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HHBSO 36: Best Cabin Locations on a Gay Cruise · He's Hot but Something's Off...

0:01
Hello, welcome to He's Hot, But something's off with me.
0:03
Just Joey T as this is going up on the Thursday.
0:10
A lot of people, over 5000 gay men in fact, are on a Atlantis
0:17
cruise in the Caribbean. I am not one of them, as I'm
0:21
recording this on the Wednesday the day before this goes up.
0:24
I am in my lovely apartment, not on the cruise.
0:30
Frequent listeners of this podcast, by the way.
0:32
The video version is also available on my YouTube channel,
0:36
just Joey T and also on Spotify. But when I had my friend David
0:41
on the podcast in December, I did let loose that at the time I
0:48
was thinking about giving up the reservation I had on the cruise
0:53
that's going on this week. And yeah, I ended up doing it
0:57
and it was just to save money. Basically.
1:01
Don't have tons of money coming in right now.
1:03
So you know, when you don't have a ton of money, vacations are
1:08
probably something you can skip. So yeah, I decided to just get
1:15
rid of the room, which I did just after New Year's, just
1:19
after I got back from Bangkok. And I don't usually.
1:24
Well, I used to. I'm not going to say I don't get
1:26
FOMO, but it's been fine. I've been on so many cruises,
1:30
David and I, between the two of us, we've been on like 40
1:36
something cruises, kind of sort of.
1:38
He's been a he's been a few more than me actually.
1:40
He started cruising a little bit earlier, but I've been on like
1:42
1718 cruises. I volunteered for Atlantis four
1:47
times I think, so I've I've been on a lot of them.
1:49
Last year in 2023 I was on 123 cruises, so that's a lot.
1:58
So I can skip the one here and there.
2:01
The one in January I do really like.
2:02
That's kind of like the big party cruise and a lot of people
2:07
I know or that one to meet are actually on that cruise right
2:11
now. But it's fine.
2:13
The podcasts where I do talk more about the gate cruises are
2:17
a little bit more popular. So today I thought I'd just give
2:24
a little bit of advice. One thing I kind of want to do
2:28
that might be a good TikTok Instagram reels video idea.
2:33
We'll be doing short little snippets of just the cruise gate
2:37
cruise advice I have and also just answering random FAQ.
2:42
So when I'm browsing at the Facebook groups that exists for
2:47
all the different cruises, someone creates one for every
2:49
cruise. Also some of the Telegram groups
2:51
as well. I always notice for every single
2:54
cruise there are people that ask some of the same questions over
2:59
and over again. Because you know, every cruise
3:01
has some amount of new cruisers or every cruise works a little
3:03
bit differently. So I would love to just do short
3:07
little videos on Tiktok or Instagram that might be 15 to 30
3:12
seconds and just like answer a bunch of those questions or just
3:15
give a lot of the advice that I have.
3:17
I do have a YouTube channel, just Joey T and that's kind of
3:20
sort of what I've been doing the last two or three years is
3:25
sometimes I'll have the after movies where I'm filming a bunch
3:30
of the stuff on Porto cruises. I put it together into a video
3:33
after the cruise, but the other type of video that I've been
3:37
doing on the YouTube channel is just been advice videos.
3:40
So I'm not, I haven't been doing YouTube videos in a little
3:45
while. It's because it takes work to
3:51
make a video. I think if you if someone just
3:54
sat down, someone who's not a YouTube or someone who's who
3:56
doesn't make a lot of videos, we sit down and kind of think about
4:00
it logically. You can kind of, you know, it
4:03
kind of makes sense, right? You know a video just doesn't
4:05
happen. It's you could think like, oh,
4:08
someone just sat down in front of a phone, hit record, talked
4:13
hit stop and then they just uploaded it.
4:15
You can make a video like that. But a lot of the videos that
4:19
have any substantial amount of content, any sort of video
4:23
that's like longer form. So anything that's more than a
4:27
few minutes, anything where it looked like they had to film
4:31
footage for it. Yeah, it might only be a 5 or 10
4:35
minute video, but that video could have taken days, weeks to
4:40
plan out and actually film and edit and put together.
4:43
So it can get pretty complicated.
4:45
The other reason is I just I I'm making so many videos, I'm
4:49
making so much content for everything else I do.
4:52
This podcast and this podcast is it feels like a hobby to me.
4:55
It feels fun to me but I just get to talk and it's very low
4:59
production value. I could even make this podcast
5:01
lower production value by not even doing the video version.
5:04
But I personally really like watching a video podcast.
5:09
I kind of like that connection of seeing the person talk.
5:14
I do listen to some podcasts where it is audio only and they
5:18
do, they don't do a video version, but it's actually not
5:20
that common. But it's not really.
5:22
It's minimal issue work for me to just hit record on the
5:25
camera, and most of the time the camera's already set up as I do
5:28
this every week. Yeah, I've been doing the
5:30
YouTube videos, but a lot of the YouTube videos do take some
5:32
amount of time, even the ones where I'm just sitting in front
5:35
of a camera and I'm just talking.
5:38
I want to make sure that I have an outline for it.
5:41
I want to plan that video together so it ties in with
5:45
other videos. A lot of times those videos, I'm
5:47
just sitting in front of the camera and talking.
5:49
You'll notice that there is B roll of a actual footage from
5:55
onboard a cruise that I throw in there that takes time, you know,
5:59
to actually edit in. So it's a little bit of effort
6:02
and I create so much video content these days, Some of you
6:07
will know where all the other video content is going.
6:11
I don't know. I want to like mention it so
6:12
explicitly on here, but yeah, I'm I'm, I'm editing and making
6:17
so many videos that to to put it bluntly, right now today, if it
6:25
doesn't make me money to to produce that video, or if I'm
6:29
not, I don't really, really enjoy it.
6:31
I'm not going to make that video because I make so much videos
6:34
right now as a business and edit so many videos as a business
6:37
that I don't want to edit more videos if I don't really find it
6:41
truly fun. We'll see.
6:42
I I think it's a neat idea to to do TikTok song.
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Just tiny little snippets of a cruise advice.
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So yeah, stay tuned. I'm not I haven't really
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otherwise been able to get on board with the TikTok videos
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that most people especially like younger kids create.
6:57
Where I heard this joke, well, it's more like a jab.
7:02
But where they said some Jag Queen said TikTok is for pretty
7:09
people so that they can feel like they're funny.
7:13
And the typical type of videos that people do on TikTok where
7:17
like they're you've seen it just a few different times where
7:20
someone does something like really sensational.
7:23
And like they used to do that on YouTube too, just like get the
7:25
views and clicks. Or I see a lot of the ones where
7:28
people are playing like two sides of a conversation and they
7:32
film both sides and they edit it in people doing something really
7:35
wacky. Those just not the type of
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videos I make. I don't have that kind of, I'm
7:40
not that funny. I that's not the kind of comedy
7:42
that I would go for anyways. And those are not the type of
7:44
videos I enjoy making. So anyways, like I said, yeah,
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maybe today I just do some random cruise advice, you know,
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not useful to any of the people that are actually on the cruise.
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But one video, that one YouTube video idea that I've had for a
8:01
while and David didn't want me to do this video, and I'll get
8:06
into that. I'll get into that later on.
8:08
But one piece of advice I wanted to talk about is where on a
8:14
cruise ship should you book your cabin?
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So cruise ships are pretty big, You know, there's all these
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different decks. You'd be like the front, the
8:21
middle, or like the back. Where on the ship what decks are
8:26
good? Is the front good or the back
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good? Is it in the middle that you
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should book your cabin? So where on a cruise ship is the
8:33
best to pick a cabin, right. So there are a lot of cruise
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advice websites, travel advice websites out there that will
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that have tackled this topic. No one as far as I can tell has
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tackled this topic in the context of like an Atlantis gay
8:49
cruise and where you want to be in terms of where your cabin
8:54
location is. On a Atlantis Gay cruise is not
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the same as on a regular cruise from like Disney Cruise Lines or
9:02
kids or whatever. OK, so it kind of depends.
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First of all, you want to depend whether you want your cabin to
9:09
be close to certain amenities, or if you want your cabin to be
9:16
near the hustle and bustle, or if you want your cabin to be
9:19
quiet, right? So a lot of people like picking
9:24
a upper deck so that they are closer to the pool deck, but
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they know they will be on the pool deck.
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You know, most days they don't want to be super far away from
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the pool deck. So if you're only one or two
9:37
decks away from the pool deck and you can maybe just take the
9:40
stairs at times when the elevators are really, really
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busy. But sometimes the elevators
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waiters do get really busy and there's like a wait for them.
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And if you just wanna go to from from your room and to the pool
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just very quickly if you are close by, you can take the
9:54
stairs and it's not too many stairs to take.
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So that's pretty popular. The downside of that is on an
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Atlantis cruise they play music on the pool deck.
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So I go to a regular cruise in the middle of the day.
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It's like 12 PM, 2:00 PM, whatever, peak pool deck time.
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They have music there too, but it's soft music and it's not
10:17
very loud and there ain't no bass in that music, OK.
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And the speakers they already have on the pool deck built into
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the ship are not very bass heavy speakers.
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They're very regular speakers, OK, on a regular cruise, vast
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majority of them. There's like families and kids
10:34
all running around, so the music is turned down.
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It's not very loud, It's not some sort of bass heavy dance
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techno music. And the speakers that are just
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very regular speakers that don't produce a lot of bass.
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And there's no thump to those speakers that are built into the
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pool deck on most ships. So normally that's not a problem
10:55
On the Atlantis cruise they bring in their own heavy duty
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like dance party speakers on the pool deck with the vast majority
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of the parties are also on a pool deck on most ships.
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So they kind of leave the those heavy duty speakers there for
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the night time parties that are poolside and in the day they use
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them to play just the poolside music.
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But the poolside music on Atlantis Cruise are bass heavy,
11:27
techno, pop circuit, whatever. And they turn it up because of
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the clientele, OK. It's not like little kids
11:35
running around yet where you have to turn down the music, you
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know. So you will hear the music if
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your cabin is right under the pool deck, you will hear the
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music on an Atlantis cruise during regular pool deck hours
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that you would not hear on a regular cruise.
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OK, if you don't kind of sleep in, doesn't matter if you're
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gonna wake up at like if you're gonna wake up before 11, and
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that's usually 11 or 12, that's usually when the Atlantis team
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starts to turn up the music and they play something a little
12:07
more upbeat, they change the music.
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And this is like having volunteer Volantis.
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This is what they do around like noonish, give or take.
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They'll switch the music to be a little bit more like upbeat,
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dancy, little kind of circuit Y if you will, and they'll turn it
12:23
up as well. So before like 11 or 12, they do
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keep it a little bit quieter because it's the morning hours.
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But 11 AM, 12:00 PM, it's gonna be boom, boom, boom.
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It's gonna be louder. They'll play through the heavy
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duty speakers that they've already set up on boarding day
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and you will hear it if your cabin is right under the pool
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deck, even if you're 2 decks under the base really travels
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because all the walls are metal and there's no sound insulation
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on any of this stuff. So I am the kind of person that
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value my peace and quiet because me and my friends, we will party
13:00
till 3-4 or five, 678 AM That's just the that's just the kind of
13:05
people we are on the cruise. This is a party every night and
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there's like an after party and there's like a home pot and
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there's like a sweet party, all that stuff.
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So we want to sleep in and we do not need the boom boom bass to
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be going into our cabins when it's like 11 AM, 12:00 PM when
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other people are hitting the pool deck, we are probably still
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sleeping. So we don't want that.
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So, yeah, so that's just one of the considerations, honestly.
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But generally on most of the cruise ships that Atlanta sails
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on, a lot of cruise ships, just generally there's the pool deck.
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You can easily Google for that for the particular ship, what
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deck number it is. So on the cruise that's going on
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right now, it's the Oasis of the Seas, I believe or it's the
13:56
Oasis class for sure. And they've got some whole bunch
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of different ships in that Oasis class from Royal Caribbean that
14:00
are 99% identical. But deck 14 or 15, I think deck
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15 is the actual pool deck. And then deck five or six, it's
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where you get what's called the Promenade, which is where a lot
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of the some of the amenities are, that's where the guest
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service desk is, that's where you get some restaurants, the
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Sorrento's pizza place, there's Cafe Promenade which is like the
14:26
24/7 little coffee eatery, snacks place.
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So that's kind of sort of like the like an amenities level
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basically. So what I like to do to have a
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good balance between not being super far away from any
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amenities on the ship, but you get that word Promenade on like
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decks 5 or 6 and you get the main dining hall usually on a
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lot of ships at the back of the ship on a lower level like decks
14:56
345. And then at the front also, you
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know on the lower deck 3456 somewhere around there is the
15:02
main theater, right? So you get a lot of those
15:04
amenities on decks like 3456 and then you get the pool deck up on
15:09
14 which is spans the entire length of the ship.
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So pick a deck that's kind of sort of like in between those,
15:17
right. So therefore you're never more
15:18
than like 3 or 4 decks away from almost anything that might
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happen on the ship on a regular cruise.
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Not an Atlantis cruise, not a gay cruise.
15:27
There are some family friendly type amenities that are also on
15:33
board, but those facilities on Atlantis cruise are basically
15:38
not used or they're not used for anything that most guests would
15:41
actually want to visit. I know on some of the ships,
15:46
those like kids between teenage areas they don't operate, but
15:52
sometimes they use it for like staging purposes for internal
15:56
Atlantis staff. Sometimes I think they use it
15:58
for care team, which is like a extra team on board the ship
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that helps any passengers out if they're not feeling well or if
16:06
they have, you know, drank a little too much alcohol and got
16:10
a little too turnt or got a little bit crazy ticking certain
16:17
substances. And the care team is there to
16:20
like kind of help with that. And sometimes they use on some
16:22
of the ships, sometimes they borrow some of the kids, play
16:26
areas as like a refuge area, like a quiet area to bring for
16:32
the care team to bring back certain guests.
16:34
Now for them to just cool down and have a breather where the
16:37
care team can kind of monitor them until they can get back on
16:41
their feet or kind of go back to their room or have a friend meet
16:44
them or do whatever. So it's kind of like a staging
16:46
refugee area sometimes. But yeah, given that where the
16:49
amenities are on Atlantis cruise ship, it's going to be somewhere
16:54
along the pool deck or that those lower levels where it's
16:59
like the theater, the main dining, the world Promenade or
17:01
guest services. So as you just pick a deck
17:04
that's kind of sort of in the middle.
17:06
So for the cruise that's going on right now as you speak this
17:09
week, The Awaits of the Seas. So decks 891011 anywhere around
17:16
there when you're at least like two, or three when you're at
17:19
least like 3 decks away from an amenities deck.
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It's the kind of good rule of thumb that you can apply to
17:25
almost any any cruise ship that Atlantis might set sail.
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You know they're always in every cruise ship.
17:30
There's always amenities down low and apply in the pool deck.
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So if you're at least three decks O2 or three decks away,
17:40
that's usually enough decks between you and any possible
17:44
parties and loud speakers that you'll be able to get a good
17:50
sleep in, even if you choose to sleep in till like 3:00 or 4:00
17:53
PM, whatever day that is. So that's what I usually do.
17:56
So I'm always on one of those middle decks, decks 8 or 9 or
18:00
10, maybe 11. I'm very sensitive to noise.
18:04
I want my cabin to be quiet one year on.
18:08
I don't know exactly what ship it was.
18:09
It might have been on one of the Oasis class ships.
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I happened to be on deck 3. So this is 3 two or three decks
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below where the world Promenade and the theater and all that
18:22
stuff is. It's like a very it's it's like
18:24
the lowest deck that a guest can stay on.
18:27
So on deck three I was near the back of the ship, near the back
18:32
Bank of elevators. And one thing I remember was,
18:37
OK, I'm not super close to other boys on the ship, but God is it
18:40
quiet down here. But there's less traffic.
18:43
Not a lot of people are staying on decks 3 or 4, like way down
18:47
there, but I just love how quiet it was.
18:49
And I was near the back, so I was pretty close to the
18:51
elevators in the back of the ship.
18:53
So I was thinking, this is kind of sort of for someone who
18:56
values their peace and quiet at the room, and I definitely do.
18:59
So there are definitely areas on a ship where if you want to just
19:04
want to have really quiet cabin going on like a super low deck,
19:08
that's one way to do it. You're not going to get
19:10
balconies though on like decks 3 or 4.
19:12
It would just be a port window that doesn't open.
19:14
No balcony at best. But otherwise most people want a
19:18
balcony room and they want to be kind of a little bit closer to
19:21
all the different amenities. Yeah, you want to be kind of in
19:24
the middle of the ship deck wise, right?
19:27
So in terms of where you want to be, like the front, middle of
19:30
the back of the ship, it's always nice to be my.
19:35
My personal recommendation or preference generally is for you
19:40
to be just ahead, just forward of the front set of elevators
19:46
and stairs, or to be just behind the rear set of elevators and
19:53
stairs. So the thinking behind that is
19:58
you do want to be somewhat close to where the elevators and
20:00
stairs are, so it's not a super long walk.
20:02
Whenever you want to leave your room and go somewhere, there's
20:04
chances are you're staying on a deck that has no amenities, so
20:07
you do need to get to the elevators and stairs every
20:10
single time you leave your room. That's like you just be allowing
20:13
it to the nearest stairs and elevators.
20:15
OK, so you don't want to be super far away, right?
20:18
Sometimes there it could get a little bit noisy and like
20:22
there's a lot of foot traffic if you are kind of right where the
20:26
elevators and stairs are. It's usually not like a huge
20:28
problem though you got to be like really, really sensitive I
20:31
think to noise for that to happen.
20:35
So just generally, if you're close to the elevators and
20:37
stairs, that's like priority #1 because ships are pretty big
20:41
these days. And even if you like to get your
20:44
steps in, honestly on a Atlantis gate cruise, there's so much
20:48
going on that you really don't want to have to walk like an
20:52
extra like 50 feet to get to the elevators and stairs because
20:56
you're coming going from your room a lot.
20:59
So first party, just be close to elevators and stairs wherever
21:03
you can when you're selecting your room.
21:05
Sometimes though, if you're between, if you're in the middle
21:08
ship and you're like between the elevators and stairs, sometimes
21:12
that you think that's a good place to be, you're like, oh,
21:17
I'm in between the front and back set of the elevators and
21:20
stairs. I could go to the front or the
21:24
back. I can walk either way.
21:25
I have options that sounds good on paper when you're in between
21:31
the two sets. When you're in the middle of the
21:34
ship, you're basically far away from both sets of elevators and
21:39
stairs. So I have done that before and
21:43
it's basically guaranteeing you like a long walk either way.
21:46
And sometimes you get a little extra traffic and noise from the
21:49
hallways when you're kind of in the middle of the ship.
21:52
Whereas if you are kind of closer to the ends of the ship,
21:55
it's sometimes a little bit quieter.
21:57
So that's my recommendation for kind of where on the ship you
22:01
might want to be. So if you are not going to sleep
22:04
in, you don't care. If your cabin isn't like super
22:06
insulated from the parties and the various noise from all the
22:11
different venues, you can stay on like a higher deck and be
22:15
close to the pool deck. If you know that you're going to
22:17
be always going to hang on the pool deck every single day, it
22:20
is nice to be closer to the pool deck on one of the higher
22:24
levels. Otherwise I would just stay in
22:26
one of like the middle decks. Try to get something that's
22:28
close ish but not right beside the elevators if you can.
22:33
Because sometimes where the elevators are, it could be a
22:36
little bit noisy if you're like really, really sensitive to
22:37
noise. If you want just a quiet room, I
22:40
would say pick something that's again, at least a few decks away
22:45
from any sort of amenities on the ship, whether that be a pool
22:48
deck, the feeder, any restaurants, things like that.
22:53
Maybe go for something near the front or the back of the ship is
22:59
get a little less traffic that way.
23:00
Or go for like a really low deck like deck three, deck 4 where
23:07
there's not gonna get that much traffic and there's people who
23:09
tend to want to want a balcony anyways and the balcony also
23:12
lets in some noise. So yeah, so I was gonna be 1
23:16
video. It's in the video ID, a YouTube
23:19
video idea that I've had on my list for like a long time.
23:22
And David didn't want me to do this advice video because he
23:26
said like, girl don't give away where it's like the best to stay
23:30
because we want to stay in those areas.
23:32
But honestly, there isn't just like this one tiny little sweet
23:36
spot for everyone where I'm gonna tell someone to stay.
23:40
It's on this particular ship, the Oasis, for example.
23:44
There's like 5 or 6 decks that I think are really good decks to
23:48
stay on, and that's like half the decks.
23:51
OK, so there's not this one tiny little itsy sweet spot that is
23:55
going to be the best for the vast majority of people, but
23:58
there isn't. So even when I'm giving this
23:59
advice, you know a lot of the rooms that get rooms, you know
24:03
there's only a few areas that I think are not that aren't super
24:08
great. So again, should not be right
24:12
under the pool deck, because not just from the music, actually
24:16
from footsteps on the deck itself.
24:19
If you're on the deck, if the cabin is right under the pool
24:23
deck, it gets real noisy, even if not from the music, just
24:27
sometimes from footsteps, depending on exactly where your
24:28
cabin is. I I would never personally stay
24:32
there, but if you really don't care about noise in your cabin
24:36
and you need to be, he just he can't.
24:40
You can't stand the thought to be more than one set of stairs
24:43
away from the pull deck. I guess you can stay right
24:45
under, but I don't. It's not something I recommend
24:47
to most people though. On the Oasis ship at the back
24:50
they have the Aqua Theater and then they also have the Central
24:55
Park because the middle of the ship kind of opens up.
24:57
So on this particular class of ships, I would also maybe not
25:02
recommend the rooms that are at the back of the ship that are
25:06
close to the Aqua theater. That's at the very back of the
25:09
ship on deck six I believe is where you can get into the Aqua
25:12
Theater because they some of the night time parties do happen
25:17
there. They do their idiom nights there
25:19
at they might do one or two other night time things there at
25:23
like late at night earlier in the night.
25:25
Rokurin has their own shows that happen in the Aqua theatre and
25:28
all the tea dances usually happen at the Aqua theatre as
25:31
well on this particular layout of ship.
25:34
So that means it's not going to be super quiet.
25:38
So if you're like the party people, you're going to go to
25:40
every party. You're not going to go to sleep
25:42
very early, like that's fine for you to stay there.
25:46
But they've got interior backy rooms that look down with the
25:49
Boardwalk and look down over the Aqua Theatre at the back.
25:54
Those can't get noisy just because there's like stuff going
25:56
on at the Aqua Theatre most of the time.
26:00
They also have some suites that are at the very back pointy end
26:05
where the Aqua Theatre is and those are are quite noisy as
26:10
well, especially doing when there's anything happening at
26:13
the Agua Theatre. So it's like a unique feature of
26:15
the Oasis class of ships to have this like interior, this
26:21
interior balcony kind of idea. Most other ships don't have
26:23
that, but they're smaller. Yeah.
26:25
So yeah, that's a little bit of advice for you, where to where
26:31
on board a ship for a Atlantis cruise should you try to pick
26:36
your cabin. So for this cruise that I'm not
26:40
on, I was originally booked on it and I had a cabin on deck 8
26:46
Ford port side. So kind of if you're looking
26:49
from looking down onto the ship from the clouds, from the top
26:53
down view, a port side is the left side.
26:55
And then I was kind of near the front of the ship a little, just
26:58
a little ways away from where the elevators are.
27:02
And I didn't have a balcony room because I didn't want to pay
27:06
extra for a balcony room and I don't really go out to the
27:09
balcony, honestly most balcony rooms, this is to me, most
27:13
people would love an ocean balcony.
27:15
Like a lot of the rooms are ocean balcony rooms.
27:17
They're very, very popular. The that's I would say that's
27:21
the second quickest selling type of room and the quickest selling
27:26
type of room number one in first place, though partially because
27:30
they're the cheapest and partially because there's way
27:32
less of them are interior rooms. Interior rooms means it's it's
27:38
no windows, no view of the outside at all, no balcony, no
27:43
windows, just four solid walls. And there's not as many interior
27:49
rooms because most people prefer to have some view of the
27:51
outside, but because you don't have that, you don't even have a
27:55
window. Those are the cheapest rooms,
27:56
and that's why those sell out first.
27:58
They're the cheapest rooms and there's not a ton of them.
28:01
So interior rooms usually always sell out the fastest on most
28:04
ships, and then they don't tend to sell out out of the balcony
28:09
rooms because there's so many backer rooms.
28:13
Most ships, the vast majority of rooms are ocean balcony rooms.
28:17
For me personally, the ocean looks the same, you know, from a
28:25
cruise ship cabin no matter where you are in the world.
28:30
And to look out onto the water, it's I guess it's cute for like
28:35
a day, but I don't need to pay several $100 extra just to look
28:40
at the ocean. That's just me.
28:44
Most people love to have. Like you know the the ocean and
28:47
the sea and the air coming in, it's like blah blah, that's
28:50
great. I don't usually go out onto the
28:53
balcony either, so for me I was just saving money with a not a
28:59
balcony room. The room I had booked, it has
29:01
like a window, like a large circular port style window, so I
29:05
get some sunlight in, but it was like several $100 cheaper, the
29:12
better part of $1000 cheaper than like the average balcony
29:15
room, the one that I booked. So I didn't want that.
29:18
So all I'm talking about are the regular rooms.
29:22
So technically the first type of a cabin, not just a regular room
29:28
to sell out, are actually the suites.
29:30
They're very limited number of suites on this Oasis ship.
29:34
I don't even know. They have these junior suites,
29:36
which just like a regular room, but bigger.
29:39
I don't really consider that a suite.
29:40
So on almost every regular deck near the middle of the ship,
29:45
they'll have these like junior suites or they call some of them
29:48
suites. They're just regular rooms that
29:49
are like bigger, maybe like twice the size of like a regular
29:52
room. So they kind of sort of, they
29:56
are technically labeled a suite. What I consider a suite is not
30:00
just a regular room that's made bigger, but the same kind of
30:03
furnishings. These are like the proper suites
30:06
where like, oh, this is like very different.
30:09
There's like a dedicated living area.
30:12
There might be even a dining area.
30:13
It might be multiple levels. They might have like a really
30:17
nice balcony. Some of them will have like
30:19
their own Jacuzzi out the back in the balcony for example.
30:24
Those what I call the Popper Suites.
30:25
So the Popper Suites sometimes are, you might get a few of them
30:29
at the very front or back of the ship on a regular deck, but most
30:34
of those types of Popper Suites are on its own level.
30:38
So I think on this Oasis ship, I think it's deck 17 or something
30:43
like that where you have to like go above the pool deck on like a
30:48
near like the back of the ship or the front.
30:49
There's only like a specific part of the ship near the back
30:52
or front. So you get a tiny little deck
30:54
that's like deck 17 or 18 or something like that.
30:56
And those are like the proper full on fancy suites.
31:00
So there's very limited number of suites.
31:02
Generally on most ship it's maybe like 5 or 10% of the
31:06
cabins. Those are the ones that actually
31:08
sell it first technically and it's sometimes hard to even get
31:12
one because usually they're all like snapped up.
31:14
The people on the previous cruises have already snapped
31:16
them up. This Atlantis had the system
31:18
where take this Oasis cruise that's going on right now this
31:23
week, the equivalent cruise last year, which was like the
31:27
Harmony, I think it was on the Harmony, but the equivalent
31:29
cruise from last year in 2023. The people, the passengers that
31:33
sit on that cruise gets dibs to rebook the exact same room next
31:40
year. So if you had a suite on the
31:44
2023 equivalent of this cruise that's sailing this week, while
31:49
you're on that cruise or like shortly after you were done the
31:52
2023 cruise, you would be basically given the opportunity
31:57
to rebook that exact same cabin for next year's equivalent
32:02
cruise, which is the one that's sailing this week.
32:05
So a lot of people that were able to get their hands on a
32:08
suite, they almost always rebook.
32:11
It's like 95%, sometimes 100% of the people that got a suite,
32:18
book the suite on a particular cruise.
32:20
They will take that option from Atlantis to secure and rebook
32:25
that exact same cabin, that exact same suite for the
32:28
equivalent cruise next year. And they're given the
32:32
opportunity before any other cabins.
32:35
Any cabins on that ship for next year go on sale to the general
32:40
public. So basically it's one of like
32:42
the perks of having sailed that cruise.
32:44
And it's not just on suites. Emmy just had a very regular
32:46
room, an interior room, a balcony room.
32:49
You will usually always have first dipped.
32:52
We booked that exact same cabin on next year's version of that
32:57
cruise. So some people do that as well.
32:59
But definitely for people that have suites, they know that
33:01
suites are hard to get their hands on.
33:05
They will almost always just rebook that exact same suite on
33:08
next year's cruise. So that's why cruise, that's why
33:12
suites are so hard to come by and they will sometimes have
33:15
like a wait list. Most people don't tend to give
33:17
up their suites. So yeah, that's why booking a
33:20
suite is so difficult on those. And then after that, after the
33:24
people that have been on the same cruise previous years get
33:28
that first dip to kind of rebook, then like a week or so
33:32
later, Atlantis opens up bookings to other alumni that
33:37
have sailed with Atlantis before, not necessarily the same
33:41
cruise from the previous year. Just if you sail any Atlantis
33:43
cruise, then that's called the alumni sale.
33:47
And once they're given the alumni some time, maybe one or
33:51
two weeks to book that cruise, then they open it for general
33:54
sale, which is anyone can just go book that cruise now.
33:57
So they've got a system in place like that.
34:00
But anyways, yeah, that's just a little bit of my advice on if
34:05
you were to book an Atlantis cruise sometime in the future,
34:09
what cabin, what kind of cabin might you want to book?
34:13
And where on board the ship should you look to pick a room?
34:18
So it doesn't matter if you're booking directly with Atlantis
34:20
or you're going through a travel agency, they'll be able to have
34:24
some visibility into which rooms are vulnerable or not.
34:27
And if you want to stay kind of with friends, if you and some
34:31
other friends are going on the cruise together, you want to
34:34
have adjacent rooms. There are some rooms that they
34:38
actually have an interior door, like in some hotels within the
34:41
cabin between 2 adjacent cabins inside the cabin, there's like a
34:45
door that can be unlocked so that you can kind of go between
34:48
the two rooms without going out into the hallway.
34:50
And also if you're booking adjacent balcony rooms, the
34:55
balcony dividers between the rooms can also be unlocked on
34:59
most ships so that you can go to the balcony and kind of walk
35:02
across to your friend's room. Sometimes it's not a super great
35:05
idea because you might see something you might not want to
35:08
see from the from outside the balcony doors of your friend's
35:12
cabin, but we've done that before so and you are going on,
35:18
you want to go on a cruise with friends.
35:20
It's best to kind of book together so that the travel
35:23
agency or whoever you're talking to directly at Atlantis, they'll
35:28
be able to look at OK, there's like 6 of you and you guys want
35:31
3 rooms where is there a block of three adjacent rooms So you
35:35
guys can all be direct neighbors with each other.
35:38
So that's another tip to to you're booking.
35:41
If you're traveling, other people just try to book it
35:43
together and get a block of adjacent rooms.
35:46
Yeah, so that's some of my advice.
35:48
If you guys like advice. I know you guys tend to like me,
35:52
talk about the gay cruises, but you want more gay cruise advice
35:55
on the podcast. Just make sure you comment down
35:58
below on the YouTube version of this podcast so that yeah, I'm
36:03
more than happy to talk more about gay cruise advice.
36:08
That's my next gay cruise. I don't know, maybe the October
36:12
one. I don't think I want to fly to
36:13
Europe. It's expensive to fly to Europe,
36:15
maybe the October one, but that's the same time as Taiwan
36:19
pride in Taipei. And I kind of want to go back,
36:22
but I'm pretty sure I want to book for the January 2025
36:28
cruise. So it's basically next year
36:30
version, next year's version of the cruise that's happening
36:34
right now. I really like that cruise.
36:36
I skipped it this year, so I'll probably go back next year, but
36:40
who can say? So until next time, bye y'all.