GayCities/Queerty co-founder Chris Bull and Swish Edition podcaster R. Scott Wallis set sail on their very first Atlantis cruise last weekend—they’ll be hitting ports of call around the Caribbean all week (lucky bastards!). Scott and Chris are aboard Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world—along with Idina Minzel, Bruce Vilanch, Alex Mapa, Tupperware queen Dixie Longate and thousands of gay men (and 78 women!) ranging from 20-year-old twinks to 80-year-old grandads.
Right about now, the boys have departed tres-secluded Labadee, Haiti (above) and are on the high seas headed for Costa Maya, Mexico for another day in the sun Meanwhile on board, there’s entertainment from Broadway’s Chicago, Miss Richfield 1981, the high-diving Oceanaria show and DJs like Brett Henrichsen, and Manny Lehman.
We’ll have more later this week (the Internet connection out there ain’t the fastest), but here’s a small visual sample.
Frank
I just hope the captain is not Italian….scary thought
Fitz
@Frank: I hope he is, and tipsy. Did ONE Atlantis event 15+ years ago…. worst 10 days of my gay life ever.
It was everything our enemies SAY about us, come true.
Jason
Sounds like pure, unadulterated hell.
A regular cruise with one’s parents is bad enough, but this sounds dreadful.
Drew
Fitz-What was the LOL “Cruise” like for you? I’ve heard that Atlantis is basically one non-stop orgy of lots of drugs including lots of meth, barebacking, and men with PeterPan syndrome who drink too much and can’t hold or handle their booze.
Chris
First Atlantis cruise = last Atlantis cruise.
Disappointing and pretty obnoxious passengers did it in for me. I was shocked to hear that the Caribbean cruise I went on was considered to be “tame” compared to previous Atlantis cruises. Lotsa older men prancing around wearing speedos/age inappropriate Abercrombie graphic tees…trying to recapture their youth (who SHOULD be old enough to know better)….not a good sign when, the first night you are there, you witness a 70 year old + man stumbling towards you when you get out of the elevator and he has crapped himself because he took some type of drug…and it was all over the floor…Feel bad for the poor staff who had to subjected to “crap” such as this… Stereotypes everywhere. To be fair, I am not sure that I am a “cruise person”, let alone a “gay cruise person”, but I found the parties in the evening to be depressingly/numbingly too circuit partyish. And just little things that IRKED me…such as, converting the sports bar into a video lounge that played only “GLEE” episodes round the clock…REALLY????? Lots of the guys seemed to never leave the ship (how pathetic is that?). They just hole themselves up for the week and party. Just not what I was hopng for but unfortunately, got in the end.
Tonic
My friends who’ve gone on Atlantis cruises have reaffirmed everything said above. TONS of drugs and sloppy tweakers. The funny/sad part is toward the end of the cruise when everyone is SO wasted and they still take their drugs because they can’t bring them back to shore.
Ugh.
James
I can’t see how you can characterize a ship of 4000 people by citing a few extreme events or generalizing across a ship of 4000 people? I was hoping my Atlantis experience was a giant circuit party, and as it turns out it was not, and in the end I really appreciated the variety. If the circuit style is not your scene, try RSVP or one the MANY cruises and resorts clearly targeted at a different audience. I think you should take a few minutes to reflect on what your comments say about you….
Marie Cohn
You could get a deadly MRSA infection just from touching the handrails on that floating disease factory.
Spike
Wonder where the boys are getting their favors now that Micheal K is no longer cruising on Atlantis?
Funny that when the Queerty co-founder is on-board, the article is positive, rather then bitter and nasty, referring to it as a drug tug.
Dennis
Hedonism, materialism, HIV transmission, crossdressing, and substance abuse. This isn’t a gay cruise. It’s an anti-gay cruise.
Maybe the gay community can raise money to pay the Somali pirates to seize the ship and its shallow, self-destructive passengers.
Elmwood Mac
Yeah ,but what’s the food like?