What is the thing with the Carnival Ducks?

[cellfree]

What is the history of the ducks? What do you do if you find one? Who places them about the Ship? 

[May1cruiser]

Just a random fun act. Not sure of the history. I know we have hidden ducks ourselves. Also found online templates to make the tags for them. Bought the ducks from a huge online retail establishment. 

 

[skrufy]

8 minutes ago, cellfree said:

What is the history of the ducks? What do you do if you find one? Who places them about the Ship? 

Don't know the history. Anyone can hid the ducks. When you find one you can keep it or hide it again. There is usually some message attached. 

[scpirate]

There are some people that don't want you to have plastic straws but little chinese made plastic ducks are okay. To each their own .i have never seen any and i do not look for them. I am sure there is a special meaning to it.

[Cruisesfun65]

13 minutes ago, scpirate said:

There are some people that don't want you to have plastic straws but little chinese made plastic ducks are okay. To each their own .

 

People will tell you that ducks are not thrown into the ocean like straws are. But I did see 2 in the aft pool once.🤣

[Elaine5715]

35 minutes ago, Cruisesfun65 said:

 

People will tell you that ducks are not thrown into the ocean like straws are. But I did see 2 in the aft pool once.🤣

See many a kid tossing them overboard while parents laugh and laugh

[Elaine5715]

1 hour ago, cellfree said:

What is the history of the ducks? What do you do if you find one? Who places them about the Ship? 

Be a duck hunter.  I make a nest in my trash can.  

[tallnthensome]

I found some and left them for others to find. 

[cruizergal70]

2 hours ago, scpirate said:

There are some people that don't want you to have plastic straws but little chinese made plastic ducks are okay. To each their own .i have never seen any and i do not look for them. I am sure there is a special meaning to it.

Which people don't want straws? Are these the same people putting out ducks? You want ducks banned?

[teknoge3k]

This is nothing new. Jeep owners have been doing this for years, and it's been happening on the ships for several years also. It's fun to hide them, and find them. 

[klfrodo]

Not limited to just Carnival. Other cruisers on other cruise lines do this also.

[MeganGC1983]

4 hours ago, Cruisesfun65 said:

 

People will tell you that ducks are not thrown into the ocean like straws are. But I did see 2 in the aft pool once.🤣

I’ve never seen a sea turtle with a duck stuck in its nose. 

[vwrestler171]

It was something that started out cute and fun, but now you have people bringing HUNDREDS of ducks on each cruise.  I've seen many crew and staff toss them lately.  Just an example of people taking something to an extreme and results in a lot of ducks in the garbage.

[mlshum]

I read that it was started by a little girl named Abby who brought them on her cruise, much like friendship rocks, to leave lying around simply to make someone smile when they found it.

[Virga]

I have seen this happening in a couple of my Facebook groups - thought it was cute but not my kind of thing at all, so I just kind of ignored those posts.  Then my other half found an adorable pirate duck and was so gleeful about it that I suddenly understood the appeal.  Still not my thing - I won't be planting the ducks anytime soon - but I will smile widely and tell my husband to keep his eyes open next time I discover we're going on a cruise with duck planters.

 

 

Not quite certain that I understand the straw comparison - I thought the problem with straws was their single use nature and very light/thin structure, making it easy for a zillion of them to end up in the water to be broken down or eaten and ending up as microplastics, often harming wildlife in the process.  Greatly reducing our reliance on single use / 'disposable' plastics is a laudable, realistic goal - I don't think anyone with more than a couple brain cells is trying to argue that all plastic products should be outlawed completely.  The ducks obviously fall somewhere in between, but anyone with a lick of sense must realize that things like grocery bags and straws are responsible for far more environmental damage than the ducks.  

[Elaine5715]

9 minutes ago, Virga said:

I have seen this happening in a couple of my Facebook groups - thought it was cute but not my kind of thing at all, so I just kind of ignored those posts.  Then my other half found an adorable pirate duck and was so gleeful about it that I suddenly understood the appeal.  Still not my thing - I won't be planting the ducks anytime soon - but I will smile widely and tell my husband to keep his eyes open next time I discover we're going on a cruise with duck planters.

 

 

Not quite certain that I understand the straw comparison - I thought the problem with straws was their single use nature and very light/thin structure, making it easy for a zillion of them to end up in the water to be broken down or eaten and ending up as microplastics, often harming wildlife in the process.  Greatly reducing our reliance on single use / 'disposable' plastics is a laudable, realistic goal - I don't think anyone with more than a couple brain cells is trying to argue that all plastic products should be outlawed completely.  The ducks obviously fall somewhere in between, but anyone with a lick of sense must realize that things like grocery bags and straws are responsible for far more environmental damage than the ducks.  

Same issue with straws or ducks, if they end up in the ocean, they end up being swallowed by sea creatures.

[Virga]

1 minute ago, Elaine5715 said:

Same issue with straws or ducks, if they end up in the ocean, they end up being swallowed by sea creatures.

 

Having read a little more, I think my position is changed somewhat, but this is what I would have written when I was writing the initial response: But realistically, how many grams of ducks end up in the ocean vs straws or ducks?  Further, at what percentage?  And after that, what percentage ends up hurting sea life?  Straws and bags, like that old soda can packaging, are well established to be devastating.  They dwarf ducks in amount of harm done, mostly because they're *intended* for single use, but partially because their design causes immediate harm.  

 

 

BUT: I hadn't realized that people were doing this at this kind of scale - someone mentioned hundreds??  That's pretty crazy, and since obviously at that point the final destination for these is mostly trashcans and occasionally the ocean... Well, if I were an active participant before, I couldn't be anymore.  The one we collected now lives in our nostalgia box (with his St Patrick's cousins we've collected for years) and I guess I thought that's where most of them went.  I'm definitely a 'pick and choose' environmentalist - I keep my AC set to the very low temperature where I'm most comfortable, for instance, despite that being pretty energy intensive in Florida - but I do begrudgingly give up things when I learn that their value is too massively outweighed by the damage they do.  I'm still not sure I'm convinced that the total amount of duck plastic involved is all that much, but at the point that the duck plastic is being treated as single use, it's being done wrong. 

 

I realize this went off on a tangent, but TLDR: in less crazy quantities, little harm is done and great joy is brought.  Arguably, a fair trade overall.  When the quantities are getting silly enough that they've just become garbage, the harm side of the equation gets heavier and it does bear thinking about.

 

[cruisinpips]

I do not look for ducks, I find it particularly silly, but when I do happen to come across  them, in the trash they go…..like any other random thing left in a public space. 

[ray98]

Classic....now we are back to the straws.

 

Here we have a large group of people going on vacation.  To start it most fly on a polluting aircraft to get to the port.  Once onboard they are a passenger on one of the most polluting, environmentally unfriendly methods of travel in existence.  They travel for a week surrounded by the definition of excess in all forms.  That goes from wasted natural resources, from fuel to water, several forms of pollution all in the name of comfort and food waste at a level where you could feed a small village.

 

Yet...eliminating a straw will save the world.

[Just1Wonder]

Found my first duck on a cruise before the pandemic. Googled it when I got home and saw it was a thing. I did two cruises this year and hid ducks both times.  Few times my wife and I get drinks and watched discreetly until they were found. We were thrilled when people and crew found them. One person even posted the pic of one of my ducks they found on the duck website.  I think it's a wonderful idea.  

[icft]

We're not into plastic ducks. But my wife has been collecting blue rubber ducks on Premier cruises. They have casino cash under them. Are blue rubber ducks more environmentally friendly than yellow plastic ducks?

[sparks1093]

I doubt we'll ever hide any but on our upcoming cruise we might have our step granddaughter try to find some to occupy her time. If she finds any they will be a cheap souvenir for her. (And not that it matters but I believe they are rubber ducks, you know, the ones that Ernie used to sing about "rubber ducky, you're the one, you make bath time so much fun". And if you have that song stuck in your head now, your welcome 😁.)

[crazyank]

7 hours ago, cruisinpips said:

I do not look for ducks, I find it particularly silly, but when I do happen to come across  them, in the trash they go…..like any other random thing left in a public space. 

That makes two of us.  Now, be prepared to be vilified, hated, flamed, and have nasty remarks made about your family, as happened to another poster with the same opinion as you and us.

[teknoge3k]

To the 2 that go around and throw the ducks away that they see, I am wondering... Do you go to egg hunts around Easter that the kids have and throw all of the eggs away? I mean, they're plastic eggs. 

[skridge]

9 hours ago, Virga said:

I have seen this happening in a couple of my Facebook groups - thought it was cute but not my kind of thing at all, so I just kind of ignored those posts.  Then my other half found an adorable pirate duck and was so gleeful about it that I suddenly understood the appeal.  Still not my thing - I won't be planting the ducks anytime soon - but I will smile widely and tell my husband to keep his eyes open next time I discover we're going on a cruise with duck planters.

 

 

Not quite certain that I understand the straw comparison - I thought the problem with straws was their single use nature and very light/thin structure, making it easy for a zillion of them to end up in the water to be broken down or eaten and ending up as microplastics, often harming wildlife in the process.  Greatly reducing our reliance on single use / 'disposable' plastics is a laudable, realistic goal - I don't think anyone with more than a couple brain cells is trying to argue that all plastic products should be outlawed completely.  The ducks obviously fall somewhere in between, but anyone with a lick of sense must realize that things like grocery bags and straws are responsible for far more environmental damage than the ducks.  

I think if we had a spelling contest between the "environmentalist wackos" and the just toss it in the ocean crowd, the "wackos" would win in a blowout.