If you’ve ever been to the beach, you know that seagulls and other birds can wreak havoc.
First, if you’re eating, the birds always seem to be circling, hoping you’ll take your eyes off your plate. Sometimes birds can be so aggressive that they will dive-bomb your table or try to take food away from your hands.
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Having birds around can also be confusing because birds don’t follow any good bathroom hygiene practices. They go wherever they happen to be and their stuff can cause mess on the seats and tables and/or end up in your food.
While some people say it’s good luck for a bird to poop on you, few actually believe this.
Bryan James, a Royal Caribbean crew member and the cruise line’s guitarist, shared how to keep birds away from cruise ships when they’re in port. This is actually a pretty neat trick that you might not notice when you’re on the boat.
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Photo credit: Ducasse/Universal Image Group (Getty Images)
How Royal Caribbean keeps birds away from you
Transcript:
A little-known fact about cruise ships is that they blast bird sounds through speakers so that other birds don’t land all over the ship. There are dozens of planes flying around now.
I think it’s like the sound of an eagle or, I don’t know, like the sound of a dinosaur that keeps them away, because if the seagulls make a sound too, I feel like they want to join them and be their friends.
So the speaker looks like this. They’re like loudspeakers on the front of the boat, and they’re loud.
They’re in a place where a lot of people don’t hang out, so you, I guess, just don’t really notice it, but whoever thought of that, genius!
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Royal Caribbean has another trick up its sleeve
What James didn’t reveal was that Royal Caribbean took a different tack on Perfect Day on CocoCay’s private island.
If you look up on the island, you will see fake eagles “flying” all over the island. These apparently also prevent other birds from becoming a nuisance on the island.
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However, this strategy is less than successful, as anyone who’s ever had lunch at one of CocoCay’s two main BBQ spots knows. Some seagulls, maybe the smarter ones, were still circling around the food area, waiting for people to leave their trays.
Food is often left for the birds because some passengers do not clean themselves properly.
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