ABSTRACT
The concept of liminality informs the experience of tourism, yet little is known about how liminality is performed in the context of ‘cruises to nowhere’ that sacrifice terrestrial destinations for endless ‘seascapes’ of liminality. Fuelled by alcohol, round-the-clock parties and endless buffets, cruises to nowhere are an increasingly popular addition to the Southern African cruising season. Understood through a sample of South African based multi-day ocean-going cruises without a destination, results take literally the notion that tourist liminality involves boundary crossing into the unknown on the limitless horizon of the high seas. Using netnographic methods, boundary crossings are traced through the intended and practiced activities on-board cruise-to-nowhere experiences. Involving a mix of sun, sea, sex and especially alcohol, cruises to nowhere engineer the destination-free seascape as a liminoid playground. Reflecting on South African-based cruises to nowhere offered during the southern hemisphere summer cruising season, the findings of this research call for a more deliberate focus on the liminal aspects of ship-based tourism. At the same time, conclusions chart a course for what may be termed debauchery tourism. Building from work in cruise tourism geographies, alcotourism and party tourism, findings do not intend to moralise debaucherous shipboard tourism, but rather to explore the liminal setting of the cruise ship and the sea where cruises to nowhere offer round-the-clock drinking and partying as a liminal destination in and of itself.
