Ship to Shore
I left San Francisco on the morning on February 25th to arrive in Fort Lauderdale. My trip started out with a blast from my past as a high school friend of mine picked me up from the airport, Kirsten Hines. She came with her friend Anya from Australia and we took a drive around town to find a palce to eat. We discovered a neat looking restaurant by sone body of water that may have been a river or something more. The atmosphere was quite neat and it was very cool to have boats pulling up alongside our table to dine. What a different lifestyle! I also got to hear about all the cool conservation work she was doing, including the implanting of iguanas at Half Moon Cay (my next destination).
On this day, I also got to meet up with my roommate to be, Daniel. What a bundle of positive energy! We met briefly in October, but did not really get a chance to get to know each other properly. I have a feeling there is a lot I can learn from him given the time and the right venue, and I was certainly excited to take this trip with him.
The four of us went to Manhattan South, the local country-western dance bar in the area and got to expose Kirsten and Anya to the event. As soon as we walked in, they were just starting the Renegade so I quickly jumped in. As always, the guys at the bar were incredibly accomodating welcomed them and took them around the dance floor. This is what I love about the gay country scene, people are so welcoming! It was also nice to be the outsider for once and still know a good portion of the crowd since the cruise we were about to go on was publicized through Sundance Saloon and a lot of us flew out a day early to play it safe.
I got to dance with John Hoffman (for the second time ever), a friend and DJ at Sundance, and it was a blast! The first time we had danced (months ago) we did not connect as well and I felt lost on the dance floor, but on this trip the two of us really had a fantastic time. At one point during the week, he noted that we were good partners and that felt great to hear. We mostly did two-steps, but on the cruise we got to really connect on the east coast swings! Overall, we had a great night and the trip was just beginning.
Getting on the ship itself was very exciting, the long line of men preparing for an adventure on the seas! We ran into Ben & Peter right away and got our photo taken on our way on to the ship. After dropping off my stuff into our room, we went up to the Lido Deck where there was a 25 hour buffet going on. The food on the ship was fantastic and the pizza was absolutely incredible. Almost every night I would go grab a pizza at 1:45am before heading down for bed! It was also great to speak to the cooking staff which was almost entirely Filipino. The room stewards and wait staff were mostly Indonesians.
Cast off was also quite a moving experience, no pun intended. We invited Ben & Peter to our balcony as soon as the ship began to move. I was so excited that Ben decided to go on this trip and it was great to share that moment with him. There were people in apartment buildings waving farewell to us. It seemed rather strange, but it was amusing. I can’t even begin to describe the exhilaration of the leaving port and heading out into the vast unknown. The four of us had our first dinner in the main dining room. It was so awesome to have all the food paid for ahead of time. I had appetizers, soups, salads, main courses, and desserts. I am not a dessert person, but it was a great opportunity to explore the world of sorbets and get a feel for it. I had mango, pineapple, and strawberry during the course of the trip, but the best sorbet I had was found off the ship…
The first night was the rockiest. I woke up at 3am to the ship swaying dramatically back and forth. Having seen all three Poseidon Adventure films, I was nervous for a while. Thankfully the meds they had at the front desk kept me from getting ill during the trip!
Monday: The Bahamas. I had plans to go kayaking out on the lagoon with my friend Ralph. Unfortunately, the excursion was cancelled, so we spent the day out on the beach instead. The day was gorgeous, the water was a clear sapphire blue, and the sands were like white powder. It was great to just sit out on the beach and chat with the passers by. Peter joined us for an outdoor barbecue which turned out to be a great change of pace. It was a wonderfully relaxing day.
I was very lucky to meet a guy named Gary since my friends had decided not to attend the Captain’s reception and formal dinner. Gary invited me to eat with his roomies Bill & Bill. We were also joined by another Bill and his roomie, Dennis. It was a great experience to get all dressed up. I wanted to hire one of the Bills as my publicist, as he was so complimentary when he introduced me to people! After dinner, I went to see Varla Jean Merman perform and she was a fantastic performer. What I found even more extraordinary was that he was so incredibly different out of drag that there was no way of even recognizing him. The costuming is what appeals to me the most about the art of drag. I met a guy named Richard who transformed himself into an incredible Liza Minelli and another guy named Hong who dressed as Brittany Spears for the talent show at the end of the cruise. Unrecognizable and brilliant!
We also had three nights of country-western dancing from Monday thru Wednesday. The last two nights were outdoors on the deck, and it was so much fun! The greatest thing was meeting other country dancers from around the country. I met Bob from Boston who I paired off with for many an east coast swing, Barry & Dan from Portland who were awesome guys that always put a smile on my face, there was Mike, Jeff, and Ross from Minneapolis, Gary from Vancouver, Jason from Chicago who turned out to be my dance partner for the talent show, and so many others.
Troy Inman from Atlanta prepared a Bootylicious dance routine for us to perform at the talent show at the end of the week. He also taught the couples dancing classes where I got to meet even more awesome people! I met Craig from D.C. who I ended up hanging with a few times during the week and a pair of couples from Fort Lauderdale, Rick (who ended up playing Liza Feminelli) & Rick and Rick (who has been working on the musical Nefertiti) & Peter. The country crowd really brought a remarkable spirit to the cruise. People commented on how we made them feel more welcome than any gay group they have ever experienced. It was also so fun to be able dance, have a big group of acquaintances to sit with for spontaneous meals on the ship and get to know better, and to have strangers come up to me all week long and compliment us on our dancing. One woman came up to me one afternoon and said she was the president of my fan club! There was just so much good feeling in the air, and I must commend Troy on his excellent teaching! He was charismatic and very skillful at breaking down technique to the point that beginning dancers were able to execute intermediate moves quite remarkably!
One afternoon, I wanted to spend some time working on the song that Peter and I were going to sing for the talent show. I was out on the pool deck with the music and John H. looked at the score and sung it right there. I had no idea he had such keen music skills. On the table next to us were two guys from the Chicago gay men’s chours, Matthew and Eric. They took interest in the music and began chatting with us. Matthew started taking the Sundance classes as well, and proved to be a quick study as a lead! Anyway, it was very nice to introduce people to Peter’s work and promote it a bit.
I had my second overwhelming moment on Tuesday afternoon as I stood outside on the observation deck with David Reardon. The incredible beauty of nature just had to be appreciated and there seemed to be no other person better to share it with than David. He seemed to have the passion for it that I have seen so rarely in others and he truly allowed me to tap into that.
Ralph, Ben, and I went to explore Key West for Mardi Gras. It was neat town, but there really was more fun to be had on the ship so most people did not last all that long over there.
Wednesday morning at 8:30 was the call for the talent show performers, which probably helped to reduce the number of acts. Peter and I were going to do a scene from his musical, it was the proposal scene followed by the song "You Are My One". When the other performers got on stage, I was blown away by their musical talent! These guys can sing and it was quite intimidating. It definitely inspired me to really do something about the parts of the song where I seemed to be tentative…
The trip was non-stop bliss for me, so I had to schedule a meeting with the RSVP entertainment director to discuss the possibility of getting the Barbary Coast Cloggers as entertainment for future cruises. I still need to send him our publicity materials before having a follow-up logistics meeting, but I would love to be able to do a show for them on the ship! Steve Yates, Ron, and I should have really done a little number for the talent show, but it did not happen. Ron & I got to do Bucket to the South informally at one of the dances.
There were tons of shows on the ship and I think the funnest ones were the interactive shows. They had a Matchmaker Game in which my friend Gary participated and a Newlywed Game. Both were absolutely hysterical and I admire the courage of the participants to get on stage to be fodder for a comedian. There were also a lot of dress up events like the Underwear Party, Daisy Dukes T-Dance, a Mardi Gras Costume party, and the Leather & Lace T-Dance (I must say that my friend Dennis looked awesome in a green harness). That would just be a whole other suitcase for me.
I must say that Daniel was an awesome roommate and I was so excited to spend time getting to know him on this trip. He is a very sweet and generous man, and quite sexy to boot. He was the talk of the town for all those reasons. Gary came down one night and the three of us just had a blast. They were both fun and supportive guys and they encouraged me to try things I never thought I would enjoy which added so much more to the trip. On Thursday, I got to go to Mexico for the first time. My second attempt at kayaking had been cancelled once again and it was too late to try and go to the Mayan ruins. The day was still quite good. I had breakfast with Hong & Dave before heading out to the city of Merida with Ralph. We had a pretty good lunch, but it took as a while to find a decent place that served local food. On our search, we ran into Ross from Minneapolis who was enjoying a mango sorbet. He raved about it and had me try a bit and it reminded me so much of home; it was so good! I had intended to return, but we took our time at lunch and almost missed the bus back to the ship.
Ralph and I had a pretty good talk about understanding relationships. He told me that it was important to know what one requires in a relationship and to be able to distinguish them from the needs that are important yet may be filled by others. There are also the superficial qualities that we may want in a partner that would be pluses though are not at all necessary, such as the ability to cook or dance. These are things for me to ponder at another time.
There was one shipboard romance that caught my eye, and I shall leave you nameless. From the moment they showed up dancing together on the deck, their chemistry shined bright as day and my friend was absolutely glowing. I saw some professional photos of them for sale on the third level that were so incredibly cute that I just had to buy it for them if they opted not to. Fortunately, I ran into them within moments and dragged them to the photos. [Scan it and send me a copy, LOL] I don’t know why they filled me with such joy, but they did.
My last two dinners were with big groups of Sundance folk and they were quite fun. On the last evening, there was a whole production with the baked Alaska and the waiters sang a tradional Indonesian song.
The trip ended with the talent show and what a wonderful way to end. Sundance did the Bootylicious number, Pasha played the piano and sang Wild as the Wind, and Dave Hayes did two songs from Avenue Q. I was nervous going up 
there to do the scene with Peter as I have not sung on such a beautiful stage in a long time (I forgot to mention the ship was gorgeous and immaculate) and the rest of the talent was quite impressive. The practice seemed to pay off and from what I could hear we sounded fantastic. We got great feedback, some people thought Peter and I were really a couple, most were amused that I could do something other than dance. The best compliment came from Casey from Dallas who said he was moved to tears and would love to fly out to SF to see a production of it. It was fantastic. I will confess that my friend Pasha was the star of the show as I heard people constantly talking about his performance as much as 24 hours later.
there to do the scene with Peter as I have not sung on such a beautiful stage in a long time (I forgot to mention the ship was gorgeous and immaculate) and the rest of the talent was quite impressive. The practice seemed to pay off and from what I could hear we sounded fantastic. We got great feedback, some people thought Peter and I were really a couple, most were amused that I could do something other than dance. The best compliment came from Casey from Dallas who said he was moved to tears and would love to fly out to SF to see a production of it. It was fantastic. I will confess that my friend Pasha was the star of the show as I heard people constantly talking about his performance as much as 24 hours later. Bottom line, the cruise was one of the great experiences of my life. The scenery was gorgeous, the experience was pampering and stress-free, there was so much fun to be had and lots of great people to meet, food and juice to my heart’s content, and it would not have been nearly as fun without the Sundance events and folk to keep me engaged. Whatever you do, do not miss out on an opportunity to go on a cruise and go with an open heart! Thanks for reading through the whole thing!
On my first day home and it felt like my apartment was rocking back and forth all day. Nobody warned me about this side-effect!
