Cruise ship passengers have started a trend of taking rubber ducks on holiday with them, leaving the toys in obscure places on board for other guests to find. Photo / Getty Images
Superfans are stashing rubber ducks onboard by the hundreds — and some fellow passengers are crying fowl.
When Ilene Meckley packs for a cruise, she lays out the essentials: the changes of clothes, shoes, makeup, playing cards, electronics. And the ducks.
Dozens and dozens of rubber ducks. Need-their-own-suitcase amounts of ducks. Accessories for the ducks.
“We have some that come with little sunglasses that you put on and little hats,” Meckley, 70, of Boynton Beach, Florida, said from her duck-filled stateroom on a Western Caribbean cruise last week.
She’s part of a growing trend in the world of cruise ship travel, in which passengers carry aboard a raft of rubber or other duckies and stash them on rails, in alcoves and in planters and eagerly await reports of their discovery on Facebook or Instagram.
“CONQUACKULATIONS!” read some tags accompanying a duck in recent months. “Oh, what Luck! You found a Duck!” read others. Notes encourage people to keep the ducks or conceal them again - and either way, to post their photos on social media.
The game has become so popular that it has even generated a backlash. Some passengers complain bitterly that their fellow cruisers are obsessed with duck hunting. One cruise operator bans the practice, while other lines appear to be safe spaces for ducks.
Aaron Saunders, senior editor for news and features at Cruise Critic, said he encounters the duck trend on every cruise he takes on mainstream, big-ship cruise lines. The trend has been around for years, he said, but it “really started to take off” after the pandemic.
Today, the ducks nesting on cruise ships are not just your run-of-the-mill yellow rubber guy. Some have long eyelashes or wear jewellery. There are carefully crocheted versions and earring versions. Some look like pirates, pumpkins or other animals. They come from Amazon and Temu, dollar stores or individual 3D printers.
“I’ve seen costumed ducks. I’ve seen blinged-out ducks,” Saunders said. “I’ve seen ducks in little captain’s hats. I’ve seen ducks that look like Donald Trump.”
Photos of them all frequently end up on the original Cruising Ducks group on Facebook, which was created in 2018 after one little girl and her family hid ducks on a cruise; it now has more than 285,000 members. Another ducks-on-ship group has over 75,000 members, and there are groups dedicated to sailing with ducks on specific cruise lines. More than one app is devoted to tracking ducks at sea.
Quackers, as some call themselves, tend to follow a code: they only hide their wares in public places, keeping them out of shops, pools and hot tubs.
Therese Lau, a Tampa-based travel agent, said she includes her social media accounts on cards that she attaches to ducks, hoping someone will tag her when they post their finds.
“I love to see who found them and where they are from,” Lau, 45, wrote in an email. “It is almost like a modern day message in a bottle.”
My ducks are all ready to go!!! Can't wait to hide them around the ship on Thursday on the MSC Seashore leaving out of Port Canaveral! 🐤🐤🐤 #TravelwithTherese #cruise #cruiseducks #cruisingducks pic.twitter.com/cSdrx41geP
— TravelwithTherese (@Travel_Therese) August 26, 2024
For some outsiders, the practice isn’t the fun it’s quacked up to be.
The ducks “are tacky and detract from the beauty of the ship”, one woman complained on a Cruise Critic Facebook post about the topic.
Another reader chimed in: “I suppose it’s cute if you are 6.”
“You’ll have to take my word for it if you haven’t experienced it first-hand, but, the single most fascinating cult of people on the planet are people who hide and collect rubber ducks on cruise ships,” one person wrote on X, going on to call them “insane”.
Most cruise lines did not respond to questions about duck activities. MSC Cruises provided a statement saying it has no specific policy but that crew members regularly notice ducks “and believe the ongoing game of duck hide-and-seek is a fun, interactive way for guests to enjoy their vacations”.
Carnival Cruise Line’s brand ambassador, John Heald, has written about duck-related complaints multiple times over the past couple of years on his popular Facebook page. One person wrote in 2022 that they toss ducks in the trash when they find them.
In August, Heald wrote that he had been approached by a woman holding a duck as he went to get coffee on a ship one morning. Heald - a cruise industry personality so popular someone made a duck version of him - thought she might be offering him a gift.
“She got within spittle distance and spent the next three minutes telling me that the ‘duck thing had gotten out of control’ and that other cruise lines have done the right thing by banning them,” he wrote on Facebook. “I explained that it was just a little bit of fun and if the other cruise lines want to cancel that fun then that’s entirely up to them.”
Disney Cruise Line does not allow passengers to hide items in staterooms or public areas, according to several posts from a panel of contractors who answer questions about Disney trips. One planDisney panelist wrote in December: “Crew members are removing any ducks they spot around the ship.
“I was advised that guests cannot hide things such as rubber ducks in staterooms or public areas,” the panelist said. “I know that this is a popular thing to do for many cruisers onboard, but it sounds like it’s being discouraged.”
In February, another panelist wrote that the ducks were “a safety hazard” for younger passengers and caused “environmental impacts”.
Saunders said he was trying to read a book and have a martini on a cruise last month when he noticed activity buzzing around him. People poked around behind his chair and through the blinds nearby. They were searching, they told him, for ducks.
“After this happened three or four times, I was a bit annoyed by it,” he said. “It got to the point where I had to say, ‘There’s no ducks here’. Come on now. These were adults.”
He said that as more people embrace ducking, complaints saying the “ducks are kind of out of control” are increasing. “Or in some cases, the people looking for the ducks are out of control.”
Superfans admit - with a laugh - that they can take the hobby to extremes. Some have made it a way of ship life.
Kelly May, 60, of Huntington Beach, California, has become known onboard as “The Duck Lady” for her duck-themed shirts and shoes and the many ducks she distributes on the eight to 10 cruises she takes a year. She even started a business called Cruising Quackers that sells clothes and accessories, including a “Quack for a Cause” line of fundraising ducks, and sometimes refers to herself and fellow fans as “Quackpots”.
“It’s paying joy forward one duck at a time,” she said.
I’m leaving for a cruise Friday, and on Royal Caribbean ships guests bring and hide these rubber ducks for other passengers to find.
— (Karma is a) Cat 🩵 (@Cat1212_) August 30, 2023
I made some taylor themed ones with friendship bracelets 🥹💗
So if you’re a swiftie on the Freedom of the Seas this weekend I hope you find it! pic.twitter.com/FZEjS6twFp
May organises duck exchanges on the first day of every cruise and carries a special kit for newcomers with three ducks and tags; she calls it a “Taste of Quack”. She said she and fellow passionate duck hiders are planning to take a cruise together - the Quack-tastic Duckers Cruise - early next year. The hobby “is addicting”, May said.
Meckley, a life coach and motivational speaker who recently became a travel adviser, brings 200 to 250 ducks on each cruise. She chronicles some of her adventures on the Facebook group Cruising Duck Detectives. During a recent video call, her bed was covered in bags that say “just a girl who loves ducks”.
She and her husband, Bob Clark, pack enough duck-themed T-shirts to wear for each day of a cruise; Bob packs a duck tie for dressier occasions. They’ll pass out jewellery, activities like word searches and sometimes pens that say “You’re ducking special”.
Meckley said she understands why a cruise line like Disney’s, with kids running around all over, might not allow the practice. But she said duck hunting could be enjoyed by all.
“Even a person who may not be into the idea of hiding and finding them,” she said, “would always love watching the joy of someone finding them.”
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