.

Mr Ropich, a college student, was identified by his sister Savannah Ropich, who said she had been in contact with the US Embassy in Cuba.

Mr Ropich went overboard from Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas before 9pm on 29 August during the second day of a seven-day trip sailing from Port Canaveral in Florida to the Grand Cayman Islands, the cruise company said. He has still not been found almost a week later.

The teen was on holiday on the cruise with his best friends, his co-worker and his co-worker’s family, when the incident happened.

"Sig is a great kid. Never gets in trouble and never caused trouble. Very intelligent, got A’s in Calculus/Physics/Government in high school with no effort. He is a college student as well and works too. He is a kind, reserved and humble kid who also loves to make people laugh. I always call him the ‘Cool, Calm and Collected’ sibling," Ms Ropich told Fox News .

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Ms Ropich said that Cuban officials have stopped their search operation in the sea, but have now moved to the coastline and land to continue looking.

“I have a strong feeling they’re going the end this search,” Ms Ropich told Insider.

“We are very hopeful if they open [the] search back in the ocean. We need them to open it again,” Ms Ropich said.

The family of Mr Ropich said they have very few details on his disappearance and search. Royal Caribbean has not informed the family how long the ship’s crew has searched for the missing teenager, his sister said.

The family have been "praying hourly day and night" for Mr Ropich to be found.

Royal Caribbean said it was working with the US Coast Guard on the search for Mr Ropich. However, a spokesperson for the South Florida branch of the US Coast Guard told Business Insider that the Cuban Border Guard is leading the search, because the incident occurred in Cuba’s territorial waters.

The incident was reported at around 9pm ET on 29 August when an “Oscar! Oscar! Oscar!” call, which signifies an overboard emergency, was made, according to industry blog Cruise Hive.

The crew launched a three-hour search in the water using searchlights and smaller boats and the ship turned around to retrace its route.

Passengers on board the 230,000-ton cruise ship Wonder of the Seas said that their original journey had already been diverted due to Hurricane Idalia.

The Wonder of the Seas is a 1,188 feet long ship and enough space to accommodate 7,000 passengers and 2,300 crew members.

At 18 decks high, this vessel is the largest cruise ship in the world. It is unclear whereabouts on the boat Mr Ropich went overboard from.

A woman claiming to be a passenger on the Wonder of the Seas posted on TikTok saying the captain announced video evidence that showed the man jumping overboard. Mr Ropich’s sister spoke against this, saying the woman was spreading misinformation.

“She has no clue what is going on with the whereabouts of my brother and his situation,” Ms Ropich said in a Facebook post.

Since Mr Ropich is an American citizen, the Coast Guard could not conduct an investigation until the Wonder of the Seas docked back in the US on Sunday.

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American college student identified as passenger who went overboard from world's largest cruise ship

The u.s. coast guard wasn't involved in the search.

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The passenger who went overboard off the world's largest cruise ship on Tuesday has been identified by his family as 19-year-old Sigmund Ropich.

He went overboard from Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas off the coast of Cuba during a seven-day cruise that left from Port Canaveral, Florida, according to U.S. officials and a company spokesperson.

A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean told Fox News Digital that the ship's crew immediately began a search for the missing person and was working with local authorities.

The individual who went overboard has been identified as 19-year-old Sigmund Ropich, a family member told Fox News Digital.

SEARCH UNDERWAY AFTER PASSENGER ON WORLD'S LARGEST CRUISE SHIP GOES OVERBOARD

The individual who went overboard has been identified as 19-year-old Sigmund Ropich, a family member told Fox News Digital. (Savannah Ropich)

Savannah Ropich told Fox News Digital that she has been in touch with the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, which has been working with the Cuban Embassy.

Ropich said Cuban officials are no longer searching at sea, and have moved the search to coast and land.

A Coast Guard spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the incident happened over Cuban territorial seas, and they are not conducting search and rescue efforts.

Since the teenager is a U.S. citizen, the Coast Guard will meet the cruise ship when it arrives back in the country to conduct an investigation.

ROYAL CARIBBEAN CRUISE PASSENGER WHO ‘COULD NOT SWIM’ GOES OVERBOARD IN SINGAPORE STRAIT

The liner Wonder of the Seas cruise ship arrives at the French Mediterranean port of Marseille. (Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Ropich said her brother was on the cruise on vacation with his best friends, co-worker, and co-worker's family.

"Sig is a great kid. Never gets in trouble and never caused trouble. Very intelligent, got A's in Calculus/Physics/Government in high school with no effort. He is a college student as well and works too. He is a kind, reserved and humble kid who also loves to make people laugh," she said. "I always call him the ‘Cool, Calm and Collected’ sibling."

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The cruise ship Wonder of the Seas seen from one of the hills of the city of Cartagena on November 2nd, 2022. (Loyola Perez/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Video shared by cruise passengers on TikTok shows a rescue boat near the cruise ship attempting to locate the passenger who went overboard .

"We actually have report of a man overboard. We have slowed the ship down. We have turned around and we are heading back to the position that we had at that time. We will start a search and rescue operations," an employee can be heard saying through the cruise's PA system.

Adam Sabes is a writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected] and on Twitter @asabes10.

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The man overboard from Wonder of the Seas was a teen vacationing friends, his sister says. She's worried authorities will stop searching for him.

• The person who went overboard on the largest cruise ship in the world is a teen traveling with his friends. 
• Sigmund Ropich, 19, went overboard off Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas this week, his sister said. 
• She said her family is worried that authorities will soon stop searching for him.

The passenger who this week went overboard from the largest cruise ship in the world — Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas — is a 19-year-old college student who was vacationing with his friends, his sister told Insider. 

Savannah Ropich described her sibling, Sigmund Ropich, as a hard-working "really great kid" in an email to Insider on Friday and said that her family is worried that authorities will soon stop searching entirely for the teen. 

Sigmund went overboard from the 230,000-ton cruise ship on Tuesday night as the vessel — which departed from Port Canaveral, Florida — was off the coast of Cuba. 

"The ship's crew immediately launched a search and rescue operation and is working closely with local authorities," a spokesperson for Royal Caribbean previously told Insider in a statement. 

The rep said the cruise line had been working with the US Coast Guard, but the agency told Insider it was not involved in the case and said the Cuban Border Guard is responsible for coordinating the operation because the incident happened in Cuban territorial seas.

As of yet, there's been no sign of Sigmund, according to his family. 

"We were told by the Cuban officials that they are done searching in the ocean. They are continuing only on the coast and land. I have a strong feeling they're going to end this search," Savannah told Insider. 

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Savannah said her family has been "praying hourly day and night" for Sigmund to be found. 

"We are very hopeful if they open [the] search back in the ocean," Savannah said. "We need them to open it again."

Savannah said that Royal Caribbean didn't tell the family how long the ship's crew searched for her brother. 

"I ask that they take matters like this seriously," Savannah said in an email. "Install man overboard systems, respond ASAP when someone is yelling 'Oscar, Oscar, Oscar' Be CLEAR when communicating WHO is searching for our boy."

Royal Caribbean did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Friday.

Savannah said Sigmund had been in college, got "good grades," never got in "trouble," and loved to hang out with his friends. 

His pals aboard the Wonder of the Seas are "grieving," she said. 

The ship was two days into its seven-day sail when the tragic incident occurred. 

"He was on the ship for vacation," Savannah said of Sigmund, explaining that he's "known for being a kind, reserved, humble kid. Always cool, calm, and collected."

Watch: The world's largest cruise ship landed in Miami — here's what it's like on board

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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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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.

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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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Father of cruise passenger, 20, who jumped overboard ship speaks out for first time since the incident

Levion parker jumped from the cruise ship last week.

Britt Jones

After a man jumped off a cruise ship into the Bahama Ocean, his father has said he believes he is still alive in the sea.

Levion Parker, 20, was last seen jumping off a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.

His father Francel Parker told the Daily Sun: “As soon as he went off the side, I prayed over him.

"I was confident the prayers I said over my son were heard. I stand on the word of God. I believe he is alive.”

According to reports, he allegedly jumped off an 18-story Liberty of the Seas boat around 4am in front of his younger brother and dad after getting into an argument with his father.

But Francel explained that he wasn’t actually arguing with his son and that there’s no way his son was trying to take his own life.

He went on to explain that his son is a skilled diver who works on fishing boats .

Another passenger told The Post that Francel had been ‘fussing at [Levion]’ before he jumped overboard.

Bryan Sims told The Post that he had been hanging out with the two brothers in the hot tub early hours in the morning and that later that day he bumped into the family near the elevators.

He said following an argument with his family, Levion 'jumped out the window in front of us all'

Another guest, Deborah Morrison told The Post: “There was a lot of yelling, and the crew was alerted immediately.

“His family was horrified. Just beside themselves. I can’t even begin to imagine what they’re going through.”

The man’s father claimed to have thrown over six life rings in the hopes of saving his son before the giant ship could come to a stop 20 minutes later where the Royal Caribbean launched search boats.

However, he was never found, and the Coast Guard called off the search .

Royal Caribbean told the New York Post in a statement at the time of the incident: "The ship’s crew immediately launched a search and rescue effort alongside the US Coast Guard, who has taken over the search.

“Our Care Team is providing support and assistance to the guest’s family during this difficult time. For the privacy of the guest and their family, we have no additional details to share.”

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard said: "The Coast Guard has suspended its search for the 20-year-old pending the development of new information.”

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told LADbible Group: "Our hearts go out to the family, and we continue to offer them our support and assistance during this difficult time.

"Our policies strictly prohibit guests under the age of 21 from being served alcohol onboard."

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Father of 20-year-old man who 'jumped off' cruise ship in front of family believes he's still alive

Levion parker has now been missing for more than a week, but his dad remains hopeful.

Emily Brown

The father of a 20-year-old man thought to have jumped overboard from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship has shared his belief that he's still alive.

Levion Parker, from North Port, Florida, has been missing since he disappeared from the Liberty of the Seas ship traveling between Cuba and the Bahamas’ Grand Inagua Island on April 4.

The former high school footballer is thought to have been drunk when he went overboard, according to one passenger who'd witnessed the incident.

Speaking to The New York Post, Bryan Sims said : “He was pretty drunk. 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.

“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.”

It was around 4am when Parker went missing, and another passenger, Deborah Morrison, told the Post the crew was alerted 'immediately'.

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) Southeast division confirmed the launch of the search and rescue mission on April 4, saying: "#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."

Unfortunately, the search for Parker has so far proved unsuccessful, and on Tuesday (April 9), the US Coast Guard said it had called off its search for Parker.

A spokesperson for the US Coast Guard 7th District Public Affairs Team confirmed to UNILAD that the search had been 'suspended'.

One week on from Parker's disappearance, his father, Francel Parker, told the Daily Sun that he's still holding out hope for his son.

“As soon as he went off the side, I prayed over him," he said. "I was confident the prayers I said over my son were heard. I stand on the word of God. I believe he is alive."

Francel also denied claims that he was arguing with Parker before he went overboard.

He recalled throwing six life rings off the ship in a bid to save his son, who he described as a skilled diver who works on a commercial fishing boat.

Royal Caribbean said it 'immediately' launched search boats to look for the passenger, though it wasn't until approximately 20 minutes after Parker went missing that the ship was able to come to a stop.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told LADbible Group: "Our hearts go out to the family, and we continue to offer them our support and assistance during this difficult time.

"Our policies strictly prohibit guests under the age of 21 from being served alcohol onboard."

Topics:  Royal Caribbean , US News

Emily Brown is UNILAD Editorial Lead at LADbible Group. She first began delivering news when she was just 11 years old - with a paper route - before graduating with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University. Emily joined UNILAD in 2018 to cover breaking news, trending stories and longer form features. She went on to become Community Desk Lead, commissioning and writing human interest stories from across the globe, before moving to the role of Editorial Lead. Emily now works alongside the UNILAD Editor to ensure the page delivers accurate, interesting and high quality content.

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• Royal Caribbean International

19 year old cruisers …Too old and too young

By Cruzefam , April 17, 2023 in Royal Caribbean International

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Is there a group for 19-year-olds on Royal Caribbean cruises to meet up either before the cruise or after boarding. They are either too old for the young teen groups and two young for the adult night clubs.

traveling on vision of the seas, May 25, 2023.

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There are events for 18-25 daily now. I don't remember a name of this program.

Hyperlink, a bit of info here:

I agree that this is an awkward age for cruising, unless they have their own friends along with them! I'm glad to see Royal adding in a few things for this age group.

1 hour ago, Cruzefam said: Is there a group for 19-year-olds on Royal Caribbean cruises to meet up either before the cruise or after boarding. They are either too old for the young teen groups and two young for the adult night clubs. traveling on vision of the seas, May 25, 2023.

I'm hearing the Hyperlink group for that 'in-between' ages has been hit or miss. I think that being on such a small ship without all the things that teens/young adults gravitate to will probably add to the boredom factor.  No sports court, no pool with slides, no flowrider, etc. Also, not nearly as many food options, no promenade, and so on.  Hopefully you have a very port intensive itinerary where there will be something to do off the ship every day.  

When you get much closer to sailing, I suggest asking if others are traveling with kids around that age in the roll call here and on your cruise's group page from another popular website that shall remain nameless.

I see many kids "getting together" ahead of time using chat apps on the pages for my cruises.

cruiseguy1016

I have seen meet & greets and get-togethers for that age group on most RCI cruises. Times and locations will be posted in the Compass.

Another_Critic

20 minutes ago, rockmom said: Hopefully you have a very port intensive itinerary where there will be something to do off the ship every day.  

9 nights, 3 ports (1 overnight), 4 sea days.

2 hours ago, Cruzefam said: They are either too old for the young teen groups and two young for the adult night clubs.

They can go to night clubs and gamble at 18. The only thing they can’t do onboard is drink alcohol. But many adults don’t drink anyway.

We cruised at that age with our parents.  All the ships were small then (relative to today’s standards) and there were no teen clubs or formal methods to meet others.   But we always met folks our age and had a blast.  I’m sure they can find a way to have fun and meet others on their own.  They can certainly partake in almost every activity other than consuming alcohol.  

LittleJoefromKokomo

My then almost 20 year old daughter spent almost every night in the casino but was somewhat annoyed that she couldn't buy a drink herself and said that her next cruise would be out of Europe if she wasn't 21 then 😂

2 hours ago, UnregisteredUser said: My then almost 20 year old daughter spent almost every night in the casino but was somewhat annoyed that she couldn't buy a drink herself and said that her next cruise would be out of Europe if she wasn't 21 then 😂

Thank you very much to everyone who responded. 🙏 Much appreciated. I will definitely look into all of your suggestions. 👍🏻

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Royal Caribbean Shares Sink Over 5% On Troubling Week

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Shares of Royal Caribbean sunk to a one-month low Tuesday morning, dropping more than 5% on the day following a string of troubling incidents, a setback for the world’s biggest cruise line as it looks to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shares of Royal Caribbean fell to a one-month low, though the cruise line’s performance on Wall ... [+] Street remains positive on the year.

Royal Caribbean’s shares dropped to just over $130 Tuesday morning, the company’s lowest point on Wall Street since mid-March, though its shares have rebounded tremendously from its 2020 low of $23.

Despite the setback, the Miami-based company’s shares have climbed nearly 9% on the year.

Royal Caribbean’s disappointing morning on Wall Street coincides with a string of incidents aboard some of its vessels in recent weeks, including an incident in the Mediterranean Sea where a 20-year-old passenger jumped overboard from the line’s Liberty of the Seas during a vacation with his family, prompting a search operation by the U.S. Coast Guard.

That passenger, whose name has not been released, remains missing, while another passenger on a separate Royal Caribbean cruise also remains missing after disembarking during a stop in Cozumel, Mexico.

Last week, the cruise line said it would pay nearly $1.3 million in refunds to passengers who booked trips on the company’s Capital Jazz cruises, as part of a settlement with the Maryland Attorney General’s Office stemming from canceled cruises due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Shares of Royal Caribbean’s biggest competitors also tanked Tuesday morning, with shares of Norwegian Cruise Line falling more than 3% to just below $19 per share, and Carnival Corp.’s stock falling nearly 3% to just above $15.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has suffered a tumultuous spring, hitting a peak at nearly 40,000 points before tanking over the past two weeks, at one point dropping nearly 400 points on a single day—a 1% drop, amid a decline in a group of asset classes. Despite its successful first quarter, the Dow has since dropped to just over 38,625 points.

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Dad of Royal Caribbean cruise passenger, 20, who jumped off ship 'confident' his son's alive

T he father of a 20-year-old man who jumped off the side of a cruise ship seven days ago believes his son is still alive as he claims he's "confident" his prayers for his safety have been heard.

Levion Parker jumped off a Royal Caribbean cruise ship last Thursday (April 4) in what is believed to be a drunken leap and he has not been seen since despite rescue attempts. His father, who has described his son as "a master diver" is insistent that he is still alive despite the US Coast Guard standing down their search.

The young man reportedly leaped from the 18-storey cruise ship at around 4am in front of his father and younger brother. A witness claimed he'd been arguing with his father moments before but Levion's dad has disputed this.

READ MORE: Astrology influencer mom who killed baby and partner feared solar eclipse

His father, Francel Parker, told The Daily Sun that he believes Levion is still alive in the waters off the Bahamas. He said: "As soon as he went off the side, I prayed over him. 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 US Coast Guard stopped their search for the 20-year-old yesterday (April 10) and he has not been seen since his jump last week. Francel, who runs an AC business in Port Charlotte, has told journalists that he wasn’t arguing with Levion and that his son wasn’t trying to take his own life at the time of the incident.

He is also questioning how his son was served alcohol on the four-day cruise to Cuba and the Bahamas’ Grand Inagua Island. He said: "We don’t drink, I’d like to know how my son was served so much alcohol."

Join the Mirror's SMS news service to get the biggest breaking stories delivered straight to your phone. Click here to subscribe.

At the time, other passengers allege that Francel was "fussing" over his son for having drunk too much. Passenger Bryan Sims told The Post that he was hanging out with Levion and his 18-year-old brother Seth prior to the incident, before later seeing the two brothers and their father arguing.

Bryan said: "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. 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."

Another cruise guest, Deborah Morrison, recalled: "There was a lot of yelling, and the crew was alerted immediately. His family was horrified. Just beside themselves. I can’t even begin to imagine what they’re going through."

After Levion's jump, a frantic Francel threw six life rings into the ocean below in hopes of saving the 20-year-old until the cruise ship could come to a stop 20 minutes later and begin a rescue mission. Royal Caribbean said it “immediately” launched search boats and alerted the Coast Guard.

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Royal caribbean cruise passenger with dementia, 66, disappears while on vacation in mexico.

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An American cruise passenger, who was recently diagnosed with dementia, vanished while he was on vacation with his family in Mexico

Edmond Bradley Solomon III, a 66-year-old South Carolina resident, had taken the trip down to the Caribbean on Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas and had planned to spend the day at port in Cozumel, Mexico, according to WCBD-TV .

The former VA critical care nurse had disappeared minutes after getting off the ship at the Caribbean port last week.

Solomon, who goes by Brad, was recently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, a group of diseases caused by progressive nerve cell loss that affects a person’s behavior and not memory.

“He sometimes says odd things and behaves erratically — or oddly — because he’s just doing what he knows how to do,” Solomon’s daughter Savanah Miller told the outlet. “He can’t process the same way you or I can.”

Solomon and his wife, Mimi, disembarked from the ship around 1:30 p.m. April 3 and stopped for a restroom break before leaving the terminal when the nightmare unfolded.

“When my stepmom, Mimi, came out, he wasn’t there,” Miller said. “She thought he might still be in the bathroom, so she waited for him for a few minutes. He didn’t come out.”

A family member with the couple had gone into the bathroom to check on Solomon but discovered he wasn’t there.

Solomon was reported missing just after 8 p.m. Wednesday and a search and rescue operation was launched at 9 p.m., according to local agency Cozumel Civil Protection.

During the search, local police received a call from a taxi driver who claimed to have picked up a tourist matching Solomon’s description around 2:30 p.m. and was asked to drop the American off at a road with beach access, according to Mexico News Daily, citing authorities.

The taxi driver allegedly said Solomon had paid for the ride using his watch because he claimed he didn’t have any money.

Photos captured search and rescue efforts unfolding in wooded areas during the day and night.

“The search focused on the vicinity of Isla de la Pasión and all the beaches and businesses in the northern hotel zone were visited, without success,” a statement from the Civil Protection read.

Local police said Solomon had a necklace with a GPS, which only works within 33 feet of his wife’s phone, and was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, gray shorts, dark sunglasses and a blue hat.

Solomon was reportedly spotted later Wednesday evening along the road of Isla de la Pasión in Cozumel.

“The Public Security Directorate reported that Mr. Solomon was possibly wandering around the urban area.”

The distressed daughter didn’t learn about her father’s disappearance until the next morning.

“I got the call about 5:30 in the morning and I just froze,” Miller said. “I didn’t even know how to process this information.”

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Miller and other family members had planned to travel down to Mexico to be with Mimi and help with the search for her father.

“I’m really looking forward to having Mimi by my side and being able to give my dad a hug again,” Miller told WCBD.

Miller and her cousins spent Saturday searching the city with her family and were told of several possible sightings of her father throughout the day.

She was told her father could be staying hydrated and using the bathroom at local churches.

“He is lost and scared. He cannot show or process emotions like a healthy person would,” Miller said in a post on Facebook.

A GoFundMe was set up with an original goal of $5,000 to help support the family. It has surpassed the mark and was at over $16,000 Sunday morning.

Solomon and his wife were nurses in the Charleston area, where he worked as a critical care nurse at Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, where Mimi has continued working.

“He liked to be with the people that he loved … he was always making sure that we were safe and we were cared for no matter who it was,” Miller told the outlet. “He’s always been a fixer and someone who’s just drawn to helping other people.”

The couple had boarded the Icon of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, on March 30 in Miami, Florida, and made stops in Costa Maya, Mexico, and Roatan, Honduras, before docking in Cozumel around 8 a.m.

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