More than 100 men found themselves unexpectedly dressed alike aboard Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas earlier in 2026 after their partners and families coordinated a large-scale matching shirt prank.
The passengers were persuaded to wear the same distinctive red Hawaiian-style shirt before making their way to The Pearl, the dramatic multi-storey structure at the heart of the ship’s Royal Promenade.
What initially appeared to be an unfortunate coincidence became increasingly difficult to explain as more men wearing exactly the same shirt arrived.
The participants had not independently stumbled across the same piece of holiday clothing. Their partners and relatives had coordinated the outfits in advance, leaving many of the men unaware of what was happening until they encountered their matching counterparts onboard.
Eventually, more than 100 men wearing the red shirts gathered together at The Pearl, turning a relatively simple practical joke into a sizeable group event.
A Cruise Prank That Relies On Keeping A Secret
The matching-shirt trick has become an increasingly familiar cruise prank, with passengers using sailing-specific social media groups to organise it before departure.
The basic idea is straightforward. Partners or relatives agree on one shirt and separately persuade the men travelling with them to wear it at a particular time during the cruise. Provided the plan remains secret, each participant initially believes there is nothing unusual about his clothing.
The joke gradually reveals itself onboard as another passenger appears in the same shirt, followed by another and then potentially dozens more.
Similar attempts have taken place on other cruise ships, although the scale of the Star of the Seas gathering appears particularly large.
In July 2025, for example, more than 60 men were brought together in matching Hawaiian-style Disney shirts during a Disney cruise. The prank had been coordinated by passengers before the sailing, with the unsuspecting participants discovering the arrangement as the matching outfits began appearing onboard.
Passengers on several other Disney Cruise Line ships have subsequently shared examples of the same idea. A March 2026 sailing aboard Disney Wish featured another coordinated Hawaiian shirt gathering, while cruisers reported that similar versions had previously taken place aboard Disney Wonder and Disney Magic.
The concept itself is not limited to cruise ships. Matching-shirt pranks have circulated online for several years, including a widely shared 2022 example in which four brothers were independently given identical green plaid shirts by their wives before attending the same family gathering.
Cruise Passengers Have Plenty Of Their Own Traditions
The matching-shirt trick is part of a wider collection of passenger-led traditions that have developed around cruising, many of which are organised informally rather than by the cruise lines themselves.
One of the best-known is hiding small rubber ducks around a ship for other passengers to discover. Cruisers frequently attach tags to the ducks encouraging whoever finds them to keep them or hide them somewhere else for another guest.
Decorating stateroom doors has also become particularly visible on some ships. Magnets are commonly used because many cruise cabin doors are made from metal, with passengers creating displays for birthdays, anniversaries and other celebrations.
The practice has become prominent enough for individual cruise lines to establish their own rules about what passengers can place on cabin doors. Some operators permit decorations subject to restrictions, while others have tightened their policies over concerns including safety and the suitability of particular decorations.
Not every cruise tradition is intended as a prank, but the large number of passengers travelling together aboard modern ships can make coordinated jokes particularly effective.
Star of the Seas is one of the world’s largest cruise ships, giving organisers a considerable pool of passengers from which to recruit participants before a sailing.
In this case, the success of the prank ultimately depended on more than 100 separate families and partners managing the same thing: getting the men into their red Hawaiian shirts without revealing why so many other passengers would shortly be wearing one too.
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