Theme Cruises

Theme Cruises

This article relates to American Fantasy

As fantastical as the Boy Talk cruise seems in American Fantasy, it's roughly inspired by author Emma Straub's experiences aboard the annual New Kids on the Block cruise. The energy and community her character Annie finds with the Talkers is something many theme cruise participants speak to as a core part of their experiences, whether on a musical tour or a sci-fi adventure.

Details from the real-life "Blockheads" voyage are woven throughout Straub's fictional story. Thousands of excited ex-teenage girls with eternal crushes on rapidly-aging band members? Check. Cruise participants stealing the life-size decals of the band off the ship's walls? Check! Door decorations, nightly themes, and a live quiz show where the band faces off against lucky guests—you've got it. I can't speak to how much Boy Talk's Shawn Fiore is based off of New Kid's Donnie Wahlberg, but I can confirm that both host exclusive 3 AM no-phones afterparties.

The sense of communal understanding that brings Talkers—and Blockheads—out to sea each year is a big selling point of these cruises, even those without bands on board. Star Trek: the Cruise participants might speak to the lack of surprise and confusion when wearing costumes on board among fellow Trekkies, for example, versus the stares they might receive anywhere else. The founders of Celiac Cruise cite similar motivations, though with different stakes—a condition that can feel alienating at every meal, turned into common ground for a boatload of diners. Reader, I don't mean to compare being a fan of a '90s boy band with having celiac disease… but there are parallels.

Cruise companies are seeing the revenue potential in that desire for connection. On its maiden voyage, the Hallmark Christmas Cruise was fully booked within twelve hours of publishing. A second sailing was added to accommodate demand, which was again sold out on its first day of presale. (Don't worry, Hallmarkees; it's since been made an annual event.) Theme cruises can bring in first-time customers, people who normally wouldn't book that kind of travel, and fill ships during the off-season as well as the peak.

Regardless of theme, a cruise that targets a niche audience and brings them all together for specialized programming seems to gratify and unite people who would otherwise never cross paths—not to mention create a tide of revenue for the cruise companies. As Annie puts it: "Their story wasn't unique—that was the point of fandoms, wasn't it, that there were thousands of millions of people just like you?"

Hallmark Christmas Cruise logo courtesy of Hallmark Christmas Cruise

Filed under Cultural Curiosities

This article relates to American Fantasy. It first ran in the April 8, 2026 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.