Friends of Dorothy Meetings

We never managed to make one of these on our last cruise due to time clashes but I'm interested. I have a few questions.

1. What age of people tend to go?

2. What usually happens there?

3. Is it couples or singles mainly?

4. Is it used for sexual "pick-ups"?

Thanks!

These are very hard questions to answer for several reasons. The cruise lines, the ships and the demographics are all different line to line, ship to ship and sailing to sailing. I have found the following in general:

A: I have found that all ages attend these gatherings.

B: This can depend on the line and even the cruise director for a certain ship. You can read different Cruise Critic post on this topic, however I have found on RCCL and Celebrity that they are more of a casual happy hour type environment, but have heard that there are activities hosted by cruise staff on other lines.

C:Singles and couples. Sometimes they are singles traveling with family and needing a little bit of gay time to long time couples looking to meet more like minded folks. I have also met guys who are not out, but want to meet other as well.

D: Yes and No, this just kind of depends on the people who are on board. I have seen ship obard romances develop and have been asked to well..... you get the idea.

If you are looking to meet a lot of gays on a cruise I would look for different gay groups such as Pied Piper or Al and Chuck Travel. Then there are always the gay charters, Atlantis and RSVP....

Hope this helps!!

Not at all looking for gay cruises or anything.

I'm the kinda "gay" that believes if we want equality, we need to stop having "Gay Exclusive" things, as that's the opposite of equality! :P

I just like the idea of meeting other gay guys on our cruise that may be fun to chat to.

Last cruise we were on, the photographers thought me and my partner were brothers! That made us laugh!

I have also had that happen in the past as well!!!

andother thing to remember is that some line advertise their FOD meetings in their daily and most do not. You have to go to the front desk where these "special" meetings are posted. If there is not one posted you can usually post your own...............Also they are not always scheduled at convienient times..........

I'm a Carnival sailor! :)

Love them!

Doing the Inaugural next year on the Breeze.

Very cool, I have sailed on Carnival several times in the past and absolutely loved them!!

Currently we are on a Celebrity kick, they are awesome as well!

Any experience of hand holding/other intimacies on "straight" cruises?

Any experience of hand holding/other intimacies on "straight" cruises?

I'm the kinda "gay" that believes if we want equality, we need to stop having "Gay Exclusive" things, as that's the opposite of equality! :P

No it's not. It's the opposite of assimilation.

Have a great cruise.

Any experience of hand holding/other intimacies on "straight" cruises?

Nah....we don't do that in public on a reg cruise...only on the all gay charters, which is why they are so amazing!

I tend to walk round in public holding hands with my partner and stuff, its surprising how nobody really cares anymore. :)

Last cruise we were on, the photographers thought me and my partner were brothers! That made us laugh!

Did you set them straight?

Our general experience is that they do tend to skew to a crowd older than us.

And they have run the gamut of extremely pleasant little get togethers to creepy experiences........

Any experience of hand holding/other intimacies on "straight" cruises?

Absolutely. We don't stop ourselves from doing whatever straight couples do. Here's a picture of us this month on the Island Princess, slow-dancing during a musical interlude at formal night dinner. Our straight tablemates - one of whom insisted on taking the picture - loved it. Nobody seemed to mind...and if they did, I simply don't care.

Did you set them straight?

Of course!

I ain't ashamed of being me :)

We're both 25 years old and students and find a lot of people assume we're brothers with our parents or something lol

When I was on the Caribbean Princess (with my mother) in 2006 (I think...), the crew were very gay-friendly and very gay! I spent a fair amount of time with the crew and a few other gay people in the lounge(s) at night.

Having been on 6-7 cruises, it seems you will have all manner of gay people on a cruise. Like any other event, each cruise will have a whole new set of people. You can never predict whether or not an FOD or whatever you want to call the meetings, will attract decent people or creeps or like-minded people who just want to meet a few other people to socialize with and possibly hang out with during the cruise.

My partner and our boy/girl twins who will be 3 in July, will be on Allure of the Seas on November 13, along with good friends (also gay) who have three girls, two of whom are 3 and one who is 5. I still hope to go to a meeting or two to meet some nice gay people who might happen to also be on the ship at the same time.

We'll see how it all turns out. :)

Is it easier to adopt over there?

I want a child one day.

You can get married here. It's probably easier to adopt if you're living here. :)

We never managed to make one of these on our last cruise due to time clashes but I'm interested. I have a few questions.

 

1. What age of people tend to go?

2. What usually happens there?

3. Is it couples or singles mainly?

4. Is it used for sexual "pick-ups"?

 

Thanks!

a buddy and I went on a cruise last June ... Carnival Glory out of NYC. Our First cruise. We had already pre-arranged to meet 3 people using the roll calls on here. We met up the first afternoon ... hit it off ... then went to the Friends of Dorothy meeting that night. We met a few other people the first night, and all hit it off. The second night we were joined by others. Various ages (I think I was the oldest there at 50). The gathering was held at the Martini Bar, which is a bar along a hall way, so not a closed area. We had other people join us - "as the husbands were spending so much time in the casino, and you guys seem to be having a great time."

By the last night there were about 20 hanging out together ... mostly gay guys, plus the lovely ladies - and it was a blast. 3 of us have already booked another cruise together this September. 3 other guys tried to get the time off to join us, but could not. The ladies are trying to join us also. We have all kept in touch via facebook. It was a great social gathering, and I am glad I went.

Patrick

We never managed to make one of these on our last cruise due to time clashes but I'm interested. I have a few questions.

 

1. What age of people tend to go?

2. What usually happens there?

3. Is it couples or singles mainly?

4. Is it used for sexual "pick-ups"?

 

Thanks!

I was just on a 7-night repositioning cruise up the Pacific coast on the Norwegian Pearl, and Julie our Cruise Director (no kidding!) listed a Friends of Dorothy (LGBT) Gathering in the Freestyle Daily every day of the cruise. Up to 24 of us got together at any one time. The first events were in Star Bar, which is quiet and out of the way. When Julie moved the string quartet to Star Bar, she moved us to the Bliss Ultra Lounge, and sweetened the deal with free bowling. It was a mixed group, mostly male, probably 30s to 60s, and folks just hung out and talked or shared a drink. It seemed like most folks were traveling in pairs or groups, but I took my mom on a birthday cruise, so I was going to the events solo. Everyone was super friendly. And when we asked Julie if we could go back to Star Bar, even with the string quartet, she obliged. I found the evenings to be just nice, relaxed get-togethers. I'm sure people do hook up, but it wasn't an overt priority.

From our experiences with Princess, the gatherings are usually attended by seniors, mostly retired couples but in many cases alone due the loss of their partners. Young people do show up once or twice but then are not seen again. Regardless of where they put us or want to put us we usually congregate at a locale of our own choosing and definitely a bar. There is an element of camp in the groups with clever repartee, which is enjoyable. We have noted liaisons can and do occur.

The other segment of gay life aboard is the crew. When one is out and known to one gay staff member, the likelihood is that there will be others who will make contact with pleasantries. Get to know them real well and your food presentation can be as hilarious as "Your soup Madame..." It is loads of fun for us and I'm sure for them also, for what a confined lifestyle they have.

We've only been on one cruise - QM2 Transatlantic crossing - and the FOD meetings were advertised in the daily ship program.

1. What age of people tend to go?

On our cruise there was only a set of brothers in our age group (mid thirties) with everyone else being mid forties and older.

2. What usually happens there?

Conversation and drinks.

3. Is it couples or singles mainly?

Nearly all couples.

4. Is it used for sexual "pick-ups"?

Could have been, we weren't aware of any. Certainly nobody tried to pick us up.:o

Cunard's FOD meetings are held in the Commodore Club which overlooks the bow. It's a great location provided the waves aren't rough (we were a trifle sea-sick the first couple of days).

The only disappointment we had about the FOD meetings had nothing to do with the meetings themselves. It was more that everyone had already bonded and struck up a friendship by the time we boarded. Our Westbound Transatlantic was the last leg of a Mediterranean Cruise from New York two weeks prior. The meetings were nice but we felt a little on the outer so didn't go more than a couple of times. I think these kind of meetings are more enjoyable if you board at the same time as everyone else.

Below is a pic of the Commodore Club.

Hi, Have been on a number of cruises, all mainstream so I cannot talk to Atlantis or RSVP, but our latest was a transatlantic aboard Celebrity. The LGBT meeting is posted down with all the other group meetings (AA, CruCon, Quilters, etc) while our Princess cruises have had it posted in the daily newspaper. On our last cruise, there were all ages and folks from all around the world and everyone got along famously. They were mostly couples but i have been on cruises with gay single friends(not partners or boyfriends) traveling together and we had a single gay friend traveling with us as well. Gay members of the crew joined us for cocktails after dinner. We even had an 11PM gay dance party in one of the discos.

On Princess, notably on the Baltic cruise, we met many friends, gay and straight, and we all ate together and even did the ports together.

I have heard talk of hookups occurring but that wasn't the focus of the cocktail times.

Have a great cruise

A comment should be made as to times when there were no Friends Of Dorothy get-togethers aboard. On our trip to China we felt, probably incorrectly, that we were the only gays aboard. We toured with a group of straight couples some of which understood our relationship other who would today still not understand. One evening in Beijing my partner and I finally found a gay bar we were told of and which had a unique drag show. The next day we wanted to tell our travel companions of our good fortune but we were shunned and they did not want to hear or understand the significance of this world wide culture. This memory was just brought back by the comment above made by shepp regarding assimilation. We count our blessings that there are these gay get-togethers today.