Ducks on a Cruise Ship? - Average Cruiser

I was recently on a Carnival cruise and discovered multiple teens with gallon bags full of ducks placing them everywhere. And then I was on another recent cruise with kids searching daily for ducks.

The ducks were being taken to the cabins. They were exciting items for kids to hide and hunt like they were Easter Eggs.

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. That means that, at zero extra cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

But what is the point of cruising ducks?

The ducks have traditionally been a rare item on a cruise ship. Hidden, but findable. Something too rare to actively search for, but to be excited about when you found one. They usually had little pieces of paper attached to them with what cruise they had last been on and who had brought them to this new cruise.

The ducks were hunted and hidden by adults. They told a story.

A large part of it was the story of people going from one cruise ship to another over time. You were supposed to take the ducks you found with you, if you played the game, and write your name and your cruise information on them. And then take them to your next cruise ship to hide them for someone else to find. The ducks would move from ship to ship with little scraps of paper attached to tell their story.

But now the ducks have become more mainstream. You can buy them in bulk on Amazon.

(They are actually kind of fun to find on Amazon. You can get bulk ducks that are all the same, large quantities of variety ducks, or very specific ducks. Like these pirate ducks or these military ducks.)

The ducks have moved from telling a story for adults as they floated from ship to ship, to being something to entertain kids.

I support entertaining kids, I do. But has something been lost in this duck migration?

I don’t know, but I do miss knowing where my ducks came from. I miss the days when they were a rare thing that you might find once every few cruises.

If you do find an old-school duck with information on it from a previous cruise, either continue the tradition or leave the duck there for someone who wants to.

And if you take some ducks home, make sure you put some out yourself.