Some of us dream of taking a cruise without any straight people being present. Some of us—perhaps imagining too many cliques and nonstop dance music—view all-queer cruises with skepticism, or like something we did (or wished we did) in our younger years.
Either way, unless you plan months and months in advance, it’s hard to get on one nowadays—gay cruises are having a moment and are selling out quickly.
But don’t head straight to a mainstream cruise line website just yet. Booking a cruise with an LGBTQ2S+ group can give you the best of both worlds. These cruise packages pull together groups of like-minded folks for a voyage, usually on a mainstream ship but sometimes on smaller vessels made for river cruising. So rather than destinations and ships that can be “taken over” by an LGBTQ2S+ cruise company, travellers have a larger selection of routes and ships.
At the same time, these groups, usually booked through a travel company specializing in LGBTQ2S+ travel, create a sense of community. Because the groups are usually fewer than 100 people, they’re able to target narrower demographics of LGBTQ2S+ people, based on the idea that it’s better to travel with a couple of dozen people who get you than thousands of people who you have little in common with, even if they share your sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Because, no matter the ports of call, cruises are primarily a social experience.
“The assumption is always: you know how to make friends, you know how to mingle. And yeah, I know how to do it, but I don’t like doing it. I’m not comfortable doing it. So our focus is on helping people come together and make them feel welcome right away,” says Brian Miller, the proprietor and host of the U.S.-based Daddy Cruise, which offers cruises aimed at older gay men and their admirers. He came up with the name for the company when booking a mainstream cruise for a gay “daddy” and his various boys and pups. While Miller was making the arrangements, the cruise line representative asked for the name of the group. Miller panicked and finally blurted out, “Daddy Cruise.” The daddy, his family and their friends, about 20 guys in total, seemed fun and easy-going, so Miller asked if they minded him booking other like-minded customers on the same trip. The daddy and his gang didn’t mind at all. About 20 other gay men signed up for this inaugural Daddy Cruise. “That’s where it began, I think, because he and his group were so welcoming and made everybody feel a part of it.”
Miller books his groups with mainstream providers like Princess Cruises, Carnival Cruise Line and Norwegian Cruise Line. On one hand, these companies have gotten much better at welcoming LGBTQ2S+ travellers and setting a tone of acceptance among other passengers. Inclusivity efforts that once offered a “Friends of Dorothy” welcome reception, using coded language that straight passengers might have overlooked, have been replaced by overtly LGBTQ2S+-focused programming. Some have special events during Pride month. On the other hand, unless a social butterfly or two shows up to these events, passengers often feel too awkward to bond with each other. It’s friendly, but not necessarily a real party.
Being with a hosted group means it’s somebody’s job to break the ice, make everyone feel included and take the lead with any activities. At the same time, Miller says there’s no pressure to fraternize—the group is there if you want to eat with them, or to take part in special excursions and private events, but there are no obligations. Other LGBTQ2S+ passengers on the same ship often gravitate toward the group and are welcome to join the Daddy Cruise gang for happy hour (though not other more exclusive parts of the itinerary).
Companies like Daddy Cruise usually create opportunities to make connections before the cruise, allowing their guests to get to know each other and share tips and concerns on Facebook or in Zoom meetups before they even step aboard. They’ll also help match compatible single travellers with roommates, so they don’t have to pay the single-occupancy premium (“compatible” means night owl with night owl, snorer with snorer, not top with bottom). They do one singles cruise a year. “That one is probably a little bit more focused on sex, but it also is focused on ‘I want to find a husband,’” says Miller.
U.S.-based travel company The Connected Traveler, which serves a mix of straight and LGBTQ2S+ clients, offers a range of cruises to destinations like Antarctica, Japan, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the British Isles. Some are on larger ships with thousands of people, while others are on river cruises that carry fewer than 200 passengers. The common denominator is trusting that the company will make sure there are like-minded people travelling with you.
Company CEO Sean Hornbeck and his partner, Scott, host many of their holidays. In the Connected Traveler’s list of trip offerings, the trips that have “with Bears” in the name are hosted by the duo, letting potential travellers know that there will be at least two people who are chatty and welcoming, and along with them, a critical mass of others who want to be part of the gang.
You’ll be surprised at what kinds of affinities can form. Hornbeck regularly books trips for a U.S. gay bears group. Separately, he also books cruises for a straight swingers group. At one point, he realized that if he booked both groups on the same cruises, he could negotiate better perks for all of them. “There wasn’t going to be any forced interaction, but there’d be a few occasions where, together, they could have private shows and onboard credit,” says Hornbeck. “I have to tell you that the two groups just clicked, and believe it or not, they go on cruises together about once a quarter.”
Other options
The U.S.-based company Bear Cruise organizes groups for, well, bears; the next one up is a May 2024 cruise on the 3,937-passenger Celebrity Beyond. Some companies, like U.S.-based Big Gay Cruise, lean more into the programming side. Their February 2024 cruise, on Royal Caribbean’s 4,290-capacity Explorer of the Seas, included performances by RuPaul’s Drag Race alumnae, special fitness sessions and appearances by gay porn stars.
Some gay social-media influencers, like Two Bad Tourists, host groups of fans and like-minded travellers on cruises like Virgin Voyage’s June 2024 cruise around Greece and Croatia.
The new women-focused travel company Lesmon Experience offers a variety of group travel packages, including, in May 2024, a luxury cruise in Croatia that has spots for only 30 passengers.
