After the cruise industry returned to sailing from North American ports in July 2021, all cruise lines have had to make major changes due to the Covid pandemic. Some were obvious, like vaccination requirements, masks, and additional cleaning protocols. Capacity has also been limited and social distancing has been enforced (to the extent possible on a cruise ship).
Many popular activities have been modified or canceled to comply with these rules mandated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Events like dance parties, parades and anything that led to people gathering in an enclosed space disappeared. That included things like laser tag on ships, which have it because you can’t play without bumping into people.
Even on huge ships like the Royal Caribbean Group (RCL) – Get a free report Oasis class ships, events were compromised due to CDC related rules. It was uncomfortable but necessary given the situation on board and ashore.
That began to change as the CDC began to loosen up and then dropped its pandemic-related rules. In July 2022, the CDC stopped regulating cruises, leaving cruise lines somewhat obligated to the ports they docked in but mostly leaving them completely unregulated.
After that, most of the lost activity came back, sometimes in a modified form at first and later just as it was before the pandemic. However, a very popular activity did not return, even as all pandemic-related rules and precautions began to disappear.
That led to fears it wouldn’t be coming back, but eventually some Royal Caribbean ships have offered “The Quest,” a popular scavenger hunt for over-21s.
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What is Royal Caribbean’s “The Quest” about?
The Quest depends on who’s leading, but it’s a slightly adult (to sometimes very adult) game/competition that’s riskier than traditional cruising activities. Different teams compete to be the first to get each desired item.
This is how a message board member on the Royal Caribbean Blog, unaffiliated with the cruise line, described it.
“It’s basically this giant scavenger hunt within your team. At Oasis it was in Studio B. There are about six couples who are team leaders and the cruise director is calling out tasks – things to find in the audience or things to get done B. 6 women’s bras or 3 shoelaces tied together The team leaders have a card with their number on it and once the task is done/found they run to the cruise director with the item and card, waving it in his face. The fastest teams get more points,” shared HMills96.
Another poster, Jerel, put it this way.
“In short, it’s an adult-oriented game show that people willingly make a fool of themselves on,” he wrote. “It doesn’t take long before they ask for girls who wear red thongs and to prove it on stage, or even ask a captain to produce 4 bras, many women will quickly rip them off by the way. Also, you’re pretty much guaranteed to see men dancing dirty with each other and/or hairy men in drag.”
Royal Caribbean is slowly bringing back The Quest
When pretty much every other activity had been brought back and The Quest hadn’t returned, some people worried that it might just quietly disappear. It’s definitely an activity that doesn’t really fit with the company’s family-friendly business model.
Now, however, some members of a Royal Caribbean Facebook group have posted about “The Quest” returning on their cruise (with some evidence of the event being announced on the Royal Caribbean app).
“Check out what’s back on Brilliance tonight, rumored to be on a ship for the first time since Covid,” shared Thomas Anglin, who provided a screenshot from the app.
A number of group members also shared that the game show was featured on multiple Wonder of the Seas sails.
“Wonderful Transatlantic had it,” Nick Miyar posted.
“We had it at Wonder a week ago. Any cruise director will claim the first,” added Scott Leonard.
And while The Quest appears to be coming back, it’s only appeared on select ships so far. However, it seems that once a ship brings it back, it makes it a regular part of every cruise (usually the last night) like it was before the pandemic.