After you print your tickets and grab your passport, the next thing you need to do is pack the following six items:
It’s not the waves that are rocking the boat. This year, YOLO Cruises is bringing back its swingers trip. Since you only live once (YOLO), the reasoning goes, you should get out on the water and work up a sweat.
YOLO’s last Swingers Cruise trip was a bit controversial, but that hasn’t stopped the company from giving it another run. It’s chartered a Carnival vessel for a three-night voyage to the Bahamas, which is set to depart Miami on October 29, 2010. Once you cross into international waters, there are no rules, aside from common sense (so bring a little protection). At $399 a person, this is a great way to enjoy what YOLO’s offering: “playful, sexually themed parties, cruise activities and shore excursions.”
What’s on the itinerary? Well, there’s the “Carnal Cravings Halloween Ball, which is followed by a “naked and recuperating day” at sea. But, some of the fun is a little less structured … after all, this is a trip for swingers.
The last YOLO swingers trip, according to company president Marlene Brustle, offered “an open, erotic atmosphere,” which seems to be the goal this time around, too.
Cruise lines are notorious for unlimited food and fun, but what’s not unlimited? Drinks.
Beverages are pushed more than anything else on a cruise, and of course, the bill can add up quickly — especially after seven days of alcoholic indulgence.
One way to bypass this system is to fill some water bottles with some of your favorite spirits, throw it in your checked luggage, and there you go — potentially hundreds of dollars saved. With mixers on the ship usually being incredibly cheap, just go to the bar, order a can of tonic, and your mixed drink will cost you about 50 cents, instead of 6 bucks.
Spitsbergen is the “last stop before the North Pole,” a cold, remote landscape of snow, ice, and arctic wildlife. And you can explore it with Hurtigruten, an adventure tour company.
While some of their longer tours may be prohibitively expensive for a lot of travelers (9-day tours cost around $5000 per person). they do offer a much more affordable 6-day Polar Encounters cruise starting at just over $1300 per person, plus airfare.
Passengers on the cruise will go ashore twice per day with an experienced guide, looking for glaciers, fjords, seals, whales, walruses, and polar bears. Stops include the towns of Longyearbyen, Barentsburg and Ny-Alesund, which vary in size for two thousand to less than two dozen residents.
Hurtigruten also offers cruises around Norway, Greenland, Antartica, the Baltics, and Western Europe.
[via Camels and Chocolate]
Large and small cruise companies alike have come to realize that creating opportunities for like-minded individuals to come together on a cruise is a really good thing. Thus, the “themed cruise” was born.
The sky’s the limit when it comes to themed cruises; if you can imagine it, it probably already exists. Movie fans can dress like their favorite characters; Harley Davidson aficionados can bring their bikes; scrapbookers have cruises of their own; and golfers have a range (no pun intended) of cruises to choose from, as well.
In the world of theme cruises, the most popular seem to be music-themed cruises. And, in the classification of music, the theme cruises offered are inclusive of all genres ranging from country and western, to classical — even hard rock!
Remember: if one of your traveling group happens to love only classic rock and roll, they will be miserable on a ship full of several thousand crazy jazz aficionados. So be sure all members of your group are “on board” with the chosen theme.