TikToker alleges morbid reason behind ice cream giveaways on cruise ships

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A TikToker who worked on a cruise ship has claimed that there is a very morbid reason behind ice cream parties aboard the giant vessels.

Dara Starr Tucker posted a TikTok video which amassed over 2.3 million views, responding to a theory posted by a commenter, saying that if the amount of ice cream available goes up while on a cruise, it means they need “freezer space for a body”.

“This is unfortunately often true,” Ms Tucker claimed.

“If the crew suddenly makes a bunch of ice cream available to the passengers – free ice cream party – it is often because more people have died on the ship than they have room for in the morgue,” she alleged.

Ms Tucker said that she worked as a singer on a cruise ship around 10 years ago, and spent around six months living on the vessel.

“Thankfully, we didn’t have to deal with this kind of stuff, but we were friends with some crew members who did,” she said.

She went on to explain that there were about four to 10 people who would die on board every cruise they took.

“There are a lot of older people on ships,” she added, saying that the ship carried around 2,500 to 3,000 passengers.

Ms Tucker claimed that they had a morgue onboard, which held around seven people.

“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.”

Therefore, she suggested, the crew would have to remove ice cream and other frozen goods to make room for any extra bodies.

“So when that happened, ice cream party, woo,” she said.

In a subsequent video, Ms Tucker clarified that the passengers who were on the cruises she worked on averaged at 75-years-old.

While it is unclear if this claim is a standard practice among cruises, last year a family filed a lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises, claiming staff stored the corpse of their family member inside a walk-in cooler normally used for beverages. They claimed it led to the body decomposing more quickly than it would have if stored in a more suitable setting, Indy100 reported.

When someone dies during a cruise, larger ships will typically carry body bags and have a morgue in place to store several bodies, according to The Times.

On smaller ships, however, it will depend on what facilities they have available, but storage space will usually be temperature-controlled in order to store the body if the ship is still out at sea, the outlet added.