A Scavenger Hunt on the High Seas, With Rubber Ducks as the Reward

Dressed in sailor uniforms or cowboy hats or painted in bright pinks, blues and reds, rubber duckies — the kind usually found floating in a toddler’s tub — are now bobbing to faraway places as part of a global scavenger hunt taking over cruise ships.

If you’re cruising this summer, you might find a duck in any number of places on your ship — behind potted plants, balancing on door knobs or poised on top of signs. They’re part of a whimsical trend among people who frequently vacation on the seas.

The cruising duck enthusiasts, who at times refer to themselves as “quackers,” have been packing rubber ducks onto ships by the dozens, sometimes hundreds, to hide and leave for other passengers to find. The fad is believed to have begun in 2018, when a 10-year-old girl hid toy ducks for fellow cruisers to find during a family vacation. Her parents created what is considered the original “Cruising Ducks” Facebook page, which has ballooned into a large online community.

The Facebook page has attracted nearly 275,000 quackers and has close to 100 posts a day about hiding, finding, decorating and just loving the ducks. Spinoff pages for specific cruise lines have tens of thousands of members as well.

There are only a couple of simple rules to the game: hide a duck and find a duck. Once a duck is found, a player can choose to hide it again or keep it as a souvenir. Many of the lucky quackers post their finds on Facebook pages for the original owners to see.

“It’s not just for kids to find,” said Kelly May, 60, of Huntington Beach, Calif., who jumped on the duck-finding trend in 2022. “When I found my first one, it was a yippee moment.”