Cruise, Day One

Got on board relatively smoothly. I found my roommate Alberto in line, it was so nice to see him, we haven’t seen each other in forever.  His new friends he came with are super nice, Jorge and Lewis and Bruce.  They seem to know everyone on board and lots of hugs and kisses and hellos. It was a lot of fun to meet them and hang out.

The ship, Carnival Splendor, is really decorated badly.  It’s incredibly tacky.

We went to the dining room for dinner, the food is actually amazing, better than Royal Caribbean, which I wasn’t expecting.  Our waiter was a handsome 23 year old from some formerly Communist Eastern Block country that we ate alive.  Five single gay men sitting around shooting the shit, we asked for his room number, took photos with him, asked him for his nuts for desert, stuff like that.  I think his not speaking that good English helped him, but he was a great sport and invited us to come back again tomorrow, which I must.  Melosh?  Something like that. Milos, pronounced Milosh.

After dinner went to The Dame Edna Experience starring Johnathan Hellyer.  He was amazing, singing You Don’t Bring Me Flowers and impersonating both Babs and Neil Diamond flawlessly.  He was funny enough but the show went to new levels when he added personal touches and talked about his life and struggles.  Three standing ovations during the show itself, an amazing performance. During the show I was thinking how great it is to have all this quality gay entertainment and I occasionally found my mind wandering to somewhere else or what we were going to do next and I forced myself to stop and live in the moment.  A great time. I really liked as he was building up to the crescendo in Heart’s “Alone” he says “Let’s rock this fucker.”  Liked that.

Our cabin is nice, apparently we got an upgrade from the bunk beds we were supposed to have.  It’s still too hot in here but I imagine Alberto will be appreciative, being from a hot climate.

Our door:

 

After dinner we went to see Jackie Beat, it was okay, the room was too crowded.  We stopped off to see a new singer, Nate Bucciere, and I loved him to death.  Super high energy, funny quips, good songs.  The two friends I was with wanted to go see Matt Yee and I reluctantly left. I said if he did the joke with Downtown and the Na Na’s I was out of there, and soon after we got in, he did.  Always the same show! So we left.

We went to look at the party.  I was standing there watching the people dance and briefly thought about why I wasn’t dancing with my shirt off.  Then unlike other times when I would have stayed and ruminated, I thought screw this.  I went and got a hamburger and off to bed.  Tomorrow is Project Runway and gay comedy showcase.