All aboard the ship of every holiday lover’s dreams! Hallmark’s new docuseries, Christmas at Sea, chronicles the network’s first-ever Hallmark Christmas Cruise and features some of your favorite Hallmark stars.
Hallmark icons Tyler Hynes and Wes Brown were among the stars who took part in the inaugural cruise and had a life-changing experience alongside Hallmark fans. Hynes told TV Insider that the cruise was a place of pure “warmth and joy.”
He added, “To kind of have this traveling circus where we all get to go around together and make these memories, it’s unlike anything that I can think of, and I don’t know that it’s going to last forever, so I’m just deeply grateful to participate while we can.”
Brown recognizes that there’s “never been a fandom like this before.” He revealed that there are “73,000 people on the waiting list for this [year’s] cruise.” The actor admitted that he’s “just never seen that many smiles and that many joyous people. And I am being quite serious.” When he entered through the terminal to get on board, he noticed “people decked out in Christmas gear, just screaming their heads off like we were rock and roll stars.”
And everyone kept that energy on the boat. Hynes even got the opportunity to take his boot shot tradition to the high seas. “It’s something that I had hoped maybe it would make some few people happy,” he said. “The fact that it’s grown and it’s become this very organized thing, it’s beyond anything I’m capable of, and again, has everything to do with the audience who participates and really light that fire.”
Hallmark Media / Kim Nunneley
The four-part series covers the first Hallmark Christmas Cruise, and there’s already another one in the works. Let’s hope this means we get Christmas at Sea Season 2! “There’s lots of footage that no one ever saw, let alone the chaos of the different camera crews running around catching us in the audience are doing our live performances on stage,” Hynes said. “There’s probably some ridiculousness there that that didn’t fall into this documentary series that should be like a part five and six.”
TV Insider also asked Hynes and Brown about any changes they’d made for the second sail, and they had some very clear ideas.
“More shirtless Andrew Walker, maybe three microphones for Jonathan Bennett, and maybe have a live feed into everybody’s cabins so that they can’t escape his voice,” Hynes joked. “It was pretty perfect. The games we play, the audience participation, the fact that folks have organized doing a boot shot tradition all together at one end of the ship. I love not knowing what’s going to happen. It’s fun to be a little naughty and just go do your thing. Working with people that are in front of you, and take it moment to moment. There’s nothing I would change, except for shirtless Andrew Walker, Paul’s been working out a lot. Maybe his shirt needs to come off.”
Brown revealed that a few more music shows will likely be added. “I may play with a couple other guys. Erin Cahill‘s husband, Paul Freeman, talked about doing something together. So I think we’re going to just add some more show elements to it. I haven’t been told everything, but I’m certain it’s going to be another blast.”
Now that Hallmark fans have gotten the Christmas at Sea docuseries, could we get a holiday movie set on a cruise? “I feel like it would almost be weird if we didn’t now,” Brown admitted.
“If it doesn’t exist, I think it’s coming,” Hynes teased. “I think there’s a Christmas cruise movie coming, and I think the person who you’d want in that is the person you will get.”
Christmas at Sea, Mondays, 8/7c, Hallmark Channel