Big Gay Cruise

The Big Gay Cruise. Big because it spans 17 days from the end of August until mid-September this year. Gay because we've booked ourselves on Atlantis Events Gay Cruise line, and cruise because we're going to be on a Royal Caribbean ship with 2000 other homos. Big Gay Cruise. Pretty self explanatory.

Jeff's turning 40 this fall and we've been planning on doing something big for several years though we weren't sure what, exactly. He's always mentioned wanting to go to Greece and over the years, several people have mentioned putting a trip together out of southern Spain and heading towards Greece. Then, after taking several cruises and finding that cruising totally fits our lifestyle, we started hunting Mediterranean cruises that fit us. Someone suggested taking a gay cruise which initially we ruled out because has anyone seen the brochures for those cruises? Abs! Abs! Abs! And then some Pecs! Who needs that kind of pressure? But more people discounted the brochures as nothing more than gay marketing and assured us that gay cruises are fun and fantastic from start to finish. We started hunting around and found two possible cruises for us on Atlantis Events: The Spain, Italy, and Greece cruise or the Greece, Turkey, Venice cruise. What to do? How do we decide?

We didn't have to decide on one or the other. In a rare flash of inspiration and folly, I suggested to Jeff about putting the two cruises together in one, fantastic, mega trip since the two cruises sail back to back and the first ends where second begins. What could be more amazing? The idea was quickly crushed though because of work responsibilities and other assorted details and my heart was broken. I could just see how amazing this trip could have been but Jeff had ruled it out and so, moping, I resumed my search for something practical and within our time constraints.

But the seed had been planted and in a few weeks, Jeff and managed to rearrange his schedule and get the necessary time off and the trip was ON! We booked it in January and immediately started going to the gym with lofty goals of many pounds to lose, abs to find, and pecs to build. And now the research begins for all the stops: Barcelona, Valencia, Ibiza, Florence, Rome, Santorini, Athens, Mykonos, Rhodes, Kusadasi, Istanbul, Corfu, Split, and Venice in 17 days on a big ship with 2000 raging homosexuals. Woohoo!