Cruise Line Has Called Time on Cruise Ducks and Door Decorations

A notice has gone up on Marella's cruise noticeboard asking passengers to stop hiding rubber ducks around the ship and to leave cabin doors bare. It's politely worded, complete with a duck pun, but the message is clear enough. Ducks left around the ship or at the ports will be picked up and binned, and anything stuck to a cabin door may be taken down by the crew.

If you've never come across cruise ducks, the idea is simple. You buy a bag of small rubber ducks, tag them with your name or your cabin number, and hide them around the ship for other passengers to find. Whoever finds one either keeps it or re-hides it, usually posting a photo in a Facebook group afterwards. It started on American ships and spread fast through the British market over the last few years.

What the notice says

Marella's wording is friendly. They acknowledge people like adding a personal touch to their holiday, then explain that the ducks have started to drive them quackers, and ask that toys, novelty items and other personal bits aren't left or hidden around the ship or at destinations.

Three reasons are given. Loose items become trip hazards. The line is cutting down on plastic and waste, and leaving plastic ducks behind sits awkwardly with that. And bare cabin doors keep the corridors looking tidy and, more to the point, keep the ship compliant on safety.

Flags, banners, posters, stickers and magnets are all named. If something is left where it shouldn't be, the crew will remove it without any fuss.

The plastic argument is the strongest one

The safety line about door decorations is standard across the industry and has been for years. Corridors are escape routes, and anything flammable stuck to a door is a problem in a fire. That's not new.

The waste point is harder to argue with. A duck hidden on deck 8 that nobody finds is a piece of plastic that ends up in a bin, or worse, over the side. A ship carrying close to 2,000 passengers where even a small fraction bring a bag of twenty ducks each is dealing with thousands of small plastic items a week. Marella rolled out reusable coffee cups fleetwide earlier this year, so this is consistent rather than opportunistic.

The bit that will annoy people is the trip hazard framing. A rubber duck on a windowsill isn't going to fell anyone. But we suspect the real issue is where they end up: light fittings, handrails, the lip of a lifeboat, inside the theatre. Crew have to retrieve them, and some of those spots are genuinely awkward.

Marella isn't the first

Norwegian Cruise Line banned all door decorations back in 2019, citing the flammable nature of paper and magnetic decorations, with cabin stewards instructed to take them down. No exceptions for birthdays.

Royal Caribbean tightened enforcement on Symphony of the Seas earlier this year, sending passengers a letter setting out what's allowed on stateroom doors, which caused a fair bit of noise among regular cruisers. Carnival and Princess both restrict decorations to fire retardant materials, and Carnival has banned upside down pineapple imagery for reasons you can look up yourself. Disney now permits magnets on stateroom doors but has stopped decorations on hallway walls and ceilings.

So the direction of travel across the industry is towards less, not more. Marella going the whole way and naming ducks specifically is the newer part.

What we'd do on your next Marella sailing

Leave the ducks at home, or bring a couple and hand them to people directly rather than hiding them. Nobody is going to tell you off for giving a child a rubber duck by the pool. The rule is about what gets left behind.

If you were planning to decorate a door for a birthday or an anniversary, put your effort into the cabin instead. Marella will do a cake and a bit of a fuss if you tell them in advance, and that's worth more than a banner in a corridor.

The photo bank of duck finds isn't going anywhere either. Plenty of the fun was always in the Facebook posts rather than the plastic.

We've sailed Marella Explorer and Marella Voyager and neither ship feels like the sort of place that enforces things harshly, so we'd expect a quiet word rather than a scene. Crew won't be checking your bags at embarkation.

If Marella is on your list for next year, we'll happily price a few sailings up for you and tell you which ship suits what you're after. Ask us for a quote and we'll come back with real availability rather than a headline fare.