Rizna Mutmainah
Travel Trouble

Morbid reason why cruise ships throw "free ice cream parties" on board

Dara Starr Tucker, a former cruise ship employee has shared the morbid reason why they throw “free ice cream parties” on board.

Tucker, a singer who spent six months living on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean 10 years ago, shared what life was like at sea. 

In one of her latest videos, she answered one of her follower's question asking whether it was true that if cruise staff started giving away ice cream, it meant that they needed more freezer space for a body.

“This is unfortunately often true,” she said.

“If the crew suddenly makes a bunch of ice cream available to passengers, ‘Free ice cream party’, it is often because more people have died on the ship than they have room for in the morgue.”

She said that most large ships are legally required to maintain a morgue and carry body bags in the event a passenger dies mid-journey and added that she “thankfully” didn't have to deal with the "morbid stuff". 

“But we were friends with some crew members who did deal with it and they said maybe four to 10 people die every cruise,” she claimed.

“There are a lot of older people on ships, and often (out of) a ship that carried maybe 2500 to 3000 passengers on a typical cruise, four to 10 people would die.

“So the morgue, I believe they said held about seven people, and if more than seven people died on that particular ship, they would have to start moving bodies to the freezer.”

She claimed that if employees would have to "make room for the extra bodies" in the freezer, they would have to take out everything including ice cream. 

Her video has been viewed over 2.3 million times, with many other cruise ship employees confirming her claims. 

“Cruise ship medic here. Can confirm the morgue and ice cream correlation,” one said.

“Former sailor here — yes, it is accurate. Sometimes space needs to be made in the freezer," another added. 

Image: TikTok

Tags:
Travel Trouble, Cruising, Ice Cream