I’m an ex-cruise ship worker — here’s the shocking reason we throw free ice cream parties. Photo / 123rf
I’m an ex-cruise ship worker — here’s the shocking reason we throw free ice cream parties. Photo / 123rf
We might not all scream for icecream after learning the macabre truth behind icecream parties on cruise ships.
Dara Tucker, a former cruise worker, revealed the eerie reason why ships regularly throw free ice cream parties for travellers in a TikTok clip.
In the video, which has been viewed more than 2.3 million times, the ex-cruise singer, who travelled to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean while working on the ship, alleged that icecream parties are not just to celebrate the delicious cold treat, reports New York Post.
“If the crew suddenly makes a bunch of ice cream available to the passengers … it is often because more people have died on the ship then they have room for in the morgue,” she claimed in the video.
“If more than seven people died on that particular ship, they would have to start moving bodies to the freezer, which meant they needed to make room in the freezer,” she added, “so they would have to take out a lot of the icecream and other frozen goods to make room for the extra bodies.”
Tucker’s clip was accompanied by the fact that, while she didn’t work in the morgue, she had friends who worked as nurses onboard, who informed her of the morbid truth.
“They said, ‘Maybe four to 10 people die every cruise,’ [and] there are a lot of older people on ships,” she went on, reflecting on her cruise ship, which had about 3000 passengers.
In a follow-up clip, Tucker shed more light on the details, adding that the statistics were based on upscale cruises with guests of an older demographic, averaging around 75 years old.
“With this particular cruise line, because it attracted so many older people, they were dying,” Tucker revealed. “This was a floating retirement home.”
Cruises are legally required to keep body bags onboard, as well as a morgue in case holidaymakers pass away while at sea.
Morgues onboard ships all differ in size depending on the ship’s dimensions, however they can usually store three to four bodies, according to the Telegraph.
A cruise ship medic also confirmed the morgue and ice cream correlation. Photo / 123RF
They can often be found on the cruise ship’s lower decks close to other storage spaces, such as food and alcohol lockers.
Travel website The Point Guys revealed that cruise ships have morgues made of stainless steel, which are refrigerated in order to store the bodies until the end of the ship’s voyage or until the ship reaches a port of call so that the body can be returned home.
Many social media users flooded the comments saying they couldn’t believe the macabre icecream party story. Even a few past cruise ship workers backed up her story on the post.
“Cruise ship medic here. Can confirm the morgue and icecream correlation,” shared one person.
Another added: “Former Sailor here — yes. It is accurate. We don’t wear our covers on mess decks, and sometimes space needs to be made in the freezer.”
Morgues are often located on the lower decks. Photo / Unsplash
“It can happen on military vessels too. We had no morgue on board so if anyone died or we had to transport a body it [meant] the crew ate good because frozen space had to be found,” a veteran revealed.
According to a lawsuit was filed by Robert Lewis Jones’ family, they were assured by cruise workers that his body would be stored in the morgue onboard.
However, once the ship came into port in Fort Lauderdale six days after Robert passed away, his wife discovered that her 78-year-old husband’s body had allegedly been stored inside a walk-in cooler.
“When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr. Jones’ body, his body was not located in the ship’s morgue,” it was revealed in the lawsuit, which was filed last week in Florida federal court.
“Instead, Mr. Jones’ body had, at some time not yet known, been moved from the ship’s morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship’s morgue. The cooler in which the funeral employee found Mr. Jones’ body had drinks placed outside of the cooler and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition.”
Celebrity Cruises was sued by the Jones family for US$1 million ($1.64 million), citing negligent procedure for not storing their relative’s body correctly, which resulted in the body decomposing badly.
