Key Aspects:
- One of Celebrity Beyond’s passengers has the internet cracking up over their creative chair hogging stunt.
- The cruiser used a disguised mannequin or doll to try to reserve a prime lounge chair.
- Celebrity Cruises does not allow guests to reserve pool chairs, no matter how creatively they choose to do so.
One guest cruising onboard Celebrity Beyond is going viral for taking his pool-side chair hogging to the next level, albeit in a rather creative way.
A picture circulating on social media shows that a guest put a mannequin or doll onto a prime lounger, disguised it with sunglasses and an FBI baseball hat, and covered it with a pool towel.
“To the person on the Beyond who leveled-up ‘chair hogging,’ nice,” a caption that was posted with the picture read.
The unidentified passenger was likely hoping that their scheme would fly under the radar, and likely got away with it for at least some of the passersby onboard the 3,260-guest ship. Even some people looking at the picture online didn’t realize what they were seeing at first.
“I thought at first it was a kid lol. I guess mannequins need vacations too,” one cruiser reacted.
However, any guest or crew member who was paying attention would immediately notice that something was amiss.
It’s not clear which voyage the guest was onboard for or if they are a current passenger, but the 141,420-gross ton ship is currently operating 7-night itineraries to the Bahamas and the Caribbean from PortMiami in Florida.
Is This Chair Hogging Stunt Allowed?
There are two components to this creative scheme: Bringing the required materials onboard the Edge-class ship and the actual chair hogging.
Technically, the guest did not violate the cruise line’s policies by bringing the doll or mannequin onboard. There is nothing on Celebrity Cruises’ Prohibited Items List forbidding items like these.
That said, many were shocked that the guest had room in their luggage to bring their “friend” onboard, and wondered how surprised the security team may have been during the screening process on embarkation day.
“Ok but can you imagine the reaction of the people running the xray scanners on the luggage that was in,” one cruiser asked.
And of course, the hat and sunglasses used to disguise the object are just standard cruise fashion, and the beach towel would have been complimentary onboard.
The bigger offense would be the chair hogging, which is considered one of the biggest violations in cruise ship etiquette.
Celebrity Cruises officially prohibits reserving pool deck chairs, and the policy states that crew members can remove items from loungers that are left unattended for more than 30 minutes.
This is more strict than Carnival’s “chairing is caring” crackdown, which Cruise Hive reported allows chairs to go unattended for 40 minutes before crew members will remove any items.
However, the verdict is still out on if Celebrity actually enforces its policy, with some still finding it difficult to find seating, particularly on sea days. If guests notice that chair hogging is going overlooked, they can politely ask the crew for help.
Cruise Community Reacts
While chair hogging is usually a source of outrage in the cruise community, many couldn’t help but see the humor in the creative set-up.
“I wouldn’t even get mad at that one. They earned their saved chair with creativity,” one person posted, along with several laughing face emojis.
“I say let ’em keep their lounge – this is creative and funny,” another agreed.
It’s likely in the top three most outrageous chair hogging stunts Cruise Hive has ever seen, on par with when Carnival guests tried to bring a lounger from the Lido Deck to their stateroom and when a Royal Caribbean passenger urinated in her seat to avoid giving up a prime spot.
Despite the humor, future guests should probably avoid trying the same stunt to avoid potential trouble with the cruise line. Plus, this is likely a joke that the cruise community will only find funny once.
