Plot

Older Max and Gladys turns newlyweds Scott and Denise against one another with bickering. Howard uses a dating manual to hit on young Sheila. Cardsharp Wendell cheats the crew to pay the passage for him and his wife Ida.

An older married couple (Robert Mandan and Audrey Meadows) turns newlyweds (Robert Urich and Diana Canova) against one another with their bickering; a male passenger (Harvey Jason) uses a dating manual to hit on a woman (Georgia Engel) with a protective father (Herb Voland); a man (Harry Morgan) cheats the crew out of their emergency fund to pay the passage for him and his wife (Priscilla Morrill).—Chris Andrews

Newlyweds Scott and Ellen Desmond meet up with Max and Gladys Watkins, who have been married for 25 years and are constantly squabbling. When the two couples get to know each other, they wind up "Taking Sides." Passenger Wendell Snead takes out a mortgage on his house so that he and his wife Ida can cruise to Mexico and meet their grandchildren for the first time. But since money is a problem, Wendell pays for the cruise by using magic marked cards to engage Gopher, Isaac, and Julie in "A Friendly Little Game" of gin rummy and cheat them out of hundreds of dollars. Doc finds out about it and helps his fellow crew members take appropriate revenge. Howard Wilson is a nebbish cruise ship cowboy trying to score by "Going by the Book", namely his friend Bernie's book How to Hit on Girls. His target is Sheila Lawrence, an innocent who's never vacationed alone before. So Sheila's nervous father asks old friend Merrill Stubing to keep an eye on Sheila during the cruise, a responsibility that Merrill passes on to Doc.