The Klondike Carnival Cruise Competition serves as the backdrop for this cruise, pitting Captain Merrill Stubing (
Gavin MacLeod) and his Pacific Princess crew against his stern humorless arch-rival, Captain Gunner Norquist (
Ted Knight), and his Sun Princess crew in a series of competitive events beginning in Vancouver, British Columbia and ending in Ketchikan, Alaska. Gunner's son Trig (
Woody Brown) has just graduated from navigation school and been assigned to Merrill Stubing, which enrages Gunner Norquist and intensifies a longtime rivalry between the two captains. Gunner spent 25 years in Merrill's shadow and is now both jealous of Merrill and determined to best him in the competition at any cost. Trig doubts his own navigation abilities and would much rather be a cruise director but is afraid to tell his father. Meanwhile, Harry and Dorothy Meacham (
Tom Bosley and
Michele Lee) are divorcing after 15 years of marriage and taking separate vacations, with her on the Pacific Princess striking up a romance with Doc (
Bernie Kopell), while Harry cruises on the Sun Princess and getting to know the ship's masseuse Britta Sorenson (
Priscilla Barnes) very well. Dr. Skip Van Damme's (
John James) Harvard University professors expect him to make a major discovery by his 30th birthday, so he boards the ship with his fiancée Megan Lewis (
Mary Crosby) and his scientific equipment to perfect an aphrodisiac, that he calls Macho Mints. They find their experiment's guinea pig in the form of shy mousy bachelor Dave Pursinger (
Douglas Barr), who is traveling alone and not doing well at meeting new people. Ellen van Bowe and Jesse Dobson (
Charlotte Rae and
Charles Nelson Reilly) plan to spend the entire cruise, alone together in their cabin, wearing their pajamas and getting acquainted because they feel love at first sight and they want to be sure they are right for each other, without waiting through a lengthy engagement. When both cruise ships reach Vancouver, the crew members compete in such events as a pole climb, buzz saw competition, mud wrestling, and a walk-a-plank tug-of-war. Gunner Norquist threatens to disown his son Trig if Trig doesn't change his allegiance and come to work for his father on the Sun Princess.
—Maisie Fleckum