10 Creepy Cruise Ship Ghost Sightings

For many, a cruise is the ultimate vacation, but for these unlucky travellers it was a frightening experience. Here are ten creepy ghost sightings that took place on haunted cruise ships.

10. Hostile Visitor

A mother and daughter had a spooky encounter while staying aboard the Brilliance of the Seas. On the final morning of their cruise, the mother woke to find her fifteen-year-old daughter standing eerily in the centre of the room, watching her. She called out to her daughter and asked what she was doing. Her daughter answered – but to her surprise, her daughter’s voice came from the couch behind her. The mother looked again but the shadowy figure she’d mistook for her daughter was gone.

A short time later, both Mom and her daughter were awake and getting dressed to leave when the TV suddenly turned on by itself. The channels kept changing, as if someone was cycling through them. This freaked both of them out, as the remote was sitting on the bed untouched.

Following this, they were both overwhelmed by the sudden stench of rotten eggs. The mother peered out into the hall to see if she could find the source of the smell. That’s when she heard two staff members next door struggling to open a storage door. The mother overheard one of them telling the other that it was like someone was holding the door shut from the inside.
For the mother, this was the last straw. She grabbed her daughter and they immediately checked out, several hours before they were supposed to.

9. Creepy Compliment

A woman aboard the cruise ship Carnival Conquest had a frightening experience when a spectral intruder appeared in her cabin.

It was five in the afternoon and the woman and her husband had just finished getting dressed up for dinner. As she inspected herself in the mirror, the woman heard something that made the hair on her neck stand up. It was a gruff male voice whispering the words “You look beautiful tonight…”

At first the woman assumed it was her loving husband putting on a voice, but when she turned around she saw he was still outside on the balcony with the door shut. She then looked at the TV, but it was on the menu channel with the sound muted. She shrugged it off and assumed it had probably come from somewhere out in the hall.

But as she continued getting ready, the woman heard the creepy compliment again. This time there was no doubt that it had come from inside the cabin so she raced out onto the balcony to tell her husband. The invisible entity didn’t speak again, but what was particularly disturbing about this experience was that it happened on the same night that a disgruntled male passenger threw himself overboard…

8. Phantom Choking

The Queen Mary is history’s most infamous haunted cruise ship. Many of the people who’ve been aboard it have claimed to see the ghost of deceased officer William Eric Stark. As the story goes, Stark stole a bottle of gin one night to liven up his watch. But when he started to drink it, he realised it wasn’t gin; it was a powerful cleaning fluid called ‘tetrachloride’.

Stark laughed off his mistake, but he soon became violently ill. He died within days and many believe his ghost still lingers around the main deck. Crew members and passengers alike say you can hear unexplainable choking sounds on chilly evenings when no one is around. Many believe these are the dying sounds of poor William Stark.

7. Thomson Celebration Cinema

A mother and daughter were enjoying some well-deserved R&R on a small but intimate cruise liner known as The Thomson Celebration. To kill some time, they decided to pay a visit to the ship’s luxury cinema. The theatre was completely empty so they took a seat towards the back.

Ten minutes into their film, the mother and daughter saw the silhouettes of three people enter. These late arrivals walked the entire length of the theatre as though they were looking for a seat. This was strange because there were clearly plenty of free seats available.

The mysterious figures eventually stopped at the row that was directly behind where the mother and daughter were sitting. They shuffled in to take their seats and the daughter felt them bump the back of her chair. She started feeling uneasy and whispered to her mother that they should get up and leave. As the mother and daughter stood up to leave, they took one last look behind them. The anonymous figures were suddenly nowhere to be seen. It was like they had completely vanished…

6. The Thomson Destiny Intruder

In 2005, a man vacationing with his son on the cruise ship the Thomson Destiny got the fright of his life when he woke to a stranger in his cabin. It all started when the man – who is normally a heavy sleeper – was awoken by the sound of his wardrobe doors swinging open.

He sat up and saw a man with shoulder-length hair and an unfamiliar uniform rummaging through his things. The man shouted for him to stop and the stranger dived head-first into the wardrobe.

The startled traveller immediately leapt out of bed to investigate – but of course there was no trace of the intruder. This was physically impossible, as the open wardrobe doors were blocking the main exit.

The man was understandably shaken by this encounter, but he managed to get back to sleep. But his ordeal wasn’t over yet. A few hours later he was awoken again – this time by his young son. The boy shot up in bed and started speaking in a strange and unfamiliar voice. The boy said, “You don’t care about the people on this ship!” and then suddenly fell back to sleep.

The man had always been highly sceptical about the existence of ghosts, but the strange events of this night definitely changed his opinion.

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