There’s a myth that it’s taboo to talk about the Titanic when on a cruise ship.
Some passengers may not like it, but multiple cruise lines offer lectures/classes on the doomed ship’s history, so it’s not an off-limits topic.
It’s generally not a good idea to make jokes about sinking or someone going overboard, but even those aren’t specifically forbidden.
Related: Royal Caribbean keeps stopping in controversial port
Cruises, of course, offer lots of room for humor. Seemingly every onboard comedian does jokes about the size of the showers and some of the other features of cruise ships. You can laugh about what people put on their plates at buffets and make jokes (quietly) at some of the outfit choices other passengers make.
Many crew members will have stock jokes they use to connect with passengers. If you cruise the same ship regularly, you may hear this material more than once on a cruise.
Repeat passengers, however, are relatively rare.
Crew members, however, often have to hear the same jokes over and over again with the passengers thinking they are being clever. Working crew members can’t groan at your joke or look at you with no reaction because they have to always be upbeat to passengers.
The Come Cruise With Me team, however, can be brutally honest and tell you which jokes, and which types of jokes, should never be told on a cruise ship to crew members.
Passengers on Voyager of the Seas made the same overused jokes repeatedly.
Image source: Daniel Kline/ComeCruiseWith.com
Never use these jokes on a cruise ships
Transcript:
Dan Kline: Good afternoon. I am Dan Kline, executive editor of Come Cruise With Me. That is comecruisewith.com.
I am with Dennis Post, our travel agent partner, along with his wife, Amy Post, at Postcard Travel Planning. We are in a bar that’s unique on Royal Caribbean. Dennis, do you know why this bar is unique?
Dennis Post: Because it’s a Schooner Bar and it’s unique to Royal Caribbean?
Kline: It’s the only bar in the fleet that’s on every single ship. There is a pub in almost every ship, but one is missing the pub.
But, we’re going to talk about something a little ridiculous today.
The first thing we’re going to talk about is jokes you should absolutely never make on a ship. I’m not talking about jokes about the Titanic or the ship going down or things that anybody would know are inappropriate.
But I just saw it three times in a row at the bar here. The bartender asked someone “would you like another one?”
And the person thinks for a minute and says, “Well, I’m not driving today.” And the bartender laughs.
The bartender does not find this funny.
He wants to punch you in the face for this. This is a bad joke.
So, I’ll go back to my retail days.
I used to run a toy store. And any time I went to scan a product, and it didn’t come up, the customer would say, “oh, I guess it’s free.”
As if I’d never heard that one before.
And I’d heard it 75 times that day.
So, I know the customer is always right. I know the bartender has to smile and laugh.
But please, for the love of God, don’t make that joke. And Dennis, you have one too as well.
Post: So the one we see all the time is you’ve got command staff walking around and then they introduce the captain. And he’s standing in the main part of the ship, talking and greeting people. And it happens, like he said 75 times, it probably happens 100 times a day.
“Who’s driving the ship if you’re the captain?”
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Kline: Bad. Here’s the thing. The captain doesn’t stand at a wheel and drive the ship anymore.
I actually only learned that a few months ago. Captain Kate of Celebrity Beyond posted a video about how they actually steer the ship. And it’s not a big wheel like you would think.
It’s all sorts of different systems. Anyway, I am Dan Kline. He is Dennis Post.
We are Come Cruise With Me. We are on Voyager of the Seas, and we’ll see you soon.
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