After the cruise industry returned to sailing from North American ports in July 2021, all the cruise lines had to make major changes based on the covid pandemic. Some were obvious like vaccine requirements, masks, and added cleaning protocols. Capacities were also limited and social distancing was enforced (as much as that's possible on a cruise ship.
Many popular activities were modified or canceled to comply with these rules, which were mandated by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Events like dance parties, parades, and anything that caused people to gather in an enclosed space went away. That included things like laser tag on ships that have it because you can't play without bumping into people.
Even on huge ships like Royal Caribbean Group's (RCL) Oasis-class ships, events were compromised due to CDC-related rules. It was unpleasant, but neccessary given the situation onboard and on land.
That began to change when the CDC started loosening, then dropped its pandemic-related rules. In July 2022, the CDC stopped regulating cruises making the cruise lines somewhat beholden to the ports they stopped in, but mostly leaving them fully unregulated.
After that happened, most of the lost activities came back, sometimes in modified form at first, and later exactly as they were before the pandemic. One very popular activity, however, did not return even when all the pandemic-related rules and precautions began disappearing.
That led to fears that it wasn't coming back, but finally some Royal Caribbean ships have been offering "The Quest," a popular 21-and-over scavenger hunt.
Royal Caribbean
What Is Royal Caribbean's 'The Quest?'
"The Quest" varies based on who's leading, but it's a mildly adult (to sometimes very adult) game/competition designed to be more risque than traditional cruise activities. Various teams compete to be the first to get each requested item.
One member of the message board on the Royal Caribbean Blog, which is not affiliated with the cruise line, described it this way.
"It's basically this giant scavenger hunt within your team. On Oasis it was in Studio B. There are 6ish couples who are team leads, and the cruise director shouts out tasks--things to find in the audience, or things to accomplish. For example, 6 ladies bras, or 3 shoelaces tied together. The team leads have a card with their number on it, and as soon as the task is done/found, they run up to the cruise director with the object and the card, wave it in his face. The fastest teams get more points," shared HMills96.
Another poster, Jerel, put it this way.
"In short it's a adult oriented game show where people willingly makes fools of themselves," he wrote. "It doesn't take long before they are asking for girls who are wearing red thongs and to prove it on stage, or even ask a captain to produce 4 bras, many women will quickly rip them off btw. Also it's pretty much guaranteed to see men dirty dancing with each other and/or hairy men dressed up in women's clothing."
Royal Caribbean Slowly Brings Back 'The Quest'
When pretty much every other activity had been brought back and "The Quest" had not returned, some people feared that it might just quietly disappear. It's definitely an activity that's not really in line with the company's family-friendly business model.
Now, however, a number of members of a Royal Caribbean Facebook group have posted about "The Quest," returning on their sailings (with some sharing evidence of the event announcement in Royal Caribbean app).
"Look what’s back on Brilliance tonight, supposedly first time on any ship since Covid," shared Thomas Anglin, who provided a screen shot from the app.
A number of group members also shared that the gameshow has been on multiple Wonder of the Seas sailings.
"Wonder transatlantic had it," Nick Miyar posted.
"We had it on Wonder a week ago. Every cruise director will claim the first one," Scott Leonard added.
And, while "The Quest" appears to be coming back, it has so far only appeared on select ships. It does appear, though, that once a ship brings it back, it makes it a regular feature on every cruise (usually on the last night) as it was before the pandemic.
