Spirit Airlines of the Sea

Carnival Cruise lines put rules into place limiting ghetto behavior.

The fatigue is real. In recent years the unwritten rule among most vacation goers interested in a week-long cruise was to stay far away from boats with cheap tickets. Why? Well, no one has been allowed to say why publicly, but the mountain of video evidence on social media sends the message loud and clear – A certain subset of black customers cause big problems and ruin everyone else’s peace.

It’s not “racist” to point out observable facts, and the viral “black fatigue” discussion is not something that can be easily dismissed. It’s not just whites complaining – It’s everyone, including other black people.

I’ve taken exactly one cruise, and it was on Carnival for a honeymoon. It was OK. I didn’t care for the school field trip vibe of the trip. I enjoyed the port calls in the Bahamas and Jamaica more than being on the ship, which was sort of a clapped out tub.

Ghetto behavior is epidemic and intolerable. So much so that corporations are starting to take notice and calculate the cost/benefit ratio of marketing to the fatigue subset. Of course, they won’t say it outright, nor do they need to.

Carnival Cruise Line has become a magnet for black vacationers largely due to deep discounts on 3-5 day tickets. In 2015, the average cost per passenger was around $168 per night (more if you calculate today’s inflation). The cost was even higher depending on the ship and the destination. In 2025 the average cost is as low as $50 per passenger per night. The damage done to travel related industries because of the pandemic lockdowns is often blamed for the price cuts.

The cruises have also garnered a reputation as a “block party” on the water with many black customers expecting some “rowdiness” as part of the experience.

I found this on my youtube feed, which is how I discovered this before seeing it on zerohedge:

Tatum’s video is more in depth and funnier than the zerohedge piece. It’s where I got the title. His wife called Carnival the ‘Spirit Airlines of the Cruise lines’. That’s enough for me. BTW, he gets into the loss, and then subsequent profit after the rules were enacted.

The people who complain about such broad, common sense rules are essentially self reporting as the very people that no one wants around. Being trapped on a boat and surrounded by a massive ocean requires behavioral limitations on everyone, but for some reason only a certain group of customers is complaining about being forced to behave for the sake of others.

American society is growing tired of the antics of this demographic. It’s no longer cute, or a matter of “cultural differences”. Expectations are finally being enforced and free passes on bad behavior are being canceled.

I want nothing to do with drama. Cruises and airlines are no different to me when it comes to this. If I were on this cruise, I’d demand a refund and fly home after the first night. I feel the same about venues, restaurants, and stores. Matter of fact, anywhere I am in public. Here’s the deal – If this happens and I leave, I’ll never be back. Ever.

This happened long ago when first married to Herself. We went into a Copeland’s restaurant near our apartment in Alexandria Va. It was a very…urban? vibrant? experience. In addition, my shrimp etouffee wound up being half a dozen grilled shrimp on a band of white rice, surrounded by a dark sauce. Decidedly not the Louisiana dish I was expecting. To make matters worse, I had to eat it surrounded by a rather loud crowd literally up against our table, not unlike in the article above.

Years later, over a decade, I wound up next to Copelands marketing VP on a flight. He asked if I had ever been to Copelands. I told him my story, and said I haven’t darkened the doors since and had no plans to ever do so. He thought that harsh. But to be honest, there were two fantastic Cajun restaurants that opened up that are head and tails better. I hit one of them nearly every time I’m back in the DC area.

It was over decade before I darkened the doors of a Copelands, and that was on travel with a colleague who wanted to go. It was better, but only OK. Worth eating there, but not worth going there to eat.

Back when I lived in Richardson, the Walmart a block away from my house I dubbed ‘Ghetto Walmart’. I’d literally drive past it, miles north to the store in Plano if I had to go to Walmart for whatever reason, which was almost never.

Walmart knows this, by the way. Years ago there was a piece online on Wired Magazine where their intrepid reporter got hired by wally world in order to do a big expose. It went the other direction. He was amazed at how well it was run. At his new employee training they told him that if a customer got cheezed at them, they’d never come back, costing them +$250K over the life of the customer and that was never to happen. Don’t know if they still do that training. I can say, it needs to cover how you interact with coworkers on the floor as well as how you treat customers.

So yeah. Carnival was smart. They did what they had to do.

BTW – I probably wouldn’t book Carnival anyhow. My one trip was only OK, and the risk – however slim, that I run into this behavior makes it not worth it. I’d pick a cooler line that goes to Alaska.