When you take a cruise, you leave the U.S.
Your cabin might look like a hotel room, but it's actually part of a ship that travels to various ports worldwide. So unlike a stay at a U.S. hotel, you won't have a full array of television channels. Each cruise line makes licensing deals to offer a selection of entertainment, news and sports.
Related: Carnival Cruise Line warns its passengers about onboard behavior
In most cases, these are the international feeds of those channels, so if you're watching the Super Bowl on a ship, you won't get to see the commercials. Most major cruise line ships will have access to the biggest sporting events, but not all of them.
Back in 2019, for example, Royal Caribbean (RCL) was using a couple of older ships for sailings to Cuba. When those sailings were canceled — then-President Donald Trump outlawed visits to the island — the cruise line kept Majesty of the Seas in the fleet even though it lacked many of the company's newer amenities.
Among the missing venues was a sports bar, and that meant passengers on a July 2019 sailing could not watch the U.S. Women's National Team face England in the World Cup semifinals. The ship was docked that day, but it left port before the game would have ended.
This outraged many passengers, who did not understand why the cruise line could not simply turn on the game (it did not have the right to do that and would have faced huge fines).
The situation could have gotten ugly — except the manager at the Schooner Bar, the main entertainment venue on the ship passed out free drinks while irate passengers dropped their anger and gathered around a passenger's iPad to watch the game.
Now, Carnival Cruise Line passengers face a similar situation, and Brand Ambassador John Heald did his best to defuse any possible anger.
Image source: Getty Images
Cruise lines generally offer big sports events
Most Carnival Cruise Line (CCL) and Royal Caribbean ships have sports bars. They will generally show all the big games as well as a selection of others. In many cases, when it comes to regular-season games, the cruise lines show what they have as they're not making special carriage deals for single games.
In many cases, for big events they will also show games on screens by the pool, in their casinos, and in theaters that have screens. For the Super Bowl and other championship games, both Royal Caribbean and Carnival generally offer some special screenside food options and they ensure that plenty of bartenders are around.
Neither cruise line offers that kind of treatment, however, for any other sort of television programming. One Carnival passenger messaged Heald to explain what a grave mistake that was. The brand ambassador replied with his usual mix of humor and honesty.
Carnival passengers will be missing a popular show
'And now we move onto some serious bad news," Heald said during his weekly video address on Facebook. "I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but I will preface it by reading this letter."
Heald's facial expression as he delivers this suggests that while the news will be bad, it's not quite as dire in his mind as it is for the passenger asking. He described the letter writer as "a young lady whose name begins with 'G.'"
"Nobody at Carnival can give me the answer for this. I have called, nobody knows. Someone on my roll call (an unofficial social media board for a cruise) said I should write to you," G wrote. "Me and my sister will be leaving on the Glory on March 24," Heald read before stopping.
The brand ambassador then feigned being upset at having to deliver bad news.
"The final 'The Bachelor' episode is March 25. I do not want to miss this episode. Will the ship get ABC, and can this go on the jumbo screen," she asked.
Joey's journey to find love, she wrote, has "captured America's hearts. Carnival is an American cruise line. I hope you know that by not showing 'The Bachelor,' it will mean so much disappointment and anger for the passengers."
With pretend tears, Heald delivered that bad news.
"I'm so sorry, we can't show it," he said, hiding his face behind his hands. "Joey, poor Joey, will he find love? Is Joey a man or a woman? I don't know, I don't know anything about Joey."
Heald, who lives in England, noted that "The Bachelor" does not air there.
"You'll have to tape it or buy the internet and stream it," he added.
Heald explained that three other passengers had also asked about whether the show would air, but "G" achieved a special status.
"You're the one who got the most angry," he said.
"We don't get ABC. Most of the cruise lines don't have the networks (Royal Caribbean will also not be showing "The Bachelor" finale onboard)."
Royal Caribbean also does not offer ABC nor does Norwegian, MSC Cruises, or Virgin Voyages. Disney Cruises, however, does offer ABC (since Walt Disney owns it) and will be showing "The Bachelor" finale.
