Captain Stubing's Uncle Cyrus uses every trick in his devious mind to get Julie alone, until her ""Aunt Phoebe"" intervenes; a desperate businessman uses his daughter as bait to close a deal; the neglected wife of a publisher romances a novelist, hoping it will give him the inspiration for the final chapter of his book.

Identical twin sisters decide to swap fiances; a separated ventriloquist team use their dummies to rebuild their relationship; a handsome widower proposes to Julie, who has fallen in love with him and his teenage children.

Gopher quits his job to manage a new hotel; a wealthy eccentric widow books a five-year passage and begins meddling in the crew members' lives; a magician tries to avoid his assistant by sending his brother to perform in his place.

Julie ends up in the middle of an unusual love triangle when the visiting 13-year-old son of the head of the cruise line develops a crush on her at the same time that she is trying to win over a charming older passenger. Two longtime acquaintances find their attempt at building a romance complicated by their parents' antagonistic relationship: her father is publisher of the newspaper where he works; and his mother is leading the efforts to unionize the workers. In honor of Capt. Stubing's fifth anniversary at the helm, the crew pays two men to build a wooden model of the ship. The builders are left scrambling to undo the damage after the present accidentally gets smashed.

A singer worries that his hillbilly relatives will embarrass him and ruin his chance of catching a record producer's eye. The producer becomes attracted to the singer's sister, who begins to doubt her commitment to her fiancé from back home. An author pictures the family as potential characters for her next book. She poses as a mountain woman to get the grandfather to open up to her. Doc, Isaac and Gopher room with Capt. Stubing after their cabins are flooded. They proceed to drive him crazy, and won't let him get any sleep. Two couples take the cruise together. One of the women tries to convince her friend that their spouses are having an affair.

Danny blames his family when Steve fails to show for his performance, leading to a rift with his father and grandfather. Kitty considers leaving her family to marry Steve. The captain lays down the law to his annoying houseguests, who end up at each other's throats. Dave finds out about Frank and Cynthia's affair, which leaves the future of both marriages in doubt.

Two older men, Leslie and Shelley, paired up by a confused blind dating service, chase the same woman; instead of meeting her fiance, a young woman gets a ""present"" of her fiance's friend to console her because her fiance has dumped her; Isaac chases a passenger who follows a silly, cult-like philosophy ""Being Of Self"", and in the process alienates the crew and almost gets fired.