13 Things That Will Be Confiscated Before You Get On A Cruise Ship

When you're stuck in the middle of the ocean hundreds of miles from the nearest Walmart, realizing you're missing an essential creature comfort either means having to shell out for the spendy cruise ship store equivalent or go without (shudder). It is far from the ideal situation. But even if it makes sense that you'd want to pack carefully for your cruise, packing the wrong item can result in a confiscation.

Aside from liquor, most items confiscated by cruise ship security aren't gone forever. Instead, they're sent to a magical place known to cruise regulars as the "naughty room," where they wait with all the other no-no items to be reclaimed at the end of the journey. But who wants to sacrifice precious luggage space on something you don't get to use on your trip or have to remember to trek your sunkissed self down to security to reclaim before heading home? Save yourself the hassle by avoiding the bane of cruisers everywhere and planning alternatives for those ban-worthy items instead. Banned item lists can vary from one cruise ship to the other, so always double-check your cruise line's list before you make it to the dock. 

Just about every cruise line out there has a rule about bringing booze on the ship, particularly the larger cruise companies. Disney Cruise Line, for example, allows guests to bring up to two bottles of unopened wine or six beers per guest in their luggage both at the beginning of the trip and at each port of call. And if you plan to bring your wine into the dining room, expect to pay a corkage fee of $29 per bottle. Any stronger spirits or open bottles will be confiscated, and there's no guarantee you'll get it back — the exception being alcohol purchased in ports of call, which is held until the end of the trip. Royal Caribbean takes things a step further with a ban on bringing beer and hard liquor aboard.

Most other major cruise lines follow pretty similar rules, which makes sense since they make a killing on alcohol consumption. But people sure love trying to get around these cruise booze rules with some of the wildest imaginable solutions. Although we're not suggesting you do this, YouTube and Instagram are full of clever hacks telling cruisers how to reseal wine bottles so they look brand new or smuggle booze in everything from shampoo bottles to hairbrush flasks. If you're not willing to risk losing it, it's probably best to just cough up the cash for a drink package.

If your Carnival cruise vacation daydreams involve blasting Bob Marley on a Bluetooth speaker while watching the sun gently kiss the waves or even just chilling with some sweet yacht rock in your cabin, think again. Sadly, bad cruisers with a poor sense of social awareness have ruined this privilege on a few major cruise lines.

And it's not hard to see why, given the many examples of Bluetooth cruise incidents uploaded to the web. Take the guy who created his own mobile mini-concert (as seen on YouTube) by popping a Bluetooth speaker on top of his rolling walker and taking a stroll around his cruise's lido deck. Then there's the Mediterranean cruise passenger who became so fed up with one couple's Bluetooth blasting that they chucked it over the side of the ship to Davy Jones' Locker (also on YouTube).

By late 2024, Carnival said enough was enough and decided to ban speakers of any kind altogether. For anyone thinking of using their phone speaker to circumvent the rules and have their own deckside dance party, the cruise line has explicitly stated that only personal listening devices like earbuds or headphones are allowed in public spaces.

Aware that cruise ship cabins are fairly notorious for not having enough of the right type of outlets for guests' charging needs, many cruisers opt to pack their own multi-plug adapters so everyone in their travel party can charge their phones and devices at once. But before you put in any Amazon orders, be sure to check your cruise line's policies on chargers and adapters because several cruise lines have banned multi-plug adapters and extension cords, and the naughty table is typically covered with these things. And just because it comes with a "Cruise Safe" label doesn't mean your cruise will allow it.

If you're a guest with a medical issue like a CPAP machine, though, don't worry — cruise lines have allowances for folks with special circumstances. You just need to make arrangements with the cruise line ahead of time, and they'll go out of their way to accommodate you. Not only will they provide you with an extension cord, but they may even bring you distilled water for your CPAP.

For those hardcore coffee drinkers who can't step outside the house to face the world without a cup of joe in the morning, the revelation that most cruise lines don't keep a coffee maker in their standard staterooms can be brutal. And many coffee drinkers say cruise ship coffee doesn't cut it. As one Reddit user wrote, "The free coffee which sucked was nearly unbearable to drink." Another Redditor lamented, "Free coffee is overheated swill. It's a cheap dark roast and putrid." While it might seem like the obvious solution is to bring a small or single-serve coffee maker, most cruise lines have these items, along with electric tea kettles, on their banned items lists, allegedly due to the heating element posing a fire risk.

Tea drinkers can resort to tea bags. But if the idea of bringing instant coffee and using hot water from one of the stations on the ship makes you shudder, some cruisers suggest seeking out higher-tier instant coffees for your trip, as there are actually a few good ones out there. Or you can always bring a small French press, which makes a pretty darned good strong cup of joe.

Likely for the same reasons most cruise lines ban coffee makers, steamers and irons are commonly banned items for most major cruise ship companies. This can be really frustrating for folks who want to step out looking sharp when they head out for dinner or a show since luggage doesn't tend to be kind to clothing. And no one wants to look like a shar pei puppy as they're sitting down for fine dining.

It's not a bad idea to plan ahead for cruise ship laundry service since this tends to be fairly affordable — one Redditor reported getting all of their spouse's dress shirts steamed for under $30 as recently as 2023. If you're hoping to save a few bucks, the internet is full of stateroom hacks for de-wrinkling laundry with everything from wrinkle-free laundry sprays to simply using the bathroom shower as an extra-large steamer. And it's probably not a bad idea to pack as many wrinkle-free clothing items as possible.

If you've got little ones in your party, it's just not a great idea to leave them unattended in your stateroom for any significant amount of time — a controversial parenting decision that became the subject of public discourse when a pair of parenting bloggers were accused of doing just that in 2024. Even if you aren't concerned about your child waking up and getting out, the chance of your child becoming injured somehow before you can make it back to your room or of some other oceanic emergency befalling the ship is always a possibility. Safety should always come first.

Still, some cruisers might want to keep a baby monitor in their cabin while you're just outside enjoying the balcony or running down the hall to grab a little ice. Even so, some cruise ships have banned baby monitors altogether. According to Royal Caribbean, it's because baby monitors could interfere with their on-board communications. A major exception is Disney Cruise Lines. However, they do require monitors to be inspected before the cruise, so be sure to pack them in your carry-on if you bring one along.

Since walkie-talkies (or two-way radios) work by sending signals, it's understandable that some cruise lines might want to ban them. After all, it is the same reason why baby monitors are forbidden. While this might seem like an odd communication choice for some cruisers in the digital age (where just about everyone has a phone), they've been a popular tool for some folks hoping to avoid accumulating extra charges on their mobile bills.

However, seasoned cruisers say walkie-talkies aren't a reliable method of communication since they don't always work on the ship. They also seem to have the same effect on other cruisers as lido deck bluetooth speakers. As one cruiser put it on r/Cruise, "They annoy everyone around you, and for nothing because they won't work very well anyway."

Others emphasized that half the time, you end up hearing everyone but the folks in your party, anyway. Given all of the controversy, the fact that cruise lines like Norwegian have banned them altogether should hardly come as a surprise. To keep track of your crew, veteran cruisers suggest using the cruise Wi-Fi plan and your phones to stay in touch. And when all else fails, there's always that old standby: Pen and paper.

Decorating stateroom doors is a time-honored tradition for many cruisers. There's even a thriving door decor subculture associated with Disney cruisers. But one thing you won't want to stick on your Carnival cabin door is an upside-down pineapple, even if it might seem like a bizarre cruise ship rule. "How could such a friendly fruit get banned from a cruise ship?," you might find yourself asking. The answer has to do with the pineapple's reputation as a swinger signal and Carnival's troubled reputation these days as the "Jerry Springer" show of cruise lines.

For years now, the cruise company's reputation has been plagued with reports of massive brawls among guests, substance problems so severe the company installed a drug-detecting dog on board a ship, and an unusually high concentration of swingers. While most people don't seem to mind what other cruisers are doing in the privacy of their own staterooms, reports of swinger groups getting a little carried away with the atmosphere are common.

Estimating that around 20% of their Carnival cruise were obvious swingers, one Redditor complained of their cruise, "No judgment at all to the choices people make, but the number of inappropriate comments in front of children, noisy rooms, and propositions to non-swingers was out of control." In what appears to be an effort to bring the temperature down a few notches, Carnival went ahead and added upside-down pineapples to their banned items list in late 2024.

For folks with a bad back or a trick knee, products containing CBD (Cannabidiol) oil can be a godsend, especially when you're trekking back and forth all over a cruise ship for a few days. Sadly, it's not an option on most cruise ships. Even though they are legal in the U.S., CBD products are not allowed on most cruise ships and could even get you kicked off the cruise — and this is tricky because it might not seem obvious to everyone.

Since CBD oil is actually a non-psychotropic product of the cannabis plant and the term "marijuana" is typically used as slang for the psychotropic version, it makes sense that someone might think CBD is allowed. However, it's important to remember that all cannabis products — even CBD — are illegal in some ports of call. Some cruise lines are serious about keeping it off their ships.

For example, CBD can be found on Carnival's prohibited items list. The company clarifies, "While certain CBD products used for medicinal purposes may be legal in the U.S. based on state and local laws, they are not legal under U.S. federal law and in all the ports we visit and therefore are also considered prohibited items." One woman was even banned from Carnival for life in 2023 after attempting to bring a few CBD gummies on board.

Cruise ships are a popular destination for romance whether you're on your honeymoon, about to pop the big question, or happen to be with the pineapple folks. And there are plenty of faith-based reasons someone might need to light a candle or burn a little incense somewhere. There are many reasons you might want to take a candle on your cruise.

But don't even think about trying to set the mood with a handful of tealight candles or a little Nag Champa because both are strictly prohibited on every cruise line — which completely makes sense since fire emergencies and being stuck in the middle of the ocean don't seem like a great combination. While things probably won't go full "Poseidon Adventure" if you accidentally start a cabin fire (cruise ships have some surprisingly good firefighting plans in place), they tend not to want to tempt fate. Instead, pick up a few battery-operated tealight candles before your trip. They're small, portable, and tend to last a long time, with some cruisers reporting results of a week or longer.

If you've ever thought about bringing your hookah on a cruise ship, you're not the only one. The Reddit page r/hookah and several cruise message boards feature a surprising number of reports from folks who brought their hookah on board a cruise ship. While you probably wouldn't want to bring your full-sized hookah pipe, many travelers reported taking their smaller pipes on cruise ships.

As it's basically just a method of smoking tobacco, it seems that some cruise ships will allow it. But be sure to check with your cruise company before packing yours since these are on the banned list for some companies, most likely because they pose a potential fire hazard. Both Carnival and Disney Cruise Line have hookahs listed on their prohibited items lists. If you're really set on enjoying a hookah while you're on your trip, check your ports of call for hookah lounges and try to carve out some time for a stop. 

Unless it's some kind of mobility device, just about anything that gets you where you're going sooner — things like skateboards and roller skates — are among the long list of common entertainment items banned on cruise ships. As one Reddit user mused, "They need to be 100% sure that the cruiser does not do something stupid and try to obtain a Darwin Award." The same goes for Heelys, a type of shoe with a set of tiny wheels frequently worn by tweens.

And yet, while it probably seems like a no-brainer that you wouldn't want to skate around the deck of a crowded cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, it's not a given for everyone. Writing on r/ElectricSkateboarding, one Redditor expressed frustration that his cruise-ship skateboarding days had been cut short, "Cruise ships and electric skateboards are the best ways to speedrun travel if any cruise ship company is cool with it of course." Some cruisers who planned to use them only on land have had luck getting them back at ports of call and then checking them in again when they embark again, so if you have your heart set on skating around a beach somewhere, it probably can't hurt to ask.

The YouTube channel for Royal Caribbean has quite a few "naughty table" videos featuring items confiscated from their ships. And right next to the many irons, clothes steamers, coffee pots, portable appliances, and extension cords they confiscate, there are usually at least a couple of pairs of saucy little handcuffs.

Despite having handcuffs on their naughty list, some cruise lines will — at least anecdotally — let the fun, non-locking handcuffs through. However, the results seem to vary from one person to the next. While one Redditor reported taking a pair through Carnival security on their honeymoon, others recalled having their plastic cuffs confiscated or even getting detained. Another cruiser cautioned on Reddit, "Restraints are not allowed, even if they are cute, fluffy, pink handcuffs." If you've got your heart set on an amorous game of cops and robbers in the privacy of your stateroom, seasoned cruisers suggest just bringing some ribbons or rope.