The Scariest Mainstream Cruise Stories
It’s the most wonderful time of year. I’ve trawled the pits of the internet, cruise forums and tabloid newspapers to find the spookiest cruise-related stories in time for Halloween. Keep reading for a bonafide spookfest of cruise stories, including zombie cruise ships, decomposing dead bodies and other tragedies.
NO CRUISE LINES ARE NAMED IN THIS ARTICLE TO PROTECT THEIR IMAGE.
THESE ARE ALL TRUE STORIES.
Back in 2013, cruisers sailing aboard an unnamed mainstream cruise ship were enjoying the cruise of their lives in the Caribbean. As you can imagine, sunshine poured from the sky like hot honey as relaxed holidaymakers soaked up the rays and queued at the bar to buy their drinks. Being a large cruise line, drinks weren’t provided—but that’s not the horror story here. The Pool Deck was busy, bordering on crowded and the sun was so bright that there wasn’t a sunlounger available. But again, that’s not the real horror story here. The real story is much, much worse.
One night, the ship suffered a catastrophic engine fire. At the time there were 3,143 passengers on board as well as 1,086 crew, all drifting for three days in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico with, at best, patchy phone reception and limited resources to survive. Make no mistake about it, this was an absolute catastrophe for this world-famous cruise line. Their huge ship was adrift, with no land in sight and dwindling fuel supplies. Passengers feared the worst. Crew didn’t know what to do. With so many people on board, reception areas were fit to burst with people complaining. There was the very real danger of a Hunger Games scenario unfolding.
Conditions were awful. The ship was listing violently from side to side because the stabilisers weren’t working. Sea sickness became a very real problem. Food became limited. Power went. Besides the lights going out, the lifts not working and power outlets being unavailable, temperatures soared with the onboard air conditioning out of use. Even the toilets didn’t work, which isn’t ideal… especially when everybody is sea sick. As the toilets overflowed and flooded cabins, staterooms and even suites, guests were given special biobags to do their business in. There are reports that there were so many of these bags that they started piling up in the corridors. This massive cruise ship was now a floating biohazard.
In an interview with The Guardian, one worried fellow said of his wife on the ship: “They’re sleeping on the deck, using any available resources to make a makeshift centre to give them some privacy, keeping her and her friends together. The lean of the ship makes it difficult for them to walk. It makes it difficult for them to get any sort of rest, any sort of comfort. Besides the times they can get cellular reception from the ship is the only connection, but it’s sketchy at best”.
Salvation came in the form of two tugboats who towed the ship back to the Bahamas, but not before a tow rope snapped and delayed their arrival. On a Friday morning, refugees from the wretched ship were finally allowed to disembark. They will never forget the world’s first and last “Poop Cruise”.
In the spring of 2023, aboard a huge cruise ship, holidaymakers were blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was about to unfold. The ship sailed through the glistening Caribbean waters, its passengers enjoying the gentle sway of the ocean and the indulgence of all-inclusive amenities. With each passing day, the horizon seemed endless, a perfect escape from the stresses of daily life. But beneath the surface of this serene voyage lay a dark, heart-wrenching secret.
A 75-year-old man had boarded the ship with his wife for what was supposed to be the start of a beautiful vacation during a happy retirement. After years of hard work, he could finally sit back, escape the stress of daily life and enjoy the delights of a cruise with his darling wife. Devastatingly, he suffered a sudden massive heart attack in the middle of the night. Despite the efforts of onboard medical staff, he tragically passed away leaving behind his grieving wife. After much persuasion by the crew on board, the man’s widow made the incredibly difficult decision of deciding to stay on the cruise until disembarkation in Florida six days later. The alternative was to leave the ship, husband’s body and all, in Puerto Rico and repatriate from there. But the staff of this large cruise ship insisted. As is protocol with large cruise ships, often carrying thousands of passengers, there are morgues which are designed to hold dead bodies for the remainder of a trip. It was a decision she would soon regret.
The ship’s morgue, for one reason or another, was out of service. In a shocking turn of events, it was later revealed that the man’s body was placed in a drink cooler located in a storage area below deck. The temperature was far too warm to prevent decomposition, and the makeshift storage area was used as both a refrigeration unit for drinks and, now disturbingly, a resting place for the deceased.
His body was left there, untouched and unnoticed, for six excruciating days as the cruise continued its journey. When the ship finally arrived in Florida, a funeral home employee came on board to collect Robert’s body. What they discovered was beyond horrifying. Inside the cooler, drinks had been casually stacked nearby, and Robert’s body—still inside a body bag—was decomposing rapidly, lying on a floor pallet. The decomposition had advanced so significantly that the family’s hopes for an open-casket funeral were completely dashed. His body was no longer in any condition to be displayed, robbing them of the chance to say goodbye in the manner they had planned.
Grief turned into outrage. The family later filed a lawsuit for $1 million, accusing the cruise line of gross negligence and mishandling the situation, turning their tragedy into a nightmare. In the end, it wasn’t just the heart attack that devastated the Jones family; it was the callous, thoughtless actions that followed, leaving them with a memory far worse than the sorrow of his passing.
Disaster struck on the second day of a 14-day Antarctic expedition aboard a cruise ship full of defined explorers—although none of them knew it. A water pipe, in a storeroom deep in the belly of the ship, burst. Every single spare roll of toilet paper on board was soaked. Solutions were needed. These folk faced a long 12 more days at sea without a fresh resupply of bog roll.
Facing imminent catastrophe, the crew discreetly shuffled what little toilet paper remained, swapping rolls between “low-use” and “high-use” cabins to keep things running smoothly. It was a delicate balancing act, with supplies running dangerously low by the end of the trip. Fortunately, not a single guest noticed the crisis. Since then, the ship has adopted a new policy: toilet paper is now hidden in individual cabins rather than stored centrally, ensuring that such a close call never happens again.
WANT TO AVOID A HORROR STORY AT SEA?
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