Can You Actually Find Swingers on a Vanilla Cruise? We Tested Every Internet Tip

Bloggers, YouTubers and TikTokers will have you believe we're everywhere. "Look out for upside-down pineapples," they say, with that knowing wink. "If you know, you know." The humble pineapple has had quite the glow-up from fruit bowl staple to secret handshake for people looking for some spicy at sea entertainment.

Award-winning blogger CruiseMummy even wrote about wearing pineapples by the pool. Nothing was said, no double-takes, she just felt uncomfortable and wouldn't do it again. Which, fair enough. But it left us with a question nobody seems to have actually answered: do any of these tips work, or are we all just decorating ourselves with fruit for nothing?

We were on a proper vanilla cruise, school summer holidays, MSC Virtuosa, 6,300+ guests, zero mention of any spicy goings-on anywhere onboard. Which made it the perfect lab. In the UK and US, around 5% of couples admit to being non-monogamous. On a ship that size, that's potentially 300+ like-minded people wandering the buffet with us. So we did what any nosy, spicy ENM couple would do: we went down the rabbit hole. Reddit threads, Facebook groups, Cruise Critic forums, three-year-old comment chains. We read it all, pulled out the tips that kept coming up again and again, and put every single one into action. Here's what happened.

1. Wear upside-down pineapples

We committed. Lanyards, a cap, even a pair of bespoke pineapple earrings. We wore them everywhere, pool deck, dinner, the Sky Lounge (adults only) at 11pm.

Result: nothing. No eyebrows raised, no knowing looks, no secret nod from a stranger by the towel station. The only response we got was one comment on our Instagram informing us we "might just be really undesirable." Rude, but also - noted for the data.

2. Look for pineapples on cabin doors

If wearing them didn't work, maybe spotting them would. So we walked the ship. Deck by deck, odds side then evens side, scanning every door like we were casing the place for a heist.

Four decks in, feet aching we called it. No pineapples. No fellow travellers. Just a lot of very normal cabin doors and one confused housekeeping trolley we nearly walked into twice.

3. Post in the Facebook groups

Next: the internet's favourite hiding spot. We posted anonymously in the sailing's Facebook group and the Upside Down Pineapple MSC group, and did a "roll call" on Cruise Critic, the forum equivalent of shouting into a cave.

The echo came back empty. No replies, no DMs, no fellow lifestyle couples surfacing from the depths of members. Turns out shouting "is anyone else here for the same reason we are" into a Facebook group is not, in fact, a discreet strategy!

4. Join the LGBTQ+ meet-ups

Onboard for seven nights, there were three official (if unhosted) LGBTQ+ meet-ups. Not exactly what we were tip-toeing around, but close enough in spirit that the internet insists it's worth a look, often the same crowd, different label.

We turned up each time. No LGBTQ+ people. Not a single person there for the reason the forums promised. Deserts, both of them.

5. Hang out in the adult-only areas

Last resort: the adults-only lounge. Supposedly the natural habitat. We sat, we sipped overpriced cocktails, we made ourselves very available for chit-chat.

Nothing. Not so much as a lingering glance. Just a lot of adults, quietly reading their Kindles, listening to the lounge band, entirely uninterested in whatever energy we were putting out.

The verdict

Zero tips worked. Not one. We tried every trick the internet swears by, on a ship with over 6,300 people, and came away with moments together, a pair of pineapple earringsI love, and one savage Instagram comment.

And honestly? That's the point. This isn't a "we found our people and so can you" post because we didn't. And pretending we did would be exactly the kind of fake-win content we can't put out. The tips don't work because a vanilla cruise was never built for this. Hoping you'll spot a pineapple on a random door is not a strategy. It's a coin flip with worse odds than actual gambling on the ship.

If you actually want to find your people at sea and not just hope really hard near the pool bar  you need to be on a sailing that's built for it from the start. That's the whole reason our Cruise Directory exists: verified lifestyle-friendly sailings, so you're not doing forensic detective work on cabin doors for a week and going home with nothing but a Facebook post that got zero replies.

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Want the full, faces-revealed diary from this cruise including the bits that didn't make Insta? That's in the Private Deck on Patreon.