Seven days aboard a gay-themed cruise ship: Chance of a lifetime? A special kind of hell? Both?
The upcoming documentary Dream Boat tracks the plight of five men stranded at sea amid body-image issues, HIV anxiety, loneliness, and throbbing hi-NRG remixes.
As you can see from the trailer, it’s sink or swim — like it’s always been:
terminalose
it looks so depressing
Stache
It’s not for me but I’ve never heard anyone who’s actually done one say that.
terminalose
In the trailer, there is literally a person who explains that he finds it depressing
Bob LaBlah
Are you insinuating the old sour faced queen toward the end didn’t appear to be the life of the party?
Jaxton
It’s just an excuse for debauchery on water.
PinkoOfTheGange
And that is a bad thing why?
Thomas
I’ve done several over the past three years. They can be depressing if you go alone and/or go looking to have your self-esteem boosted. Atlantis caters to older more affluent gays with disposable income and the younger men who appreciate them. There are several other gay cruise experiences that are cheaper, more diverse and overall friendlier for diverse people. The draw for Atlantis is their bigger ships, larger groups, and great destinations. Atlantis’ clientele is mostly white and POC are not well represented. Depending on the cruise they can have more European and Asian participants who can be very direct with their rejection of darker skin-tones and other POC.
Bottom line, go with friends, make the most of the destinations; don’t get too caught up in the on-board parties and hook-ups. You can have an amazing time and meet people from all over the world regardless of your skin color, body type or economic background. BUT you can also find the stereotypical bigotry and discriminatory, racist, classist attitudes reminiscent of MeanGirls.
PinkoOfTheGange
Excellent review Thomas.
Josh447
From the looks of the ad, it would seem it’s more like a drag queen cruise. No thx.
PinkoOfTheGange
I never went because I was afraid it would be High School on the High Seas. I was popular and hated High School.
There is a Windjammer type line that runs two boats, one neked all the time the other clothing optional. That might work. I could busy myself sailing.
Josh S
Drag queens, vapid queens, muscle queens, etc etc. Repetitive dance music. 97 million yelps of “WOOOOOOO!” like drunken frat girls. I’d hurl myself overboard.
winemaker
This looks like San Francisco on the high seas. very depressing, so many phonies and rude men with ‘attitude’, trying to be something that during the rest of their lives aren’t. Why pay a fortune for all this, if you go alone? You’ll be dealing with the attitude, body image issues, you know issues we all have ( I’m not perfect so I’ll be ignored or worse treated rudely) and the pretentiousness, no thanks. Personally I’d rather go on a land ttrip where if I don’t like a place, I can get up and move on to other places. With a cruise, you’re sort of confined to the ship and you can’t avoid the rude men, nonsense and the general BS we gay men have to deal with on a sdaily basis all our lives!
loua61
I would never in a million years, I am not perfect, don’t have a killer body, am handsome but not a god by any means. I was once at a “party” where all the guys looked like Falcon porn stars and they tried to make me feel bad about my image. Why put yourself through that, I tend to surround myself around daddy/bears/chubs where they inspire me to feel good about myself because we’re the same. Why pay all that money to be miserable and give the rude gays the opportunity to make them feel better than me which they are not.
Giuseppe
I’d rather have my eyes burned with a red hot poker, vapid and empty and they all will need a vacation from the vacation…and a dose of penicillin.
duje_buric
I was twice on this particular cruise, including the year when the documentary was filmed, and I already booked for next year. I have also seen the whole film, not just trailer and I believe it is beautifully done. It deals with 5 different guys with five different stories and each of the gives his own perspective on the cruise. So I would suggest not to bullshit before you see it. Otherwise, on every cruise people come with their insecurities, complexes and you have to deal with them. Of course you will get depressed if you do not have a perfect steroid body and you push to hang out with steroid assholes who think they are god given, but do not know to make a proper sentence without “you only live once” bullshit. but then is 95% of other passengers on the boat, who are kind, funny, happy to talk, to sing at the karaoke. People who look around them not at themselves. As Tatiana said, CHOICES! If you make bad choices, you will have bad time. I have met people who are quite original and not fitting into any gay stereotypes and are coming back for the 7th year in a row because of the acceptance they feel on this particular cruise
And finally check the film, cause there are stories that are quite opposite of what you would expect (based on these comments under the article).