From the world’s largest cruise ship to the world’s biggest naked cruise, we thought we’d seen it all when it came to holidaying on the high seas. However, the chilling revelation that there’s more to your cruise ship’s weekly ice cream party than meets the eye may just be our darkest cruising story yet…

A former cruise ship entertainer has shared the morbid secret behind the seemingly innocent ice cream parties. Dara Tucker, who spent much of her illustrious career performing on ships in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, revealed to her massive 1.1 million TikTok followers that the abundance of ice cream might not be as fun as it seems.

@darastarrtucker Replying to @Andrew #cruiseships #cruiseshiplife #cruiseshipdeaths ♬ original sound – Dara Starr Tucker

Tucker’s video — which quickly went viral thanks to the shocking revelations, amassing over 2.3 million views — suggests that when crew members suddenly make a large amount of ice cream available to passengers, it may be a sign of a far darker behind-the-scenes reality.

According to Tucker, this practice is often rolled out when the number of deaths on board the ship exceeds the capacity of the ship’s (already surprisingly large) morgue. She claims that if more than seven passengers pass away on your average large-scale ship, the bodies must be moved to a conventional freezer, meaning that ice cream — and any other frozen goods — must be gotten rid of as quickly as possible.

“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 then they have room for in the morgue.”

Dara Tucker

While Tucker herself never worked in the morgue — keeping herself confined to the ships’ far more glamorous areas wherever possible — she mentions that her colleagues who did spend time with the deceased reported that on some cruises — especially those catering to the elderly — death tolls could range from four to ten passengers per trip.

While it makes good sense, many will never have considered that cruise lines are legally required to have morgues on board, which are typically stainless steel refrigerated rooms located on the lower decks, far from customers’ view. The morgues can usually accommodate three to four bodies at any given time but, when capacity is exceeded, the awkward question of where to put the rest quickly arises…

“Cruise ship medic here. Can confirm the morgue and ice cream correlation…”

@cbuckc21

The revelation has divided viewers, with some expressing downright disbelief while other industry insiders have stepped forward to confirm her story. As far as we’re concerned the story makes enough logical sense — and enough people have chimed in to corroborate — that we believe her pretty much wholesale.

However you may feel about the story, it proves the choppy waters that cruise companies are forced to navigate. Passengers might want to think twice before indulging in that extra scoop of ice cream…