What happens when someone dies on a cruise ship?

When nature takes its course in a floating city, a series of interesting procedures are quickly initiated
Round tables with chairs on deck of liner
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We’ve all heard of Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie’s captivating tale of jealousy, deceit and ultimately, death aboard a luxury liner headed for Egypt’s most iconic sights. However, fictitious (and sinister) elements aside, what really happens when someone passes away while navigating the world's waters?

This morbid question recently raced through the minds of many TikTok users following ex-cruise ship singer Dara Starr Tucker’s video on the correlation between people passing away on the high seas and… ice cream.

Dara explained what she'd heard from an on-board medical professional in a video that has since surpassed three million views and garnered more than 225,000 interactions. “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 than they have room for in the morgue”, she says in the viral clip.

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But is this connection a truth cruise companies would rather have kept under wraps or a rumour that’s spread like wildfire over the year? What really happens when someone dies on a cruise?

After reaching out to several cruise line companies and failing to receive a response, we tracked down an ex-cruise worker with over a decade of experience under their belt who was happy to spill the beans (anonymously) about his time at sea.

For context, while guests dying on a cruise ship is an unfortunate situation and a sad end to any trip for the loved ones involved, it’s an inevitable occurrence. With this in mind, cruise ships must have facilities on board that ideally intervene with nature’s plans before the worst happens.

“You would have a full medical facility on board. You would have an ICU… four wards… two doctors… and something like five nurses and a medical administrator, and that was for 3000 guests”, says our source. “It's a full unit. They can put someone onto a ventilator very easily and keep them alive [until] the next port of call [when the patient can] go off in an ambulance and go to a main hospital.”

It’s no secret that large cruise ships have medical professionals on board at all times. In fact, Celebrity Cruises captain and content creator Kate Mccue called out for doctors and nurses looking to put their people-saving skills to work while exploring the seven continents. These facilities' capabilities are impressive, and while major surgeries are reserved for mainland services in ideal scenarios, it’s not out of the question for onboard doctors to get to work if time is of the essence.

However, from time to time, the efforts of medical professionals aren’t enough. Also, passengers who die on a cruise ship are just as likely, if not more so, to pass peacefully in their sleep. So what’s the procedure when the worst happens at sea?

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“It's obviously a very sensitive process,” our source explains: “You have different teams doing different actions. For example, as soon as a dead body is discovered, if they don't die in the medical centre and they die overnight, there are different teams that have to deal with different things.”

“They've got the facilities to contact their family, and we buddy them up with someone for the next few days, until they get off, to make sure they've got whatever they need and they can grieve. People are very different. Some people just want you to be there 24/7 and talk to you about anything and everything, and then others will just want solo time, so you just want to check in with them.”

Unsurprisingly, if a deceased guest is discovered in a cabin, the area can be designated a crime scene – even if no foul play is suspected at first glance.

If no suspicious circumstances are suspected, it’s time to move the deceased guest from the place of their passing – which comes with a unique set of potential problems. Our source recalls having to ferry a body, on one occasion, from a stateroom to the cruise ship morgue, which is found towards the bottom of the ship by the medical facilities.

“We shut off areas of the ship, and we can register lifts so we can go into a lift and know that no one else can get into that lift, so guests won't have the doors open to us.”

Depending on the cruise ship’s itinerary, bodies are stored ready to be disembarked at the next port or released to the relevant services on home turf if the ship’s course is coming to an end – an easier result for bereaved loved ones ready to start making arrangements.

So, what does our avid sailor think of the “ice cream party” rumour?

“I’ve worked at sea now verging on 10 years, and this is a rumour that goes around. On the ships that I’ve worked on [large cruise ships], that would never be the case.”