I spent 4 years in the Navy and never once did I ever step aboard ship. While on Guam waiting for orders back to Nam, I worked in a clinic at the base and did get to ride on a Navy harbor boat to get a Japanese sick sailor off of a Japanese ship. I don't really count that little harbor boat as being on a Navy ship.
Years later, a Navy Destroyer Escort came to the Great Lakes in Detroit and my Dad and I got a tour. He had been on a "DE" during WWII.