Anyone who’s been on a cruise will know that one of the biggest unwritten rules is to never jump into the ocean from the deck. It’s pretty self-explanatory as to why you shouldn’t do this, too.

But for one man, this all went out the window when he voluntarily took the plunge from the 11th floor deck of one of the world’s largest cruise ships.

American man Nick Naydev, then 27, leapt from the 11th floor of the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Symphony of the Seas while it was docked in Nassau, Bahamas back in 2019.

After all spending the night before heavily drinking, friends filmed Nick as he plummeted 100ft down into the ocean – which, by the way, was potentially infested with sharks.

Miraculously, Nick survived the fall and lived to tell the tale, with him later admitting to Inside Edition that he ‘didn’t think it through’.

“I remember hitting the water, impact was pretty big ’cause it was pretty high up. It impacted my tailbone and my neck pretty hard, luckily it wasn’t anything serious.

“Nothing was really going through my mind. I’m like, ‘I gotta do this,’ and just two seconds later, I just jumped and didn’t really think it through.”

Somehow, Nick survived the 100ft fall into the ocean. (Inside Edition)

He added: “The previous night we were drinking quite a bit so I was still feeling the effects of the alcohol.

“I hope I don’t inspire anybody to do this because it is very dangerous, I mean they’ll think this is a joke.”

Now, footage has emerged of what happened after Nick entered the water.

After making quite the splash from his fall, he’s seen casually swimming around in the ocean – almost as if nothing had even happened.

Footage of the aftermath showed how a boat was thankfully on hand to help Nick. (YouTube)

Thankfully for Nick, what appears to be a lifeboat was just around the corner and very quickly came to his assistance, with the young man being able to get onboard to safety.

Unsurprisingly, Royal Caribbean ended up banning Nick and his friends from their cruises for life.

In a statement at the time, they called the stunt ‘stupid and reckless’, adding that they were ‘exploring legal action’.

A few years on from the incident, Nick perhaps now realises how lucky he really is, as a recent three-day ‘party’ cruise ended in tragedy when a man fell overboard and died.

On 6 May, staff onboard P&O Cruise’s ‘Pacific Adventure’ ship alerted authorities that an Australian man was missing after falling from the vessel 10 nautical miles off Sydney Heads in the early hours.

Officials later announced that a man’s body had been pulled from the water at 10.30am on Monday morning, after rescue teams had been forced to battle through ‘very rocky and windy’ conditions.

A man who survived jumping off a cruise ship admitted that it had actually been a spectacularly bad idea and that he ‘didn’t really think it through’.

He’d willingly made the leap and been filmed by his friends in an attempt to go viral, but he very nearly plunged himself into a watery grave.

See, when someone goes overboard from a cruise ship there’s all sorts of procedures in place to deal with it, but a vast majority of the people who go into the water don’t come back out alive.

Your chances of falling overboard from a cruise ship are very slim, but it doesn’t help if you jump off and into the water yourself for the sake of social media clout.

American man, Nick Naydev, seemingly learned his lesson after leaping from the 11th floor of the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Symphony of the Seas while it was docked in Nassau, Bahamas.

As Nick leapt off the ship, his friends filmed him and laughed while the man landed into shark-infested water after a 100ft drop.

Fortunately, he managed to avoid serious injury as water won’t cushion your fall all that much if you plummet from a great height, but said he could certainly feel the impact in his tailbone and neck.

Nick later admitted to Inside Edition in 2019 that he didn’t want people to follow his example.

He said: “I remember hitting the water, impact was pretty big ’cause it was pretty high up. It impacted my tailbone and my neck pretty hard, luckily it wasn’t anything serious.

“Nothing was really going through my mind. I’m like, ‘I gotta do this,’ and just two seconds later, I just jumped and didn’t really think it through.

Nick was not badly hurt by jumping off the cruise ship. (Inside Edition)

“The previous night we were drinking quite a bit so I was still feeling the effects of the alcohol.

“I hope I don’t inspire anybody to do this because it is very dangerous, I mean they’ll think this is a joke.”

Royal Caribbean ended up banning Nick and his friends from their cruises for life.

In a statement, they called the stunt ‘stupid and reckless’, adding that they were ‘exploring legal action’.

Other passengers who’ve gone overboard the Symphony of the Seas haven’t been so lucky, with one person having fallen from the ship and to their death in the past.

In other incidents involving the cruise ship, a couple didn’t get back on in time as they missed the last call for boarding by 50 minutes and could only watch from the shore as the ship sailed away.

A member of staff aboard the Symphony of the Seas was also arrested for allegedly placing hidden cameras in passenger’s bathrooms.

A cruise passenger has died after jumping off Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas.

The unidentified man jumped from the 1,200-foot-long ship on the first night of his week-long trip, which took off from Florida for Honduras on Sunday morning.

At the time of the incident, the ship was only 300 miles from PortMiami, according to CruiseHive.

The Icon of the Seas – which holds 7,600 passengers and 2,350 crew – halted travel for about two hours as the Coast Guard carried out and completed their search mission.

“The cruise ship deployed one of their rescue boats, located the man and brought him back aboard,” the Coast Guard told the New York Post.

“He was pronounced deceased.

“Beyond assisting in the search, the US Coast Guard did not have much involvement in this incident.”

LADbible has contacted Royal Caribbean for comment.

This comes after the search for 20-year-old Levion Parker – who ‘jumped off’ Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas – was called off back in April.

Passengers reportedly heard ‘a lot of yelling’ when the incident took place on Thursday 4 April at around 4am.

The US Coastguard said the 20-year-old fell from the cruise ship around 57 miles from the Great Inagua Island.

The search for the 20-year-old was called off. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

Royal Caribbean told the New York Post: “The ship’s crew immediately launched a search and rescue effort alongside the US Coast Guard, who has taken over the search.”

Passenger Bryan Sims said he was with the young man and his brother in the on-board hot tub until around 3.30am.

“He sat right beside me the whole time,” he told the outlet.

“He was pretty drunk.

“As we were walking from the hot tub back to the elevators, his dad and brother were walking towards us. His dad was fussing at him for being drunk, I guess.

“When we got to them, he said to his dad, ‘I’ll fix this right now’. And he jumped out the window in front of us all.

“It was insane. It was just surreal.”

A source told the Daily Mail that if Levion was drunk, he likely consumed the alcohol ashore in the Dominican Republic, where the legal drinking age is 18, rather than on the cruise ship.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson said at the time: “Our hearts go out to the family, and we continue to offer them our support and assistance during this difficult time.

“Our policies strictly prohibit guests under the age of 21 from being served alcohol onboard.”

Everyone’s worst nightmare is falling into shark-infested waters, but for one man this became a reality.

James Michael Grimes was on the Carnival Valor cruise liner in 2022 as it travelled from New Orleans to Mexico with his family.

The 28-year-old had been competing in an air guitar competition on board when he suddenly found himself plunged into the icy water, with no recollection of how he ended up there.

Having been thrown into the Gulf of Mexico, which is known to be shark-infested, he was like bait without a line.

For more than 20 hours he fought for his life by treading water, before being miraculously picked up by a passing boat when he was ‘seconds from death’.

Little did his family know he was missing until 12 hours after he fell off the side of the liner.

In fact, they initially believed he was in his cabin asleep. The truth was far worse.

Speaking to ABC7, James recalled the moment he fell off the ship: “We were just hanging out, having a good time, watching some live music, that’s pretty much it.”

Even though he admitted he had a few drinks during the day, he maintained that he wasn’t drunk.

Before he fell, he remembered telling his sister that he was going to use the restroom, and then suddenly he was in the sea.

He said: “I came to and when I regained consciousness, I was in the water with no boat in sight.

“I can’t float myself, even if I’m trying to so the Lord was with me when I was out there because something was holding me up the whole time while I was passed out.”

He added: “My worst fear is drowning and it was something I did not want to have to face.

“I wanted to see my family. I was dead set on making it out of there. I was never accepting that this is it, that this is gonna be the end of my life.”

The Alabama native was floating in the water for nearly an entire day and night while coastguards scoured the 7,000-miles of water.

However, he managed to spot a tanker ship in the distance and swam to it using ‘every bit of strength’ he had left in his battered body.

He was treading water for 20 hours. (US Coastguard/ ABC7)

Thankfully, the crew spotted him too and called for help, and a helicopter arrived shortly to take him back to safety.

James said: “The first thing I actually told (the rescuer) was, ‘I don’t have any clothes on,’ because I stripped out of everything,’ and he said ‘that’s fine.’

“I was just thinking, ‘Thank you. You are like a guardian angel coming down for me.'”

Even though he nearly died, James has a different outlook on it.

He said: “Life’s a beach, enjoy the waves. The fall didn’t kill me, the sea creatures didn’t eat me, I feel like I was meant to get out of there.”

Now, if you think he’d be staying away from another cruise, you’re wrong.

He actually response that: “I’d definitely be open to going on another cruise ‘coz I really didn’t get to go on this one.”