Latest / He's Hot but Something's Off... / HHBSO 31: What's a Gay Cruise Like? 2024 Atlantis Gay Cruises

Transcript

HHBSO 31: What's a Gay Cruise Like? 2024 Atlantis Gay Cruises · He's Hot but Something's Off...

• 0:01
  Hello, welcome to Heat Hopper. Something off with me.
• 0:03
  Just Joey T back with me this week.
• 0:07
  It is David. Hi, David.
• 0:09
  Hello, I I remembered your title from your what you just said.
• 0:13
  What's the title? I mean, I just gather that you
• 0:16
  said what is it he's getting off but not with me or something.
• 0:21
  It's I heard that. I heard it, but something
• 0:23
  happened with the brain that you just said it and I hadn't heard
• 0:26
  it for a while. Are you having a stroke?
• 0:27
  It's something off. He's off, but he's not with it.
• 0:31
  You're You're the only I've only had you as a guest.
• 0:35
  You're the only guest that's ever been on the podcast.
• 0:38
  But you've been a guest. This is like the sixth time.
• 0:40
  Wait, wait, wait. Is that why it's a He's hot, but
• 0:42
  he's off? I'm off.
• 0:44
  It's not about. You I'm the off section.
• 0:46
  That's why you're hot. I'm the off, I'm offside.
• 0:49
  The he's he's hot and he's I'm off.
• 0:51
  The name of the podcast, It's almost nothing to do with you.
• 0:53
  We both. Well, when I say we filmed, what
• 0:57
  I mean is I made David fill with me a YouTube video that is not
• 1:04
  gonna be on YouTube. We're not gonna actually use
• 1:06
  that footage. And the topic of that video was
• 1:09
  supposed to be an overview of all the different Atlantis
• 1:12
  cruises coming up in 2024. It was actually pretty good.
• 1:16
  The thing is, I fucked up the audio on that recording.
• 1:20
  I had two mics and they both fucked up.
• 1:22
  So, like, the audio is completely destroyed.
• 1:24
  So that is not gonna go up, but I think in lieu of that we can
• 1:29
  talk a little bit about some of the cruises we like and don't
• 1:34
  like coming up. OK.
• 1:36
  I mean, I would like them all, but let's go on.
• 1:38
  I'll follow your lead. So we do like a quick overview.
• 1:42
  So next year we have the January cruise, which is like the big
• 1:46
  party cruise. Yep, that goes from Florida down
• 1:49
  to the Caribbean. They have this every year for
• 1:51
  the last several years. Now it's already sold out like
• 1:54
  it usually is. And that's the big party cruise
• 1:56
  I actually just ran. I was in Austin this past
• 1:58
  weekend for a friends birthday. I was talking to some people, a
• 2:05
  couple I was at the party and then they told me they were
• 2:07
  booked for the other Caribbean cruise which is in March, also
• 2:11
  goes from Florida I think down to the the Caribbean and that's
• 2:16
  on the Virgin ship and usually Atlantis has two Caribbean
• 2:21
  cruises in early in the year they got the big party cruise in
• 2:25
  January. All the party boys, the younger
• 2:28
  crowd usually all go on that one.
• 2:31
  And then the people that don't really want to party, they all
• 2:35
  go on the other one, which is which was the case this year.
• 2:39
  Because if you most people don't go on multiple cruises, at least
• 2:41
  they don't go on multiple cruises within such a short time
• 2:43
  span. People that go on one will not
• 2:45
  go on the other. All the partiers, all the young
• 2:47
  boys, they're all going on to the January 1 and that those
• 2:52
  people are not going to go on to the one in March.
• 2:54
  So the one in March, they will still throw the parties, but the
• 2:58
  crowd will be quite different. I don't know.
• 3:03
  I I never been on. I have never been on the other
• 3:06
  Caribbean cruise. I've only been on the 1st.
• 3:08
  Correct. So you you you've been on both.
• 3:11
  I know. So I can't speak to the second
• 3:13
  one, but I do know like for example, there was, I mean I
• 3:18
  think you're right. There are people who we live for
• 3:21
  us, we know people who go on every cruise or people who do
• 3:24
  the 1A year. It's not like it's pretty rare
• 3:26
  to have someone do like two in a short period of time.
• 3:28
  You're right, unless they these are the ones who have done like
• 3:30
  40 plus cruises and have. Partners, that's that's like a
• 3:35
  minority of people, though. But, but The thing is, the vast
• 3:40
  majority of people, if you're going to go on a cruise in
• 3:42
  January, you're probably not going to go on another cruise in
• 3:46
  March. Probably, yeah, and especially
• 3:48
  with a similar region of the world.
• 3:52
  Yeah, you could understand that you.
• 3:53
  Could understand if there was two that were doing different
• 3:56
  things like so we Fast forward to say for example, the two
• 4:00
  Mediterranean, is it the Mediterranean, is that the one
• 4:02
  in Europe? Is that what the Mediterranean
• 4:03
  is? Yeah.
• 4:04
  So they have the two back-to-back cruisers where
• 4:06
  literally same ship, same ship docks on the Sunday, whatever,
• 4:09
  whatever day it is. And then they get the new lot of
• 4:11
  people for the second cruise that I can sort of understand
• 4:14
  because it's different ports. Correct, correct.
• 4:16
  So yeah, so this for next year they're doing something weird,
• 4:19
  but most years they have one Mediterranean cruise in Europe
• 4:25
  like a like a, a a bigger one in August.
• 4:27
  And last year, well this year in 2023, they also had a smaller
• 4:32
  luxury European cruise in July on the Oceania.
• 4:36
  So that's like kind of saw like a slightly specialty cruise,
• 4:40
  much smaller ship, but it's like a luxury experience.
• 4:42
  It's not like the regular ones. And then they have like the big
• 4:45
  one on Royal Caribbean in August next year.
• 4:51
  They still have that luxury one in July.
• 4:54
  So they're kind of running again, I don't know if it's
• 4:56
  exactly the same or the ports may or may not be different, but
• 4:59
  they still have a luxury one on the on a Oceana cruise line next
• 5:03
  year in July. But in August instead of having
• 5:06
  one Meg cruise, they have two is on a Virgin ship.
• 5:10
  Each cruise is 10 days, is on the exact same ship and they're
• 5:14
  back-to-back. Yep.
• 5:15
  So the first one, I don't remember all the ports of call,
• 5:18
  but you can go Google it. It's on the Atlantis website,
• 5:21
  but the first cruise is 10 days and then it's gonna end up in
• 5:26
  Barcelona I think. So the gaze from the 1st 10 day
• 5:30
  cruise will all depart that morning.
• 5:33
  And then later that same day, the second Met cruise starts on
• 5:38
  the same ship, so another set of gaze will load back in onto the
• 5:42
  same ship and they go from Barcelona to London for 10 days.
• 5:47
  Oh, wow. Nice.
• 5:47
  Yep. Yeah.
• 5:49
  So it's kind of like I don't think they've done that
• 5:50
  back-to-back system before. Yeah, I guess, I guess it
• 5:55
  depends on when the booking and the cruise line's available and
• 5:58
  it just happens and it was a virgin ship and it's yeah
• 6:02
  different itineraries and easy as so and it's like basically
• 6:04
  right in the peak of, yeah, it's.
• 6:07
  It's. It's you can easily obvious and
• 6:09
  match with another event in Europe at that time easily.
• 6:12
  Excelsior or for the circuit people, it'd be like Excelsior
• 6:15
  and Mykonos or circa Barcelona for example.
• 6:19
  I think if you want to go circa Barcelona, if you take the first
• 6:23
  met cruise that ends in Barcelona, I think that puts you
• 6:26
  like right in the middle of circa Barcelona week.
• 6:30
  Oh yeah, it's definitely, yeah. It's like a yeah, it's like a
• 6:32
  week and a half a week event or something, Yeah.
• 6:33
  You get into like a few days past the start.
• 6:35
  You'll be there for like the main event, which is like the
• 6:38
  last weekend of Circuit Barcelona.
• 6:39
  I don't know when the water park is, but.
• 6:42
  Water park's on the Tuesday, but I don't.
• 6:43
  I have no idea. Water park's on the.
• 6:44
  Tuesday. Sometimes they change it, yeah.
• 6:46
  So yeah, just so those are the three European cruises next year
• 6:50
  and I'm pretty sure like the I think they're probably gonna
• 6:54
  sell out the two Meg Cruises on the Virgin ships that are
• 6:57
  back-to-back. Yeah.
• 6:58
  Well, I think that'd be pretty close to four because it's it's
• 7:01
  a mid such it's in a 3 1/2 thousand I think.
• 7:03
  Yeah, it's it's a mid to large ish size ship.
• 7:08
  The Virgin ones, I think the whole like 3000 and something
• 7:10
  people. I think 3 1/2 for some reason.
• 7:11
  Which is, I think, which is a really.
• 7:13
  Good size, which is random statistics that I've no,
• 7:14
  literally do not. You're just coming out of here,
• 7:16
  'cause I've no, yeah, literally, I think for some reason I think
• 7:18
  that sounds right. So you're like all the virgin,
• 7:20
  not 5000. No, no, no.
• 7:21
  All the Virgin ships are like the Max capacity and double
• 7:23
  occupancy is like in the 3000. Yeah, like, like I think maybe
• 7:27
  like mid to upper 3000, which is like a nice size.
• 7:29
  And The funny thing about the Virgin ships is 3 I think three
• 7:36
  of the Atlantis cruises next year.
• 7:40
  Maybe fashion is 4/4 cruises. 4 Atlantis cruises next year on
• 7:45
  virgin ships. Was it the?
• 7:46
  Australia 1, the two, Europe one.
• 7:48
  Australia. One that we'll get into.
• 7:49
  So like half or like maybe more than half of the Atlantis
• 7:52
  sailings in 2024 on Virgin ships, which is like a big
• 7:56
  change because they haven't sailed Virgin that much in
• 7:58
  previous years. Because it's a relatively new.
• 8:01
  It's a very new. It was a post COVID.
• 8:03
  Post COVID, but they're supposed to launch like Virgin just by
• 8:06
  themselves, but like COVID kind of got in the.
• 8:08
  Way 20/20 was their launch. Yeah, correct.
• 8:10
  Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 8:11
  Yeah. The great thing about the Virgin
• 8:12
  ships is that Wi-Fi is included for everyone.
• 8:15
  You'd have to pay extra for Wi-Fi and they don't have this
• 8:19
  differentiation between free restaurants and paid
• 8:22
  restaurants. All the restaurants are
• 8:23
  included. So they you you don't have to
• 8:25
  like pay for a specialty restaurant for example.
• 8:29
  And you don't have you get most if not all of the non alcoholic
• 8:35
  beverages or some amount of non alcoholic beverages for free
• 8:40
  included in your fair as well. Whereas if you go on Royal
• 8:42
  Caribbean, they won't even give you bottles of water without
• 8:44
  paying money or like you can't even get soda for example.
• 8:48
  So the way they do things is just a little different than
• 8:50
  Virgin ships. And the Virgin Voyages cruise
• 8:53
  line was started as an adult only cruise line.
• 8:56
  So there's no like kiddie pool for kids.
• 8:58
  There's not like a playground area.
• 9:00
  It's supposed to be an adult only cruise line.
• 9:02
  Yep. Yeah, but that in mind exactly.
• 9:04
  It's for, yeah. So even if it sails, when
• 9:07
  Atlantis don't charter, it's just an all adults 18 plus.
• 9:10
  Exactly correct. So you're right, there is a
• 9:14
  Australian Atlantis cruise on a Virgin ship.
• 9:18
  This is going to be in February, early February.
• 9:22
  This is like three or four weeks before Mardi Gras and Sydney and
• 9:25
  it's only like a four, like a four day or four night cruise.
• 9:28
  It's a short one. Four days, Yeah, I think it's
• 9:30
  like the first to second week. Melbourne or Sydney or I think
• 9:33
  in Melbourne, Africa. Melbourne to Sydney I.
• 9:36
  Think it's Melbourne to Sydney. Yeah, because Melbourne goes
• 9:38
  down to Tasmania then goes up to Sydney is my understanding.
• 9:41
  Yeah, and they don't usually have a cruise for Australia, but
• 9:46
  we're talking about this one because it's kind of like a new
• 9:49
  one. And we think it's really great
• 9:51
  for the people who are like the Kiwis and the Aussies who are
• 9:56
  who may not have been on a Atlantis cruise because it's a
• 10:00
  great opportunity for them to try out an Atlantis cruise
• 10:03
  without having to travel very far like over to like Europe or
• 10:07
  to the US. And it's not a really high
• 10:09
  commitment, but it's only for four nights and and therefore it
• 10:12
  costs a lot less than like the regular seven day cruises.
• 10:15
  Not for sure, because normally, like, I know some Americans
• 10:17
  like, Oh my God, it's, I don't know that much leave and that
• 10:20
  much, oh, it's so expensive. I'm like us Aussies have to like
• 10:23
  fork over and I'm gonna like just to get to the port in
• 10:28
  Europe or America. And of course, if it sails from
• 10:31
  the East Coast of America, we have to fly like 20.
• 10:33
  Very expensive. Like to go to the Florida, for
• 10:35
  example, for the Korean cruises, Europe it's a track.
• 10:37
  It's. FAR and Florida are like 20 plus
• 10:40
  hours away by like the the fastest flying so we you have
• 10:44
  to. Connect.
• 10:45
  There's not really any directs to.
• 10:46
  So I mean, you're going to lose. Yeah, exactly.
• 10:48
  You're going to lose like multiple days flying up and back
• 10:49
  for it. So and and pay for the flight
• 10:51
  before the cruise even starts. So for those in the region and
• 10:56
  like as a starter pack, as a sampler, because there are there
• 11:00
  have been some like local cruise lines have tried to look a
• 11:02
  little gay cruise thing and this is a different production level.
• 11:07
  Alanis have been doing this for like decades, 27 years.
• 11:10
  You kind of have the experience for it.
• 11:12
  So it's like a nice little sampler.
• 11:14
  Like I said little low commitment 4 days and because of
• 11:17
  the four days it's even a lesser financial commitment too,
• 11:20
  correct. It's cheaper.
• 11:21
  You want to try. It's in a it's like a Australian
• 11:24
  summer. So we're not even, we're not
• 11:26
  leaving our summer to go to say for example the January cruise
• 11:30
  where we're going to I quote UN quote winter even though it's
• 11:33
  Florida. Yeah that we're leaving our
• 11:35
  summer for that right. So this is like a really easy
• 11:37
  it's on your, it's on your backyard just.
• 11:39
  Yeah, Low risk, low commitment, low.
• 11:41
  Cost nice. And it's a virgin ship Actually,
• 11:43
  even. It's a virgin ship.
• 11:44
  So you're on like all the virgin ships, like the oldest ones were
• 11:48
  first sold in like 2020. So they're all like really new
• 11:50
  ships. They're all really nice ships as
• 11:52
  well. Yeah, and no kids are freaking
• 11:53
  ruined. No kids.
• 11:55
  Yeah. So yeah, for any Kiwis and
• 11:58
  Aussies that are listening or who might be in the area at that
• 12:00
  time, I think that's, yeah. So that's a really nice, like
• 12:04
  sampler, as you will, your people who have heard about
• 12:07
  Atlantis, but it was never convenient for them to like fly
• 12:10
  somewhere else to go on Atlantis cruise or kind of put up that
• 12:13
  much money, they're gonna obviously try to replicate as
• 12:16
  much of experience as possible. Just four days and it's just
• 12:19
  shorter. Because Atlantis with all due
• 12:20
  respect is very America centric, America centric, that's true.
• 12:24
  So then I think like the American guests who like want to
• 12:28
  go on say the Asia cruise or Europe cruise and want to go on
• 12:30
  board with the locals, it still tends to skew the majority even
• 12:34
  it might be a small majority. It's American people.
• 12:37
  No, it it is true. Or North American people.
• 12:39
  I don't want to, you know, the North American continent.
• 12:43
  It is primarily. There's not that many Canadians
• 12:45
  or Mexicans, yeah. So that's like the the market
• 12:48
  and stuff as well, because prior to me going on my very first
• 12:51
  cruise in 2015 where I met you, I was like, I don't know about
• 12:54
  this or there's no presence in Australia for example, except
• 12:58
  for those who have already been. So only word of mouth.
• 13:00
  Yeah, word of mouth. Yeah, for sure.
• 13:02
  Yeah. So, yeah, so there's the two
• 13:05
  Caribbean ones in early in the year as well as the Australian
• 13:09
  one. Then we have the three in Europe
• 13:12
  and then finally we have the October one, which is I think
• 13:16
  the one if I only had to choose one out of the whole calendar
• 13:20
  that I recommend as the most reliable one in terms of having
• 13:25
  a good time and being consistent.
• 13:26
  And also for like first timers, assuming theoretically if
• 13:31
  geography and location wasn't a factor, I would choose the
• 13:34
  October one. I I 2nd that I for a first
• 13:38
  cruise and to get like an analysis experience, I feel
• 13:41
  there's a more of a sense of community on that smaller boat.
• 13:44
  Because the big one in January, like you might see, you might
• 13:48
  find someone friendly from the first night.
• 13:50
  And if you don't exchange numbers, sometimes you might not
• 13:53
  see them till day six because it's.
• 13:55
  Such a party crowd. It was a big it's a big ship and
• 13:58
  also the main dance floor. It's not the most conducive to
• 14:01
  finding people. Oh my God, the the parties are
• 14:03
  just too big to like. Well The thing is I don't like
• 14:05
  the layout on on the really big ships and we're talking about
• 14:08
  the Royal Caribbean Oasis class ships.
• 14:11
  So that's Oasis of the Seas, Allure the Seas, Harmony of the
• 14:15
  Seas. Those are like the common ones
• 14:17
  in that Oasis class that Atlantis sails, Two things about
• 14:22
  that. Yeah.
• 14:22
  So it's those are the biggest passenger cruise ships in the
• 14:25
  world, the biggest of the kind of funky layout they have.
• 14:30
  The night time parties are in the solarium and it's, I hate
• 14:33
  the layout of the solarium because it's like a weird shape
• 14:37
  at the front of the ship and there's all this stuff like trip
• 14:40
  over if you're like not completely sober and it's like
• 14:43
  dark. They turn the lights and
• 14:44
  everything and it's hard to find people in the solarium.
• 14:47
  Well, yeah, it's just, I mean, first, you're right, it's a
• 14:50
  curve. So it's not like a curve of the
• 14:52
  ship. There's pillars in the way,
• 14:53
  There's hot tubs and hot. Tubs in the way, they're random
• 14:56
  steps. Suddenly there's like a ramp,
• 14:57
  suddenly there's like a bench. It's like everything you don't
• 15:01
  want to run into. And when it's all crowded with
• 15:05
  people, you can't see all these things that are only like one or
• 15:08
  two or three feet off the ground because you just see people.
• 15:10
  So you'll be walking and suddenly there'll be like
• 15:12
  something in front of you that you can't get past.
• 15:14
  Yeah, it's so annoying. So my yeah, so like what I like
• 15:17
  about the October cruise, which was like my first cruise, the
• 15:21
  parties are in the main port deck, one central port deck
• 15:23
  under the stars. I like Dancing under the Stars
• 15:25
  because I run really warm. And if you really wanted to, you
• 15:28
  could just step up to whatever deck 14 whatever and look down.
• 15:31
  And if you're really vigilant, you could probably try to find
• 15:34
  your friends, because there's just one dance floor if they're
• 15:36
  there. What The thing is.
• 15:37
  The thing is, when it's a poolside party, the shape of it
• 15:40
  is much more rectangular. Yeah, it's just one.
• 15:42
  It's much easier shape within which to actually like look for
• 15:46
  people. And it's way less people's, it's
• 15:49
  more sense of community. So you do run into the same
• 15:52
  people over and over again. And if you're saying hi, and
• 15:53
  you're friendly and saying hi to people, you'll generally run
• 15:56
  into the same people. Yeah, so every ship except for
• 15:59
  the Oasis Clash ships from Royal Caribbean, the nighttime
• 16:03
  parties, most of them will be poolside.
• 16:05
  So it's so nice to have an outdoor party.
• 16:08
  It's so much more like such a much a really nice vibe to party
• 16:12
  outdoors by the pool at night. It was very well.
• 16:15
  That's what really turned me into a fan of the landscape
• 16:19
  cruise. I was complete.
• 16:20
  I did complete 180 'cause I was so anxious and nervous before my
• 16:23
  first one. But there is something special
• 16:25
  about dancing to and they're like Whitney Houston at 3:00 AM
• 16:30
  in the morning with just the stars and the sky.
• 16:32
  It's such a great experience. It's like it's a little we can
• 16:35
  describe to you like, Oh yeah, just imagine you're on a ship
• 16:39
  and it's night time and they're a licensed lasers and there's
• 16:42
  like Whitney Houston being blasted super loud and you're
• 16:45
  like out in the middle of the ocean with like no one else
• 16:47
  around, but like to actually be in that moment.
• 16:51
  It's feels a lot more special than we can describe to you in
• 16:55
  words. It really is.
• 16:56
  It's it's liberating on top of a very liberating experience
• 17:00
  anyways. Like it is a very you get the
• 17:03
  common besides when you finish the cruise, the sea legs, which
• 17:06
  is when you feel like ships are moving on land, people are just,
• 17:10
  people get sad because it's like, oh back to reality.
• 17:12
  It really is like, hey, I can't just say hi and smile to people
• 17:15
  on the street anymore because they're going to think you're
• 17:16
  fucking weird or because everyone on a gay cruise is OK.
• 17:19
  Most people are going to be gay or they they know you're gay.
• 17:22
  There's no, like judgment or like hiding.
• 17:25
  It's just it's a very liberating experience in that way for.
• 17:28
  Yeah, yeah. It's apparently, yeah.
• 17:29
  And that's probably like the the one thing that I like most about
• 17:34
  the gay cruises. So think what you will about
• 17:37
  like the parties and all that kind of stuff.
• 17:39
  And by the way, you don't have to go to the parties like on
• 17:42
  these ships, there's lots of things to do besides the
• 17:45
  parties. So anything that the cruise line
• 17:48
  puts on, on any regular cruise that they have so Royal
• 17:51
  Caribbean, you know, like on a regular sailing, they have shows
• 17:55
  and they have like the casino and they have like bars and they
• 17:58
  have like singers. They have comedians, like most
• 17:59
  of that stuff that the cruise line offers like rock climbing
• 18:02
  or to tennis or whatever, all that stuff, most of that stuff
• 18:06
  is running on the Atlantis cruises.
• 18:08
  But Atlantis also puts in like extra things.
• 18:12
  One of them are like the dance parties, but they also bring in
• 18:15
  like queer comedians, queer singers.
• 18:18
  A lot of times they bring in like they always bring in extra
• 18:22
  DJs, but sometimes they bring in like like a celebrity.
• 18:26
  Like, it could be like Deborah Cox, or it could be Kathy
• 18:29
  Griffin just did one of the recent cruises.
• 18:31
  We we were lucky enough to see Olivia Newton John before she
• 18:34
  passed away. Oh my God, that one was so
• 18:36
  special. That was on the big.
• 18:37
  Oh, we just saw that. So they bring in like
• 18:39
  celebrities whenever they can like, and it changes all the
• 18:43
  time. And they're starting to do EDM
• 18:45
  nights as well on a lot of the cruises, which I love.
• 18:47
  It's a little bit of a different, you know, change from
• 18:49
  like the. Gareth Emery Above and beyond,
• 18:53
  yeah. Yeah, so like, you know, but
• 18:56
  they also have like queer comedians, singers, like
• 19:00
  pianists, Like there's all these other shows as well.
• 19:04
  They've had drag Queens on the on the ship as well and they do
• 19:07
  like a show. So there's all this other all
• 19:09
  these other things to do besides dancing.
• 19:12
  But if you don't want to party, so you don't want to party and
• 19:14
  it's completely fine. Yeah.
• 19:15
  But like you said, I my favorite thing is when you're on that gay
• 19:20
  cruise, every, like 99% of the other passengers are like queer
• 19:26
  men. Yeah, right.
• 19:28
  So it's not like an everyday life where, like you see someone
• 19:31
  that you find attractive for whatever reason and it's at the
• 19:33
  coffee shop or something. And it's like, is that person
• 19:36
  gay on the gay cruise? They are gay.
• 19:39
  Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, if you see, like if you
• 19:41
  see if you see a a passenger like 99% of the time, 99.9% of
• 19:46
  the time they're gay. So it already takes off.
• 19:49
  Like this is how straight people feel in normal everyday life,
• 19:52
  but straight people get to mostly rightly assume that
• 19:56
  everyone else around them is straight.
• 19:58
  Yep, on the on the gay cruise we get to assume with like 99.9%
• 20:03
  accuracy that everyone else is queer.
• 20:05
  Yep. And which is?
• 20:06
  So great. You're these these neighbours
• 20:09
  that you're having a floating holiday with, like they're
• 20:12
  probably had similar experiences in terms of the homosexual
• 20:14
  experience, you know, it's it's a sense of community and that
• 20:17
  you with strangers, it's very bizarre, but it is a very you
• 20:23
  just feel like you actually feel a community and it's actually
• 20:25
  pretty rare in life. Maybe it's not rare, but there's
• 20:28
  only so, so many times. We're like, you know what, It's
• 20:30
  good to be gay. It feels, you know, we're we're
• 20:33
  privileged. That's when I do feel the gay
• 20:34
  privilege. I'm like, this is this, this is
• 20:36
  cool, like, boring quote, UN quote boring.
• 20:38
  Straight people don't do this. This ain't a straight cruise,
• 20:40
  right. They're like the staff are all
• 20:42
  like most Oh my God, like the girl, all the people like, Oh my
• 20:45
  God, you're such a party animals.
• 20:48
  You're all friendly. You don't complain at the
• 20:50
  restaurants, etcetera. So it's really actually just
• 20:54
  really liberating. You do really feel nice.
• 20:56
  And the other part of that is not only is like 99.9% of the
• 21:01
  passengers queer, but like 100% of the passengers are there to
• 21:07
  be on vacation in everyday life and you run into people.
• 21:10
  Someone might be in a hurry to like, go to work or like do
• 21:13
  this, but like, everyone is on vacation, therefore everyone is
• 21:16
  in that vacation mode. And that makes everyone a lot
• 21:19
  easier to, like, just randomly talk to, whether like you're in
• 21:22
  the line for like a slice of pizza or you're at one of these
• 21:25
  parties. Like no matter how you run into
• 21:27
  people, they're they're also gay and they're on vacation.
• 21:32
  And it's not like they're in a hurry to, like, run an errand or
• 21:35
  do a chore or go to work or something so everyone it's a lot
• 21:38
  easier to talk to just randomly. Well actually this might be a
• 21:41
  youth thing, but I heard from my first cruise I was sort of
• 21:44
  trying to get a vibe of what everyone else is feeling and
• 21:47
  someone was like, oh, even the mean LA gays are nice on the
• 21:50
  boat. Is this true?
• 21:53
  Look look, I think everyone when we hang out together privately
• 21:57
  we make a lot of jokes that are we talked about this today.
• 22:01
  You know when you joke around with close friends in private,
• 22:03
  you know you guys have your own kind of humor that other people
• 22:08
  might not get or might not be very PC, right.
• 22:10
  So obviously LA gays have a a bit of a reputation warranted or
• 22:15
  not probably warranted of being mean and plastic or whatever.
• 22:18
  But like when you're on a ship though again like everyone is, I
• 22:22
  mean LA gays partially has that they have their reputation
• 22:25
  because because of being in LA, but when you're on a ship you're
• 22:30
  not in LA. Yep.
• 22:32
  Right. It's kind of like everyone's
• 22:34
  guards and kind of comes down a little bit, but you're you're in
• 22:38
  a very different environment, both in terms of your physical
• 22:41
  surroundings and like all the people that are around you and
• 22:43
  the fact that you're on vacation.
• 22:45
  I've actually like universally like seen universal acclaim for
• 22:50
  someone who has put effort into a costume for example.
• 22:53
  And it's an epic, amazing costume.
• 22:55
  And like, literally everyone were going past of all different
• 22:58
  ages, sizes, whatever. Like, Oh my God, that looks
• 23:01
  fucking amazing. Can I get a photo?
• 23:03
  You're amazing. You're incredible.
• 23:05
  So it's for those who love, like for those who are seamstresses
• 23:08
  who love to dress up, who love costumes, this is a good chance.
• 23:11
  To wear that you can't do except for Halloween.
• 23:13
  Yeah, yes. It's literally every It's a gay
• 23:16
  Halloween for the entire. For the entire.
• 23:17
  For the entire cruise. And people have outfits just to
• 23:21
  like, rock up to the buffet. It's crazy.
• 23:23
  Oh yeah, it's so crazy. So it's like if you're like one
• 23:26
  of those people who like to or know, have fashion or whatever,
• 23:29
  and you just want to wear the most random shit as long as
• 23:32
  you're paying respectful to the working staff of the cruise
• 23:34
  ship. Like, I don't know, no jock
• 23:36
  straps in a buffet maybe. But anyways, yeah, that's a
• 23:40
  negative. But the rest of the stuff, it's
• 23:41
  like, yeah, like just and people decorate their doors and have
• 23:44
  these crazy contraptions and it's just cool.
• 23:46
  You could just walk up and down hallways and see people
• 23:49
  designing doors and it's just creative, artistic, funny, it's.
• 23:53
  Like a parallel it's so. Funny.
• 23:55
  It is so funny. It's a parallel universe where
• 23:57
  gays are our gates are the norm, and we can break free from like
• 24:01
  all the straight heteronormative stereotypes.
• 24:05
  The shit of the world you really escape for like a week.
• 24:08
  You literally escape for a week. You're you.
• 24:10
  When you board the ship is literally an A, a different
• 24:13
  universe. It's a different planet.
• 24:14
  It is a different planet and it's just, yeah, and you're
• 24:16
  weird because it's it's simultaneous.
• 24:18
  You're like, you go on the first day is really busy because
• 24:20
  you're boarding, getting through stressed with packing,
• 24:22
  unpacking, and then like day two is the dog, take a party.
• 24:26
  But it's like, seems like you've been in there forever.
• 24:29
  But something happens in day five because shit, why parties
• 24:31
  tomorrow? Like the first day even for us
• 24:34
  we've been on like I I think the the January cruise would be like
• 24:38
  17th or 18th cruise or something.
• 24:40
  You've done more, you're a 20 something cruises I think.
• 24:43
  But The thing is, like, even for me, the first day boarding,
• 24:47
  because the cruise is such a different environment.
• 24:50
  Even for us, people like us who've gone on many of them that
• 24:53
  first day, we still have at least I still have an adjustment
• 24:57
  period. Yeah, for sure, from HT and I
• 24:58
  board also boarding is so hectic and it's just like getting your
• 25:01
  pass and your luck and all that kind of stuff.
• 25:03
  It takes me like several hours between boarding, even if we've
• 25:08
  set sail for like a little bit. Like my head is still not in
• 25:12
  that state where like, oh, I'm on a gate cruise.
• 25:14
  It takes an adjustment. This year, once I unpack, the
• 25:18
  unpacking is unpacking for me. Signifies hey, you're on here
• 25:20
  now. Yeah, your costumes are made it
• 25:23
  dude, everything is fine. And then I can sort of unwind.
• 25:26
  But then and then it just it's weird.
• 25:28
  It's simultaneous. It feels like forever.
• 25:30
  Cuz I do remember almost every cruise day two or day three.
• 25:32
  I'm like, so we only just bought it yesterday.
• 25:35
  And then before you know it, it's like, Oh my God, we have to
• 25:37
  get up in two days. Yeah.
• 25:37
  And. Then it's like, why party
• 25:39
  tomorrow? Like it was so weird.
• 25:41
  Once you get into it like you and you're having a good time,
• 25:44
  then it flies. Yeah, about like two or three
• 25:46
  days in, like 3 days in Midway and then it starts flying.
• 25:50
  And dude, like, what is the schedule?
• 25:52
  Even it's there. But go do whatever the fuck.
• 25:54
  You want. You don't eat very soon.
• 25:56
  You don't know what day of the week it is.
• 25:58
  But then you, you go by the cruise conference.
• 26:00
  Here. Oh yeah, you get, you get the
• 26:01
  newsletter. This night it's the comedian
• 26:03
  night. It's the night of the comedy or
• 26:04
  it's the night of the The Cabaret show or it's like White
• 26:06
  Party night and it's just your whole world changes because
• 26:10
  Monday to fighter doesn't happen anymore.
• 26:11
  Day one, Day eight maybe. But it's you're just living in a
• 26:14
  whole different world so it's and talking about it now, I've
• 26:17
  noticed on one cruise this year which was the.
• 26:19
  First, we're psyching ourselves out for the next cruise.
• 26:21
  I. Didn't mean to do.
• 26:21
  It but like, no, it's fine, but but you know, The thing is that
• 26:25
  only really shows. Like, yeah, we've been on a lot
• 26:28
  of them, but like, we keep it going back because we really do
• 26:31
  find it to be such like a fun, enjoyable time of which we don't
• 26:36
  see a parallel anywhere else. Yeah, and I'm probably, you
• 26:40
  know, I'm probably reaching like the average edge of the cruise,
• 26:42
  like whatever. I would still go as an older
• 26:44
  person and there's a lot of people who are older there.
• 26:46
  There's a really big age. Range which is amazing because.
• 26:49
  On the January cruise, like every time we've been on it,
• 26:51
  like there are people that are like early 20s, like 21 or like
• 26:55
  25 or whatever, all the way up to people that are in like their
• 26:58
  70s. Bob, Bob the original Bob, Bob
• 27:02
  the original Disney Imagineer anyways, but you literally
• 27:05
  particularly dog tag, I think because you do see the ones who
• 27:08
  have literally fought in wars for the freedoms.
• 27:11
  For us to do. What we do and they are there
• 27:14
  like looking, not dancing like crazy in the middle of the dance
• 27:17
  floor, but they're standing around the sides and looking
• 27:20
  down and. They're checking things out.
• 27:21
  They're still having a good time.
• 27:22
  But when you speak to them, yeah, they're like, well we
• 27:24
  fought for this, so it's just super grateful.
• 27:27
  So it's a really nice. Feeling.
• 27:29
  Especially the dog take tea dance, because I think it's like
• 27:31
  a nice way to. I mean, people just wear
• 27:33
  military stuff, but there's a side level where it's like the
• 27:37
  people who actually fought in wars to fight for freedoms.
• 27:39
  Yeah is why we can dance in a jock strap and a harness in the
• 27:43
  middle of the dance floor. Yeah, yeah, correct.
• 27:45
  I mean, I think it's easy for people to think, especially the
• 27:48
  party cruise, because that kind of has a little bit of
• 27:50
  replication on its own That's like the most popular one.
• 27:52
  Yeah. People look at it be like, it's
• 27:54
  just like gays on drugs, just dancing and fucking.
• 27:57
  Yeah, it's not. If you want it to be like that,
• 28:01
  it could be, but like that is such like a narrow view of the
• 28:04
  cruise. But The thing is, you know.
• 28:06
  What they I mean, what, like people like fucking and dancing
• 28:10
  and partying, but that happens everywhere, all the time
• 28:13
  anyways. But what doesn't happen all the
• 28:14
  time? Every gay bar.
• 28:16
  But what doesn't happen everywhere all the time is the
• 28:18
  sense of like shared community. The community, yeah.
• 28:21
  Which, and that's the my reason why I I'm like, OK, well it's
• 28:25
  not just another dance. And that's why I when people ask
• 28:29
  me what great parties are cruisers, the cruisers are a
• 28:30
  separate entity. I cannot equate them with a
• 28:34
  quote UN quote party experience. It just doesn't go big on land.
• 28:36
  It does not compare. The cruise is a separate entity.
• 28:38
  You can ask me to rank my cruisers, but you can't rank me
• 28:41
  because a cruise in a party for me is not the same.
• 28:43
  It's like apples to like, not the same.
• 28:45
  It's apples to broccoli. It's just completely different.
• 28:49
  Are they both fruit? No one's a vegetable.
• 28:55
  Yes, sorry, David doesn't get it because I like apples.
• 28:57
  He only eats McDonald's. No, but I Apple chips.
• 29:00
  Apple. Ah, chips.
• 29:03
  Those are my chips. Don't stop looking at those
• 29:04
  chips. But apples?
• 29:06
  But you can't make broccoli pie, right?
• 29:07
  There's no such thing as. I mean, I guess you could if you
• 29:09
  wanted to. That's fucking gross, you.
• 29:11
  Puree some broccoli? No.
• 29:13
  No. No, no, no.
• 29:16
  All right. With that, we'll sign out.
• 29:18
  So say bye, David. From his off, but something's me
• 29:21
  oh. My God, bye.