dougiedt

Carnival tends to be the "Walmart" cruise. They have a cheaper price point and the emphasize fun -- and nothing is wrong with that. You will find gays travelling on the ships and they do have FOD at the discretion of the CD. We have found that most of the time people are so busy having fun that 1) the gays don't go to FOD; 2) the other passengers don't care too much; 3) some of these bubbas wouldn't know a gay man from the drunk straight guy at the craps table with him.

You will also find lots of "girl groups" and they always ALWAYS are loving the gay men. They are fun to hang around and always good for a few drinks.

We have made lifelong friends with straight couples on each Carnival cruise that we have been on. We tend to do the shorter Car cruises for a weekend getaway, but prefer HAL and =X= for our longer cruises.

If you are looking for a cruise with lots of GLBT folks then your best bet is to pay the $$$$ and go on the RSVP. You pay extra to be way gay. It may not be for everyone. The Transatlantic are quite the gay trips, too.

Happy sailings!

HAL has been very welcoming to us as a gay couple.

Sailed on an RSVP on Ooster so that does not count. But HAL loves RSVP and opens their ship up to them anytime. Every new HAL ship hosts an RSVP cruise within the first year -- if not the first 6 months. That's an honor for a private booking to get that early of a sailing.

We did a Eurodam sailing in 2009 and we had a group of 12 guys. Needless to say, we had some of the staff falling at our feet. An openly gay member of the entertainment staff told us that the bar and wait staff has excellent gaydar and they WANT the gay passengers -- better tips from what he said. We never had a problem on the Eurodam.

I will reiterate what others have said... HAL is an older crowd. We found other passengers tended to treat us like their grandchildren... and we are 41 and 47.

We definitely liked the GLBT vibe on Celebrity much much more. In fact we had no problem dancing together and the crew, entertainers and guests seemed just fine (though it was late and the crowd was the yung uns.) FOD meetings were better attended and better scheduled on =X= than HAL.

As for HAL being a Netherlands company -- that's in name only. HAL is based in Seattle. And that's just about as gay as Amsterdam. Well, maybe not THAT gay, but open. :-)

Doug