Doctor explains morbid reason behind ‘free ice cream parties’ when someone dies on a cruise ship
A doctor has revealed the reality behind 'free ice cream parties' on board cruise ships that have reportedly happened when a person dies at sea.
The clarity came after one former cruise ship singer took to TikTok to reveal the eerie policy that is invoked when a passenger passes away.
Dara Starr Tucker used to perform on cruise ships a decade ago where she would regularly perform as they sailed around the Caribbean as well as the Mediterranean.
But these idyllic vacations would sometimes have a sour note to them when a person lost their life at sea.
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Cruise ship ice cream parties explained
In one of Dara's viral video, the singer spoke about a bleak reason for hosting 'free ice cream parties' when a person died.
The video and explanation to her followers came about after one of her followers asked if this was a real thing.
One TikTok user has asked her Dara if the 'amount of ice cream available suddenly goes up it means they need more freezer space for a body'.
She said: "OK, this is unfortunately often true. If the crew suddenly makes a bunch of ice cream available to the passengers, free ice cream party, it's often because more people have died on the ship than they have room for in the morgue.
"And I don't know why when I talk about cruise ship stuff it gets morbid so quickly but this is true. I was a singer on a cruise ship about 10 years ago and I lived on a ship in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean for about six months.
"Thankfully we didn't have to deal with this kind of stuff but we were friends with some crew members who did. And they said maybe four to 10 people die every cruise. There are a lot of older people on ships and often people die on cruises."
Dara added: "Four to 10 people on a ship like ours that carry about 2,500 to 3,000 passengers on a typical cruise.
"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 which meant they needed to make room in the freezer.
"So they would have to take out a lot of the ice cream and other frozen goods in order to make room for the other bodies."
But do ice cream parties really happen?
They absolutely did. But the reality of them is a lot further from life in 2025.
Amy White is the director of medical operations for Vikand, which provides medical services for over 150 ships on 33 cruise lines.
According to White, they were a very real thing but are no longer necessary with modern cruise lines.
"Before they had morgues, they put them in the ice cream fridge," White told CCN Travel.
For ships that don't have a morgue - of which there are very few and restricted mainly to expedition ships - bodies will be stored outside in cool, covered areas.
"Sometimes the body is put outside, when you don’t have any land for three days, or the possibility of a helicopter," White explained.
Obviously a passenger cruise ship's morgue has a limited amount of space. So if, tragically, more people die than they have room for, contingency plans would certainly be needed.
Topics: Cruise Ship, Travel, Health, Food And Drink, TikTok, Viral
Tom Earnshaw