Atlantis Liberty of the Seas Cruise Diary

Well it seems my previous post of a diary entry for a random day on the recent Liberty of the Seas Atlantis all-gay cruise has lots of interest.  While I am still sorting out photos,  here’s another diary snippet.  Heavily redacted, as they say.  Below, my boyfriend getting ready to set sail with a potent potable.  How did we manage to lose weight on this cruise!?

Day 5 – Thursday

Thursday morning we arrived at Labadee which turns out to be a private beach resort run by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, leased from Haiti.  Perhaps the cheapest real estate in the Caribbean.  No interaction with locals here, just a very scenic rugged peninsula, beaches, and a beautiful harbor for the ship.  We debarked with two friends from San Francisco and went to the water park attraction to play around in the warm lagoon.  The water park provided a huge water slide which we all did once, then we went to burn some calories on the other park attractions including the “teeter totter”, and the “icebergs”.  The icebergs were like mini floating climbing walls with a flat top, and a slide on the downside.  Fun!   They also had several water trampolines.  These were large innertube-like rings from which were suspended the springy mats in the center of the rings.  Trying this in the water was a lot easier than it would have been in a gym – a lot less nerve-wracking to jump up very high because the worst that could happen was you ended up in the water, not a floor!

The four of us ate lunch, drank, and ended up on the other side of the small peninsula to enjoy the beach there after lunch.

Later that afternoon we all got back on the ship, which was served by harbor tenders as Labadee has no wharf for the cruise ships.

My boyfriend and I got ready for the White Party later that evening,  dressing in our matching white fringed hot pants outfits, with glitter and spangled armbands to go with.  The White Party was dj’d by Wayne G who is one of my favs.  I had been topside to observe the preparations earlier, and the decorations were great – many white balloons of varying sizes floating in the pools and hot tubs,  white streamers overhead and more.  The crowd was overwhelmingly in white.  This was one party where the theme was picked up by almost everyone.  I saw only a handful of people wearing other than white, and a significant number of groups who had organized costumes.  I loved the “cum blob”, and there were of course angels, and many more elaborate outfits.  Oh special shout out to my fav new friends the Boston Red Sox in their hot white and skin-tight uniforms.

The music was good and only got better later when Wayne G started his set.  The crowd came in several waves, and after the mid point of about 3am people started changing into more comfortable dance attire but it was still primarily a white costumed crowd til it ended at around 8am.

My boyfriend retired at a decent hour, I stayed out thoughout and enjoyed the sunrise, which highlighted puffy clouds on the horizon a little after 7am.

Day 6 – Friday

Friday started at the White Party, with the crowd dancing overnight til dawn.  I then retired, took a sleeping pill, and closed the veranda shades tightly to ward of the intruding daylight.  I had already changed the Hunk of the Day to Paul Walker with a picture from Out of the Blue.

The Atlantis crew celebrates the 70s era with us, below!  Click to enlarge.

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Atlantis Liberty of the Seas cruise diary

I kept a diary aboard the Liberty of the Seas on the January 2008 cruise in the western Caribbean.  This was an Atlantis all-gay cruise, my first time in the Caribbean.  Lots of friends from San Francisco aboard.  Rather than try to rework the diary to give a comprehensive picture of the entire cruise,  I’ll let a single representative day’s entry suffice.  This is the middle of the cruise week.

related:  More cruise diary,  the cabin door tradition

Day 4 – Wednesday
Wednesday started at midnight at the Under the Sea party.  This was located indoors rather than the top deck outside.  “Studio B” as it was called is the ice rink, converted to a dance floor.  Its a two story space entered from the top level, where there are bars and bleachers looking over the dance floor (ice rink).  You walk down aisles in the bleachers to reach the floor.  This provides the benefit of a great chill space, the bleachers, to sit and watch the dancers when you need to rest.

The theme brought out the best costumes so far.  Many were group costumes.  A group of men wearing red shorts, white tees and red and white striped clown fish as hats.  People covered with netting strewed with star fish and seaweed.  Board shorts that had plush stuffed sharks sewn by their mouths to the back.  I saw two separate people doing a very elaborate Neptune, with trident and body paint and glitter.  There were lobsters, and people in life vests.  I just wore a swim suit.

The party got going around 1am in full swing.  Lots of bumpers being passed around.  People were having fun.  This party, perhaps because it was in a more condensed space, seemed to have the highest eye-candy proportion so far, but thats not to say there was any lack at the others either.  I managed to find my way into prime clumps several times.  I also did my usual number of both bleacher runs to scan the crowd to see which way the hotties were clumping, and cabin trips to costume changes.  R was a man magnet all night, making new friends.

We got back from the “Under the Sea” party together around 5am.  The party itself was going strong.  I havent’ heard yet from anyone who stayed later but it may have gone until much later.  The DJ Paul Goodyear from Sydney was playing a style of dance music that was not house, not tribal, not pop, not disco, but some strain which was at once danceable but not too familiar.  Easy to listen to but not tired.  He had the crowd on its toes all night.  Even the boys in the bleachers were dancing.

Up at noon today.  I had changed the door hunk to Brady Quinn at 5am when we returned from the dance.  I had taken a sleep aid, and along with ear plugs and the ships gently rocking in the swells I had a very restful six or seven hours.  Now relaxing in the SBC lounge (Seattle’s Best Coffee – apparently Royal Caribbean couldn’t reach an agreement with Starbucks) watching the crowd, may seem to be just getting up and getting some pastries to eat with their coffee.

Today is a “sea day” all day, the weather is crazy beautiful, and most men are up topside around one of the three pools, or an upper deck, or playing at the surf-rider in the fantail.

Down on the Promenade, as deck 5 is called, we are listening to a steel drum band playing to us from a catwalk.  The promenade is an atrium space in the center of the ship that runs from deck 5 up to deck 10 and the inner cabins have views out to the atrium rather than the sea.  The promenade on deck 5 is lined with shops, salons, and eateries of the type you might find in a shopping mall, which is the unfortunate atmospshere that it brings to the ship.  Its pleasant though and the restaurants are free of course and you can sit and lounge anywhere, unlike at a mall.

Today from 4 to 6 is the Classic Dico T dance on the pool deck.  I expect some great costumes – the disco era is just the training wheels class for costume parties.  Its easy to parody well,  because the 70s were so, well, it was the 70s right?  I mean come on we had Nixon, Ford, and Carter.  We had Spiro Agnew.  We had disco Elton and most of all we had the iconic Studio 54.  We had Disco which itself burned out on its own popularity and became parodied before the decade was extinguished into the Reagan era of the 80s.

So the Classic Disco T was very enjoyable especially since the weather was nice topside.  Great costumes although no Nixon, Agnew or the like.  Hot crowd of course.

That night was the 90s Diva party and I skipped that in favor of trying to catch up on sleep, since the major cruise event, the White Party, would be tomorrow and need a lot of energy

My cruise ‘do

I got a haircut and color from Hair Ole on 18th Street for the upcoming Atlantis cruise.  Since I am not working I figured I could go all out and do the bleach-tipped fauzhawk look I have wanted to try.  I know, yesterday, but please let me have some fun while I catch up on trends.