![]() "We have gay, straight, queer friends in our real lives," said Riedling, who lives in Spokane, Washington, and Palm Springs, California. The 59-year-old had not taken an LGBTQ+ cruise since she was in her 20s. Margaret Riedling, who joined VACAYA for the March sailing with her wife, found it refreshing. The company's clientele is predominantly gay men, but 20% of the sailing's guests were women. ![]() On a March cruise that visited Panama, Colombia and more, passenger ages ranged from 21 to 91, according to co-founder and CEO Randle Roper. "We believe in balance," Gunn said. "So, we love a good party, don't get me wrong, but we also love to wake up and go into port the next day." In addition to drag shows and pool parties, the VACAYA has also held a makeup seminar geared particularly toward nonbinary and transgender passengers. The company also offers a wide range of programming. Those principles of inclusion guide what guests experience during their trip. VACAYA recently began giving out pronoun pins to help guests and staff use each other's preferred pronouns (the company also provides diversity and inclusion training to resort and cruise line partners). The company has worked with Celebrity, Ponant, Emerald Cruises and others. "If you believe love is love, then you belong on a VACAYA vacation," said Patrick Gunn, the company's co-founder and CMO. VACAYA is among those new companies catering to a diverse audience, with an emphasis on the LGBTQ+ community, as well as straight allies. The company, which also offers land-based vacations, launched its first trips in 2019. Over the past decade or so, though, the industry has made an increased effort be inclusive, and somenew cruise operators targeting a diverse clientele have entered the market.įenwick has met other gay passengers on mainstream cruises but said the experience isn't the same, "You definitely don't have the (same) freedom to be yourself on a regular cruise." 'We are the majority' The options were also more limited and siloed, with cruises aimed primarily at gay men or lesbians, he added. "You definitely see a lot of the same faces from trip to trip, and a lot of people would go on the same ones every year just to have a reunion, or sometimes we call it gay summer camp," said Fenwick, a government information technology specialist based in Arlington, Virginia. The 46-year-old enjoyed the trip so much that he made it a tradition of it, taking at least one LGBTQ+ cruise annually most years since. Jon Fenwick went on his first gay cruise in 2008 with Atlantis Events after some friends talked him into it. 'I just want to see more of us': The importance of seeing people like you while traveling In addition to chartering entire ships, IGLTA has members that host groups on nonspecialty sailings too. "You know, a port city might host a reception the night before the cruise departs, like going that extra mile to welcome the cruisers," Tanzella said. ![]() By contrast, today, cruise lines are "going after the market," and destinations court those sailings and their loyal customer base. In some cases, ships carrying LGBTQ+ passengers were turned away from ports, he added. ![]() The sailings were a tougher sell back then, though."It was probably really hard to get a cruise line to take a gay group (in the early days)," Tanzella said. where people could be together with members of their community and get away and be free from families or work, you know, be out, because the world was so different in the '80s," John Tanzella, president and CEO of the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association, said. "When it first started, it was somewhat underground and they were definitely more in the charter side of things. 'We have to be on guard a lot': Why safety comes first for so many LGBTQ travelers When did LGBTQ+ cruises start?Ĭruise operators that catered to gay and lesbian passengers began sailing in the '80s and '90s, according to a timeline from IGLTA. But in the wake of the pandemic, the couple craved a relaxing vacation. Both jumped at a chance for Moss' girlfriend to be somewhere "culturally entirely queer"because she had not had as much experience socializing in LGBTQ+ spaces.įor some LGBTQ+ travelers, gay cruises have offered a kind of haven on the seas. While early cruises catered primarily to gay men and lesbians, the market has grown in recent years, with more options aimed at a more diverse array of queer travelers. Before booking the sailing, the retired professional weightlifter said many mainstream cruises seemed more geared toward heteronormative families and they hadn't considered booking one. ![]()
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