Printer Friendly
The Free Library
14,506,802 articles and books
Member login
User name  
Password 
 
Join us Forgot password?

Rise of the small gay cruise: looking for some intimacy on your next queer voyage? A new generation of cruises awaits.


For the uninitiated un·in·i·ti·at·ed  
adj.
Not knowledgeable or skilled; inexperienced.

n.
An uninformed, unskilled, or inexperienced person or group of people.
 the vision of The Love Boat and septuagenarian sep·tu·a·ge·nar·i·an  
n.
A person who is 70 years old or between the ages of 70 and 80.

adj.
1. Being 70 years old or between the ages of 70 and 80.

2. Of or relating to a septuagenarian.
 guest stars in Hawaiian shirts and white sneakers sneakers
Noun, pl

US, Canad, Austral & NZ canvas shoes with rubber soles

sneakers npl (US) → zapatos mpl de lona; zapatillas fpl 
 playing shuffleboard shuffleboard, sport in which players use cue sticks to push disks onto a scoring diagram at either end of a concrete or terrazzo court. The court is 52 ft (15.85 m) long and 6 ft (1.83 m) wide. The bases of the triangular scoring diagrams are parallel to and 8 ft (2.  is far from the reality of today's competitive cruise industry. RSVP (ReSerVation Protocol) A communications protocol that signals a router to reserve bandwidth for real time transmission. RSVP is designed to clear a path for audio and video traffic, eliminating annoying skips and hesitations. , Atlantis, and Olivia lease modern new "floating palaces" from the top cruise lines
See also List of ferry operators
This is a list of cruise lines, companies that operate cruise ships.
Name Headquarters
A'rosa Europe
NCL America America
AIDA Cruises Europe
American Cruise Lines America
 and do a top-notch job of offering an all-gay or lesbian experience that is a fully produced mix of sports, tourism, and entertainment, 24/7. So, what if a gay or lesbian traveler doesn't want a large, all-gay experience, but still wants to travel with other "family" members? The answer is simple: Book yourself and a small gay group on a mainstream cruise, or on a gay small-ship charter.

What's the difference between these and the larger all-gay cruises? On a small gay-group cruise (sometimes called a "gay-hosted" cruise) you are escorted by your own personal "Julie," a tour guide who arranges activities and events for an all-gay group ranging from a handful to hundreds of passengers. Small gay-group cruises offer the flexibility of many dates and points of departure and itineraries, versus the larger all-gay cruises, which have a more limited calendar. Also, smaller gay groups can hop aboard a wide variety of ships that the all-gay cruises don't lease, such as the historic Queen Mary Queen Mary, Queen Marie, or Queen Maria may refer to: Queens
Britain

England

  • Mary I of England (1516–1558), queen regnant of England, was the daughter of Henry VIII of England (by his first wife Catherine of Aragon), and the
 2 (on which I've escorted many a gay group).

What's more, the larger gay cruise companies are getting in on the all-gay, small-cruise act too--Olivia now has a 40-passenger cruise in Greece and a 100-passenger cruise to Antarctica, and RSVP has a 150-passenger river cruise River cruise is a voyage up and down a river/rivers touching at a series of ports. River cruising is a form of traveling in the inlands waterways of the world. Unlike large ocean cruise liners, river cruise ships are usually smaller vessels, generally accommodating between 100 and  from Budapest.

Travelers who enjoy small gay-group cruises see it as the best of both worlds--being able to enjoy the wider possibilities of a main stream cruise while feeling comfortable being out with other gay passengers. Gone are the lavish parties, DJs, and infinite gay events, but in their place is a stronger sense of intimacy as you bond with your fellow shipmates Shipmates was an American syndicated television show that ran for two seasons from 2001 - 2003.

Reruns later ran on the cable channel Spike TV. The show was created by Hurricane Entertainment and the executive producer was John Tomlin. Chris Hardwick was the host.
 in smaller settings.

That's not to say there isn't a lot of fun too. During one cruise I worked on we opted for a morning excursion to legendary Super Paradise Beach Paradise Beach is a short-lived Australian television series made by Village Roadshow in association with New World International for the Nine Network between 1993 and 1994.  in Mykonos. Once at the beach everyone was free to go local, sample snacks and drinks at the beach tavernas, swim nude, or just hang out. By splitting up the group and sharing cabs, everybody found something to do in port. The second advantage is that out-of-pocket day-trip costs were easily reduced by at least 75%. My groups would 'also take over restaurants, making them instantly gay, and even discos aboard the straight cruises would become all-gay events.

Roughly speaking, the passenger population on small gay cruises skews toward men from 35 to 50. For those concerned with age, a simple rule of thumb holds that the more expensive the cruise, the higher the average age. And event or party, cruises typically get higher proportions of singles than purely touristic cruises.

All the tour operators I spoke with agree on the amazing growth in the gay-cruise market (better than the industry norm of 13% per year) as word of mouth shifts more cruisers from mainstream ships to the unique world of gay groups or to all-gay charters on smaller ships. There are even more versions of the small gay-group cruise evolving. In 2004, Romance Voyages launched as a luxurious all-gay small cruises company; using intimate boats in exotic locales like the Yangtze River Yangtze River
 Chinese Chang Jiang or Ch'ang Chiang

River, China. Rising in the Tanggula Mountains in west-central China, it flows southeast before turning northeast and then generally east across south-central and east-central China to the East China
 and the Galapagos Islands. So stay tuned: There are sure to be more to come.

Klein has worked as a gay-tour ship guide for 12 years.

Those Who Cruise Small and Gay

Above and Beyond

(800-397-2681)

Allura Cruises

(800-477-1088)

Alyson Adventures

(800-825-9766)

Aquafest

(800-592-9058)

Coda Tours Inc.

(888-677-2632)

Cruises Only

(800-429-2784)

Cruising With

Pride (800-627-8726)

Friends of Dorothy

(800-640-4918)

GayTravel.com

(800-429-8728)

Gay Travel

Destinations

(877-394-8130)

Gay Travel One

(760-327-5522)

Hermes Tours

(877-486-4335)

Ocean Voyager

(800-435-2531)

Olivia

(800-631-6277)

Out on the Water

(800-387-1483)

Pied Piper Pied Piper

charms children of Hamelin with music. [Children’s Lit.: “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” in Dramatic Lyrics, Fisher, 279–281]

See : Enchantment
 Travel

(800-874-7312)

Romance Voyages

(866-456-1269)

RSVP Vacations

(800-328-7787)

Toto Tours

(800-565-1241)

TravelPride

(877-774-3342)

Windjammer

Barefoot Cruises

(800-327-2601)

Windjammer West

(800-864-6567)

Zoom Vacations

(866-966-6822)
COPYRIGHT 2005 Liberation Publications, Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2005, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

 Reader Opinion

Title:

Comment:



 

Article Details
Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Title Annotation:TRENDS
Author:KLEIN, HARK
Publication:The Advocate (The national gay & lesbian newsmagazine)
Article Type:Product/Service Evaluation
Geographic Code:1USA
Date:Apr 26, 2005
Words:672
Previous Article:Travelin' like a rock star: how Scissor Sisters front man Jake Shears does it on the road.(STAR PATHS)(Interview)
Next Article:R Family reunion: a straight mom tells us why she's setting her sights on another "Rosie" cruise.(STRAIGHT OUTING)(Rosie Family Vacation...
Topics:



Related Articles
2004 Caribbean: sailing November 13-20 on Holland America Line's MS Zuiderdam post-election cruise.(Advertisement)
2004 Bermuda Cruise: sailing May 12-19 on Radisson Seven Sea Cruises' MS Navigator.
2004 Bermuda Cruise.(Sail With Us On The National Review)(Advertisement)
2004 Bermuda Cruise: sailing May 12-19 on the Radisson Seven Sea Cruises MS Navigator.(Sail With Us On The National Review)(Advertisement)
2004 Bermuda Cruise: sailing May 12-19 on Radisson Seven Sea Cruises' MS Navigator with former Education Secretary William Bennett, former CIA...
British Isles Cruise: a once-in-a-lifetime experience: the national review 2005.
2004 Bermuda Cruise.(Sail With Us On The National Review)(Advertisement)
2004 Caribbean Post-Election Cruise.(Advertisement)
Trouble in paradise.(UPDATE)(Brief Article)
Coming out and talking trash.(public opinion about gay celebrities)

Terms of use | Copyright © 2009 Farlex, Inc. | Feedback | For webmasters | Submit articles