Not to say you won't ever encounter obnoxious adolescents - with more and more families cruising, there are a lot of teens sailing these days - but mom and dad are on board to, hopefully, keep their offspring in line. Unsupervised teen groups are not permitted on board any more. Since those wild days, cruise lines have toughened up their policies quite a bit. Barely chaperoned mobs of young binge drinkers would practically take over a ship, hogging deck chairs, spilling out of cabins, passing out in hallways, puking on stairs and boldly staggering up to adults in bars asking for drinks (which, if they were cute enough, they usually got!). Just a decade ago rowdy high school groups were a common sight on big cruise ships, especially during the spring break months. Drinking laws may be much more lenient on shore, for instance in the Caribbean.

If a cruise line wants to be hard nosed, they can eject transgressors from the ship at the next port of call - at their own cost. The only hope of getting a drink on a cruise ship if you're an underage teen is getting some older sucker to buy it for you when no one's looking. Typically, the combination key/ID/charge cards each passenger is issued clearly indicate if the holder is under age. You may think anything goes in those lawless international waters, but truth is, the cruise lines maintain fairly strict policies governing the age at which you can drink booze, gamble and occupy a cabin alone.

Carnival cruise gambling age