Road Rules: Semester at Sea

Road Rules: Semester at Sea
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	19 (including two specials)
Release
Original network	MTV
Original release	June 8 – October 11, 1999

Road Rules: Semester at Sea was the eighth season of MTV's reality television series, Road Rules. This season featured six cast members in the shipboard Semester at Sea study program, and followed the cast as they travelled aboard a cruise ship, both while taking school classes and embarking on the various adventures and scavenger hunts typical of Road Rules. This is considered to be the final season of the 'classic era' of Road Rules, as the format of the show would change significantly beginning with Road Rules: Maximum Velocity Tour. This season was filmed in: Nassau (Bahamas), Havana (Cuba), Salvador (Brazil), Cape Town (South Africa), Mombasa and Chyulu Hills (Kenya), Madras (India), Penang (Malaysia), Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Hong Kong and Shanghai (China), Osaka and Tokyo (Japan) and Seattle, WA.

A pair of specials — a casting special and a "Passport to Road Rules 8: Semester at Sea" special, aired on June 8 and June 14, 1999, respectively, and the season premiered on June 21, 1999.

Cast

Name	Age^1	Location
Ayanna Mackins	20	Media, PA
Pawel Litwinski	21	Brooklyn, NY
Pua Medeiros	19	Hilo, HI
Shawn Sealy	19	Boston, MA
Veronica Portillo	21	Tustin Ranch, CA
Yes Duffy	19	Berkeley, CA

• ^Note 1 : Age at time of filming.

Missions

#	Mission	Result	Notes
1	Sky Dive Onto A Desert Island	Completed
2	Make Your Way To Civilizations	Completed
3	Softball	Completed
4	Picolino Circus Performance	Completed	The guys are able to give an Apple computers for street kids
5	Live with South African Families	Completed	At the end of this mission the guys do a presentation of Apartheid on the ship
6	Photo Safari	Completed
7	Install Solar Energy in Dalit Village	Completed
8	Job at Matang Wildlife Centre	Completed
9	"A Day in the Life of Vietnam" Race	Completed
10	Ho Chi Minh Millions	Completed
11	Dragon Boat Race	Completed
12	Perform in Chinese Opera	Completed
13	Anime	Completed
14	Skidome challenge	Completed
15	Salon at Sea	Completed

Episodes

No. in season	No. in series	Title	Original air date
1	103	"All Aboard"	June 21, 1999
2	104	"Running Off With the Circus"	June 28, 1999
3	105	"Answering to the School Bell"	July 5, 1999
4	106	"A Coming Home"	July 12, 1999
5	107	"A Coming Home (2)"	July 19, 1999
6	108	"Pawel's Kenyan Experience"	July 26, 1999
7	109	"Hot Voodoo"	August 2, 1999
8	110	"Pulling Together"	August 9, 1999
9	111	"Paint or Pay"	August 16, 1999
10	112	"Just Say Yes"	August 23, 1999
11	113	"Good Morning Vietnam"	August 30, 1999
12	114	"Ho Chih Minh's Millions"	September 6, 1999
13	115	"Growing and Rowing"	September 13, 1999
14	116	"Shaghai Surprise"	September 20, 1999
15	117	"The Perils of Pua"	September 27, 1999
16	118	"Accusations"	October 4, 1999
17	119	"10 Days"	October 11, 1999

Memorable Moments

• The infamous tension between Veronica and Ayanna began when landing in Cuba, Ayanna had told Veronica that she too knew some Spanish. Ayanna claims that Veronica responded with such a disbelief and negative attitude, that it caused them to start off on the wrong foot.
• In one mission, the cast had to compete against a team of Japanese people in a skiing competition. Pua expressed her hesitance to do the mission because she had never been skiing before. However, the Road Rules team beat the Japanese team.
• In one mission, the cast was told to spend 12 million Vietnamese dong, and if they did, 12 million dong would be donated to an orphan center. The cast came into conflict when Ayanna didn't want to spend money on an expensive Armani salon, but instead wanted to spend money at a family-owned Vietnamese business. She later gave in and got a massage. Pawel was so touched by the orphans at the center that he sold his prints and raised over $2000 for the orphan center.
• Containers of alcohol were found in Yes' quarters, in violation of the Semester at Sea rule against it, for which he was disciplined.
• Pawel, an aspiring photographer, was crestfallen when he did not win a mission involving photography.
• Pua, after a garment of hers turned up missing, found the garment among Veronica's belongings, apparently having been stolen by the latter. Pua decided to wear the garment to a public gathering on the ship, where she hoped that Veronica, seeing her wearing it, would be shamed by her act. Veronica was later forced to admit stealing the garment after she pulled Pua into the bathroom late at night and had confessed that she had stolen it. Veronica had asked Pua to cover it up for the cameras to avoid embarrassment, but Pua confessed the next day.
• Pua became upset on a mission in which the cast had to entice elephants to paint on canvases using paintbrushes held by their tusks, when one of the elephant handlers used violent discipline on her elephant to motivate it to paint. Pua rebuked the handlers for doing this, and later insisted that the abuse she herself had suffered in her past was not a motivating factor in her taking offense at the act.
• Ayanna came into conflict at times with other cast members, for example, during an argument in which Pua accused Ayanna of placing talcum powder and matchsticks on her bed in a voodoo ritual intended to inflict bad fortune on Pua and Veronica after the two became close friends. In another incident, she accused Veronica of plagiarizing her paper. In comparing the two papers, Ayanna read off each and the two ended up so similarly that Veronica looked as if she did indeed plagiarize. While Veronica asked to read both papers, Ayanna refused and took off running to slide the papers under the dean's door. Veronica ran after her, but couldn't catch up. Although Veronica was never formally accused or admitted to stealing the paper, they both had to re-write them.
• Ayanna was forced to deal with the separation from her mother, who was suffering from breast cancer. Ayanna was reunited with her mother during the show, though her mother later died from the disease, as Ayanna mentioned on the Extreme Challenge reunion.

After filming

Subsequent Challenges

Cast Member	Challenges	Challenges Won	Total Money Earned
Ayanna Mackins	Extreme Challenge, Battle of the Sexes, Battle of the Sexes 2	None	$0
Pawel Litwinksi	–	–	–
Pua Medeiros	–	–	–
Shawn Sealy	Battle of the Sexes 2	None	$0
Veronica Portillo	Challenge 2000, Battle of the Seasons, Battle of the Sexes, The Gauntlet, The Inferno, Battle of the Sexes 2, The Inferno II, The Ruins	Challenge 2000, The Gauntlet, The Inferno	$79,309
Yes Duffy	Challenge 2000, Battle of the Seasons, Battle of the Sexes	Challenge 2000	$11,254
Challenge in bold indicates that the contestant was a finalist on The Challenge.

Future appearances

Veronica returned to the series as part of the alumni cast of Road Rules 2007: Viewers' Revenge.

External Links