If Gay Men Went To Summer Camp

If you've ever been curious what a gay cruise is all about, I can sum it up for you: it's summer camp for gay men. But I'll get back to that in a moment.

This being the year of gay travel for us (P-Town, Southern Decadence, Vegas... It's close enough), we picked a gay cruise as our final big gay trip for 2011. Like many of our vacations, we went in to this event a bit blind, but relying on the information we had gathered from friends and the ever-trusty interwebs, we decided to book a room with Atlantis Events for their Mexico cruise.

We truly had no idea what to expect.  Originally, I assumed that this trip would be a lot like our vacation to Riviera Maya. We stayed at an all-inclusive there and really enjoyed our time on the resort. I just assumed that the cruise would be more of the same kind of thing as the resort, only with a throng of gays. But that turned out to be very, very incorrect. At the resort, we barely met anyone, we spent the majority of the day lounging about the pool or beach, and the entertainment, while not horrible, was just OK. In comparrison, on the boat we met several great people, we spent our time between lounging, partying, and socializing, and the entertainment options were all top notch.
I have to admit though that I was a bit mortified to be going on the cruise. The idea of it sounded great, but the realization that I'll be on a boat floating over the ridiculously vast ocean while millions of unknown and unseen critters swim beneath us just waiting for one of us to fall off and become the next sharktopus snack… well, that spooked me a bit. So my husband wisely drug me to a bar shortly before we were scheduled to board and ordered a pitcher of beer that we just had to drink in 40 minutes, which went a long way in relaxing me enough to be able to get on the ship.

Once we were on the floating kraken feeder boat, I was fine. The room was nice, if a tiny bit small, the layout of the ship was pretty intuitive, and there was plenty enough room for everyone to be able to kick back and relax. And this is where the summer camp feel started to kick in.

Every day we were greeted with a little pamphlet listing all the various activities going on that day, when and where. For someone like me who is a habitual planner and someone who if given a schedule must follow it, these little booklets of "fun" soon became an ordeal. Luckily, I have an understanding husband who quickly learned to hide the packet from me and only allow me to choose one activity throughout the day that we could plan for. Everything else would just be happenstance as we lollygagged through the boat or lazed about the pool.

Really though, there was just a ton of stuff going on every day, so there was no need to plan unless there was something in particular you wanted to do. Shows, shopping, game show things, bingo, comedians, string quartets, cabaret acts, Broadway stars, singles and couples meet-and-greets, movies, gambling, and that doesn't even cover everything. Through it all, these abundantly nice crew and staff members were around to help direct you to events or provide you with whatever you needed. Oh, and then the requisite camp boat announcements from the camp cruise directors.

What really amazed me though was that with a boat packed full of 1900 gay men, I believe we only encountered one genuine act of bitchiness, and even that was rather mild. Everyone was just nice. And there was a pretty solid mix of people on the boat too, although the demographic certainly skewed well in to the mid-30's or later for average age range, but even the age and other differences didn't stop everyone from just kicking back and having a great time together.

I was also surprised by how many people on the boat that were interested in sparking up friendships. The boat was fairly big (the veteran cruisers said it was average, but for us newbies it was huge), and there were plenty of people on the boat, but we did manage to meet quite a few people that we enjoyed hanging around. By the second day of the cruise we had made quite a few new acquaintances, most of whom we talked with and hung around with throughout the rest of the trip.

True to the summer camp feel, the cruise directors threw a huge going away party on Thursday night and one last t-dance on Friday, which allowed us all to say farewell to the trip and to get the contact information for everyone we met that we wanted to stay in touch with. Of course, keeping in touch is vastly easier these days with Facebook and all, but we still heard quite a few people saying "keep in touch, ok?" Atlantis even offers an alumni website to help facilitate these connections, which is pretty nifty.

When Saturday morning rolled around, everyone's face shared the same somber yet wonderfully tanned look. Except mine. Because I somehow failed to inherit the tanning gene that allows the rest of my family to so perfectly tan. Anyway… we all knew we were heading home, but we all had a great time on board. Certainly, there will be quite a few memories from the trip. Especially for that one couple that decided that 4 a.m. Wednesday morning was the perfect time to go through a nasty breakup. In the hallway. While drunk. I'm sure they'll remember the trip quite fondly.

So you can see how this Atlantis cruise really was like summer camp for gay men. With alcohol. LOTS of alcohol. The husband and I really enjoyed the experience and will likely do it again. We've reserved a cabin for the same cruise next year, basically just in case we do want to go. From talking to the people on the cruise, it seems like cruises are much like tattoos: once you do one, you want more. And even though I'm certain the next time I get on that boat Cthulu will rise up out of ocean and devour us whole, I think it's a fair trade off for a great week with some like minded travelers!

New Orleans Is A Blast Even In A Tropical Storm

Rain makes for an interesting companion during vacations. It seems that during pretty much all of our travels over the past couple years, rain has decided to come along with us. Mexico, Vancouver, Provincetown… all had some rainfall. Now we can add New Orleans to that list.

While the rain during the other vacations was more of a nuisance, like a harmless cousin that shows up at your door with luggage in hand looking for a free room to stay for the night, the NOLA rain was more like overbearing grandparents showing up just when you're about to have that hot date over for the night.

Lee Rises In The South

If you were watching the news, I'm sure you heard about Tropical Storm Lee and how it was headed straight for New Orleans. Given that it waited till Friday to start in force and was pretty much over by Monday afternoon, I might have even thought that this storm was sent just so that it could put a damper on our vacation, but if that was Lee's intention, I'm sure he forgot that us gays are more likely to have spontaneous wet T-shirt contest in the street than to run for cover when the sky just happens to turn in to an outdoor showerhead.

Friday night was a bit rough and even a tiny bit scary. Having been through a few hurricanes in my life, I started to get a little antsy, but when I realized that we were witnessing the worst of it and it wasn't likely to get much worse, I calmed down a bit. We made it back to our condo before the worst of it fell, but our condo-mate was still out around 2:30 am when the rain had turned the streets into little rivers or empty cups and cigarette butts.

The rest of the weekend was as nice as we could have hoped for given the weather reports prior to heading down there. There was a little rain here and there, we got soaked through a couple times, but overall it was fine. Like I said, we gays know how to make a fun party out of any situation, even if our hair was getting ruined. If nothing else, it provided for an endless supply of Flashdance impersonations.


A Decadent Time

Southern Decadence was everything we had hoped for this time around as well. As I mentioned, this year we knew quite a few more people than we had last year, and it was nice to see them all, but we also made time to make some new friends. One thing I love about events like this is that whenever we leave, we've made a few more new friends across the country, which gives us even more of a reason to go visit places like San Diego, Houston, or D.C.

Again, the charm of New Orleans really swept me away. There's just something magical about that city. Sure, there's the hokey factor, but more than anything the old-world feel of the French Quarter and the genuiness of the city's residents is just something you have to experience. I fall in love with it again every time I visit.

A Few New Eats

We tried a few new restaurants this year that I would be remiss not to mention, one upscale and one completely not-so-much, but both delicious. First, the higher-end place: Restaurant August. This is John Besh's place in New Orleans and features "modern French" dishes mixed with Cajun and Creole stylings. We popped in for lunch and everything from was just amazing. Our server was knowledgeable, patient, fun, and professional, the drinks were delicious and hand-crafted and the beer offered was from the best of the local breweries, and the food was perfectly prepared and unique. A friend of ours shared this recommendation with us last time we went, but it took us this second time in NOLA to make the effort to go and I'm very glad we did.

The more authentic and down-home place that I think everyone should try is a place the cleaning staff at the condo recommended: Coops Place. A few things to mention right up front, the restaurant is small, the wait staff are rude, and the bathrooms are in the scariest bowels of the building possible. That said, this could have been the best, most true-to-memory Louisiana cooking I've had in all my trips to NOLA. The fried chicken was perfectly spiced, the red beans and rice had just the right amount of pork sprinkled throughout, and the gumbo was piping hot and full up on the ingredients. Do yourself a favor, check your tourist ego at the door, and get the waiter to laugh and you'll be in for a real, authentic New Orleans meal.

We'll Be Back

Even though our second annual (hopefully more to come) Labor Day excursion to New Orleans was just a bit rain-soaked, I have to say that we probably had a better time this year compared to last. Of course, that's like saying last year was an 8.5/10 and this year was a 9/10, but still. We made some promising new friends, had some excellent food (something that was lacking last year), and even made the best of the rain and still had a blast!

Can't Hardly Wait

The husband and I are preparing to embark on yet another trip to New Orleans this weekend. We went to NOLA last year this time as well and had a great time just hanging around, drinking, eating and relaxing amidst the festivities of Southern Decadence, so we figured why not go back again this year?

I think saying that we had a blast last year is a bit of an understatement. We went with no expectations of Southern Decadence, not knowing what to expect and not knowing anyone who had been. Turned out that a friend from college ended up going as well and we ended up spending a good amount of time with him catching up and catching the sites, but we also met quite a few new people to talk to and hang around with.

New Orleans is one of my favorite places to visit. It has a very unique quality to it, a certain charm that is hard to define until you are there. There's a real, distinct old world feel to the French Quarter (and several of the nearby neighborhoods) that meshes with the modern world just enough to feel familiar yet old. And for the most part the bars and stores and such don't cheapen that. Most of the residents relish the cities uniqueness instead of trying to bastardize it into a tourist trap from hell.

That's not to say there isn't a little bit of tourist trapping going on. There are quite a few restaurants in the Quarter that claim to be "Cajun" or "New Orleans Style" yet deliver bland substitutes of Creole/Cajun cuisine. It takes a bit of trial and error to find the good stuff, but once you do you won't regret the search.

This year should be just a tad bit different for us. Like I said, we had no expectation last year and ended up having a great time, so we obviously aren't going into this blind. But we've also got quite a few friends and acquaintances that are going this year, whereas last year we barely knew anyone. Part of the charm of SD, for me at least, was forcing myself out of my usually tight shell to be social and meet new people, but with so many people we know going this year, I'll have to make the extra effort to open up to new people as it seems likely that we'll have people we know everywhere we go. That should be fun though too: sharing something as unique as NOLA with good people you already know should make the whole experience more robust.

This trip is coming at a really good time for us as well. After the past couple months, we're both ready for a getaway, particularly one that we've both been looking forward to so much. A very good friend is travelling with us this time as well and staying with us in the condo we rented right in the French Quarter, which will give us a chance to really bond and hang out, something that we just don't get to do as much these days with our work schedules.

The weather report for NOLA is looking bleak for this weekend, but every vacation we've ever took has had a bleak weather forecast going in to the trip only to turn out to be either mostly nice or perfectly wonderful. Humidity is inevitable this time of year in Louisiana, so I'm not worried about that, but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if this weekend brings the rain and if that rain will stop the people from partying in the streets still.

Cruisey Eyes

An interesting phenomena occurs when you go off on a "gay vacation": you develop what my husband and I have termed Cruisey Eyes.

Quick aside: Gay Vacation defined is a vacation to attend a wholly or mostly gay-themed event, such as Bear Week that my husband and I just got home from or the cruise we're doing later this year. It can also refer to attending a non-LGBT themed event with a large group of your queer friends, thereby transforming the event from whatever it was into a Gay Vacation.

Back on point. One of the most fun things about a gay vacation is that the people attending the event quickly let their guard down from their everyday lives. At home, many gays will put up a wall to try and try to hide the most overt parts of their sexuality from the outside world, which can oftentimes lead to confusion on the streets about who is and who isn't gay.

For example, when gay men are wandering down the street at home and see an attractive man across the way, they may look but they typically cut it down to a brief glance. After all, we don't know if that man is gay himself or if others in the vicinity might take unkindly (read: violently) to witnessing us checking out another dude. So while heterosexual dudes can be a bit less discreet in their scoping of women, gay men tend to put up a wall for protection.

But what happens during gay vacations is that those walls come tumbling down. Like, fast. The subtlety many of us employ back home when checking out mens is gone the moment we arrive at our destination. Spotting a hot man can, and most likely will, involve pointing, smiling, waving, winking, cat calling, and any other number of flirty behaviors. It also usually involves a full head to toe scan from both individuals and quick introductions if both are satisfied with what they see.

So while we were in P-Town, the husband and I both developed a hard case of Cruisey Eye. We appreciated the hundreds of good-looking fellas around us, waved, winked, flirted, and said hello to many of them. That Cruisey Eye is facilitated on Gay Vacations because we know everyone there is gay. There's no fear of embarrassing yourself by trying to flirt up a straight guy because we know we're all there for the same reason.

Sadly, though, we have to come back to the real world, and in the real world, Cruisey Eye isn't appreciated as much. It takes some adjustment to get back in to the mindset that you shouldn't be openly checking out every cute guy that wanders down the street, or that giving the bank teller a flirty smile and a wink may not be appreciated. And it's a damn shame too because life is so much more fun when everyone around you is open to a little flirtation!

That's how it goes though: no more Gay Vacation means no more Cruisey Eye. I'll just have to save up my Cruisey Eye now for when I go to my Gay Gym...

Provincetown, The Perfect Getaway

The husband and I have been off on a vacation this past week in Provincetown, Massachusetts.  It's both of our first times here in New England, and I have to say that I am thoroughly enjoying this town!

P-Town, as it's otherwise known, is a beautiful little village.  It's a beach town at the very end of Cape Cod, and it's known to be a very gay-friendly town.  Not exactly a gay specific town, but a town that is very open and accepting of many different walks of life.

We came specifically for Bear Week with a few friends, and I have to be honest when I say that I was a bit worried that this would turn into a week long party similar to Southern Decadence.  I've been pleasantly surprised that the week has been a nice balance of high and low activity time, with beach lounging, partying and friend time being balanced quite well.

If I were to have one complaint, it would be that P-Town is a bit pricey, so it's not the vacation for those looking for fun and relaxation on the cheap.  But if you prepare and budget for this place, it's amazing.  It's been exactly the vacation I've needed.

I'll leave you with a couple pictures, one of the view we saw on the dunes bike trail yesterday and one of the baby shark post being eaten we saw on our first day here.