Sun 6 Nov 2011 In: True Stories View at Wayback View at NDHA
Two Dorothies all at sea By Steve Attwood An occasional blog detailing the experiences of a “straight” cruise by couple of gay Kiwi boys aboard a cruise liner as it circumnavigates Australia, Indonesia and New Zealand – 15 October to 15 November 2011. Part four: Fabulos City Batman had his dark and broody Gotham, Superman his soaring Metropolis, Dorothy her Emerald realm. But we Queens of Means (equally fictional) live in the bright, glitzy floating city of Fabulos! Honestly, the décor aboard is so fabulously OTT you’d swear it was designed by a drag queen; albeit, one with taste! (Is that an oxymoron?) Previous blogs have mentioned the legion of gorgeous boys who tend to our every need. (Well, almost every! There are some things they do only in my imagination!) What enhances that experience is the environment within which this wonderful service occurs – transport on a fabulousness scale that only a luxury cruise liner can provide. It’s like staying in a 7-star hotel except that you wakeup somewhere different every morning. It certainly makes keeping up the illusion of being Queens of Means very easy. You can’t help but look fabulously rich in this environment! And, as we’ve pre-paid our “gratuities” that’s American PC for tips we don’t have to spoil the illusion by handing out mean amounts of vulgar cash! The dining room The epitome of this grandeur is the formal dining room, a vast space that can cater for around half of the 2100 (or so) passenger component, at one seating. It’s a restaurant on a grand scale, spread over two levels and featuring sweeping staircases, romantic balconies, huge murals and enough drapery to clothe a bevy of show queens for a year! The chandeliers are of a scale to make even the most ardent size queen blanche - though I can’t help thinking of the Poseidon Adventure and plummeting chandeliers when Shelley Winters was turned completely upside down! The Colony Club Then there’s the genteel elegance of the Colony club, our favourite on-board watering hole. One so easily slips into the role of British Raj sipping on gins and tonic, with servant boys just a raised eyebrow away. The outdoor pool The solarium Spotting talent is made easy in the tropical surroundings of the outdoor pool, but for sheer splendour and absolute OTT extravagance, it’s hard to beat the indoor pool, its roof of glass letting in the sunshine but not so much as a hint of actual weather! Kitted out in the theme “African Waterhole Opulence”, the “Solarium” transports one to another time when rich white folk did their safari experience from a camp chair, with a dry martini in one hand and a fly-switch-boy at their side. The shops For label queens, the small but perfectly formed shopping precinct offers expensive names galore at duty free prices – from alcohol to clothing to very exclusive jewelry. Paradoxically, the same shops also cater for us nouveau riche wanna’be’s (or the merely miserly) with look-good el cheapo’s in the handbags, jewelry and watches department that you can lie about to your friends by adding a fictional zero or two to the cost. (No one will ever know!) For the beauty queens there’s an impressive spa and hair salon – with equally impressive prices. And, yes, they cater for boys! The sauna looks fab – pristine, decorous, clean, well lit. (Sooo the opposite of HIS usual steamy haunts.) The casino But for sheer OTT colour extravagance you can’t go past the casino. (well, HE never seems able to) The casino detail Colour layered upon colour, layered upon glitter, layered upon glitz, layered upon glamour – it’s drag queen heaven. Even the infamously bespangled Miss Mole or the flourescent Ribena would blend right in . . . the patrons would be hard put to separate them from the décor! (Oh the indignity!) And when it all gets just too, too much, a girl can throw a stole over those carefully bared shoulders and promenade the deck to farewell the sun. (That low evening light takes years off! And those tropical sunsets – well, they’re the most fabulously OTT of them all. Surely God is a Drag Queen. (Note: The author’s views are based on his own genuine experience. He booked and paid for his cruise privately. He has received no incentive or gratuities, financial or otherwise, from the cruise company or any travel or tourism agencies.) Steve Attwood - 6th November 2011