There's the post-cruise blues.
And then there's returning from your holiday to discover that hundreds of baby spiders appear to have moved into your car while you were away.
Two passengers returning from a Royal Caribbean cruise in Galveston, Texas, recently encountered exactly that rather unpleasant surprise.
The men, from Lubbock in West Texas, returned to their vehicle near Royal Caribbean's Cruise Terminal 10 to discover tiny spiders seemingly everywhere.
And understandably, they weren't particularly enthusiastic about simply jumping in and driving home.
A quick trip to Walmart before the drive home
Local rideshare driver Donnie Broussard became involved when the two passengers booked a ride after discovering their unwanted passengers.
According to Broussard, the men showed him photos of their spider-covered vehicle and were understandably "freaked out".
Instead of driving their own car home, they asked Broussard to take them to a nearby Walmart so they could buy pesticide first.
Honestly, fair.
Broussard has reportedly spent years working around the Galveston cruise terminal area and said he'd never encountered anything quite like it before.
Even worse, the men's car apparently wasn't the only one affected.
Broussard said several other returning cruise passengers had encountered spiders on their vehicles in the same parking area.
So where did all the spiders come from?
Thankfully, this doesn't appear to be some new cruise-terminal horror movie.
Baby spiders — known as spiderlings — can disperse using a process called ballooning.
The tiny spiders release strands of silk that catch the wind, allowing them to travel through the air before eventually landing on vegetation, buildings, fences — or, unfortunately for these cruise passengers, cars.
Large numbers can seemingly appear at once, and a single spider egg sac can contain hundreds of spiderlings.
The phenomenon isn't new to the Galveston area either.
In late 2024, residents around Galveston County reported large quantities of airborne spider silk and spiderlings arriving with changing weather conditions.
So despite the timing, there's no evidence the spiders had anything to do with Royal Caribbean itself or came from the cruise ship.
The unfortunate connection appears simply to be that the passengers' car had been sitting outside long enough for the local wildlife to claim it.
Imagine discovering them after you'd already started driving
Finding hundreds of tiny spiders before getting into the car is bad enough.
Discovering them once you're halfway home would arguably be worse.
One Galveston-area resident responding to reports of the incident described previously experiencing baby spiders emerging from the vents of her vehicle while she was driving.
No thank you.
Royal Caribbean operates from Cruise Terminal 10 at the Port of Galveston, where parking for passengers is located within the terminal complex. The terminal opened in November 2022.
There is no indication of a broader problem with cruise-terminal parking, and the spiders appear to be a seasonal natural phenomenon rather than anything specifically related to cruising.
Still, anyone parking their car outdoors for a week-long cruise around Galveston might be giving the interior a slightly more thorough inspection before climbing in.
Because apparently checking under the car for cats is no longer enough.
