What Are They Thinking ?

[reli]

Without tempting violation of TOS and having this thread deleted, a certain company/organization?? is marketing a 4 day cruise in conjunction with, and prior to, what has become an annual event in the Orlando area in the begining of June that was started when the gay community organized a weekend at a well known theme park and all wore red shirts and now has become quite a large event with multiple venues throughout the Orlando area.

The cruise is on Carnival, not a full charter, leaving from MIA, the ports are Grand Cayman and Jamaica. It is incredulous to me beyond words that this cruise would be offered to the community having been to Jamaica and Grand Cayman before I knew better and the experiences of others that I have read and heard about. If interested in looking this up I offer the following: www. (use the name of the orlando event).com. I apologize for being cryptic but being a fairly new member to CC I'm still not clear how much I can say vis a vis naming names/events etc...I'll save that for another post. I think this info is too important to the community for the thread to be deleted.

[Cruisin' Ron VA]

Yea you can say Disney. You just cant name specific travel agents and companys, though some of us do it quite often with hit and miss consequence. :rolleyes:

 

Anywho, I agree that Jamaica is a poor choice.

 

And since they are trying to tie this in with gay days at Disney theme parks why not use Disney ships instead of Carnival?

 

Wouldnt that be a hoot?

 

Also in case you missed it, Disney is now offering the wedding pacakges at their parks and cruiseline for gay people too.

[sonnykub]

It's because GayDay(s) in Orlando make a point of ensuring they are NOT affiliated with Walt Disney World or the Walt Disney World Company in any way.

 

I've been going to GayDay for over 10 years, and it's gotten extremely commercial in the past 5. Everything from tours, to circuit parties, basically moving away from the "Family Day" at the theme parks (particularly, Saturday at the Magic Kingdom on the First Saturday in June) and turning it into One Big Mess.

 

It might be one travel agent that's doing a group cruise, but I can tell you, there's no "official" GayDay cruise, and that the group in question is simply out to make a large amount of cash, without much regard for the community. I don't see any indication that money this glorified travel agent makes is given back to the community...and there's a whole lot of sponsors that help boost their income even more. While I know it costs a lot of money for such a production, believe me, these people aren't in the poor house!

 

It would make sense, if their target audience for the "group cruise" is people already living or visiting the Orlando area to select Port Canaveral or possibly even Tampa. However, one has to wonder if this is their target audience, or simply just easier for them?

 

It's like a known group that has done cruises after a Bear event in Orlando each October. Not very good to have your cruise start in Fort Lauderdale if you're expecting people to skip most of the Sunday events to travel 3+ hours to FTL. If it's on separate weeks, well, then there's no conflict!

 

-Steve

[SakeDad]

Hopefully the GLBT community that cruises is educated enough to know the BAD history Jamaica has and will stay FAR away from any trips there.

[derf5585]

Jamaica is an adamantly homophobic nation. Homosexual intercourse between men is illegal, and antigay hysteria is a staple of musical lyrics. Homosexuality is a subject that evokes extreme reactions among Jamaicans, and it is difficult to hold a serious discussion on the topic.

from

http://www.all-jamaica.com/jamaica/gay.html

 

Gay rights in Jamaica

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Jamaica

[skf]

[http://www.all-jamaica.com/jamaica/gay.html

 

Gay rights in Jamaica

from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Jamaica

I'M NEW HERE & I GIVE UP!!! 10,000+ WHAT? CLUB. THANX, STEVE

[friend of Eeyore]

I'M NEW HERE & I GIVE UP!!! 10,000+ WHAT? CLUB. THANX, STEVE

The 10,000+ Club people have made 10,000+ posts on CruiseCritic. I'm a "Cool Cruiser", as are you, because we've made less than 3,000 (?) posts.

[kalypso333]

The site is gaydays, go to the travel tab.

 

I was just curious to check it out - no other comment.

[NEW 2 CRUISIN]

Sounds like just another money grab to me.

The real responsibility lies within our community to stop supporting vendors like this.

I'm happy to let them know with my wallet that I despise their target marketing and will be taking my cruise dollars somewhere else, where they can at least understand which ports of call I can be safe in!

[mdguy99]

I've never done gay days but when I saw this cruise advertised on the website it made me doubt the entire event. Then I realized there were two websites (on pural, one not.) Still, who the heck would market a cruise to jamica and grand cayman to the community? It's one on the more insane things I've seen in a while.