Pictures from the Cruise!

These are some of the pictures from the cruise. We had SUCH a blast. There’s a lot that happened that I didn’t get photos of, just because I didn’t want to drag the camera everywhere. These are, for the most part, roughly chronological – but there are probably a few that will end up out of order for narrative reasons.

(edited to fix a bad link)

I was trying to get a shot that shows the scale of the boat. Unfortunately, the way the shore excursions worked out, there wasn’t really a time where I had the camera and a clear shot. This is the view out of our stateroom balcony; we were almost exactly midship, so it goes that far down to the fore and aft. The Diamond Princess is a BIG boat.

Here’s Chris on the balcony.

Inside, it’s like a huge high-class hotel. I was amazed with the number of mosaic floors, marble stairways – it’s very swank. Fourteen stories (essentially) and hundreds of feet long. There were about 2500 passengers, and almost as many crew; it’s like a little floating city.

This is Chris, all ready for the formal dinner.

And here’s the two of us. The big dining room was a linen-napkin type affair every night, but the formal dinner was particularly nice.

The first big party, was the leather party. It’s the only one we didn’t bring costumes for, which is why we’re in T-shirts and shorts for this one.

Here’s Chris with a couple we met, CJ and Allen.

We saw quite a few leather aprons, which is an option I hadn’t seen before – they’re just an apron. No jock or anything – it covers up your junk in front, but everything’s open air.

Center of the shot is Steve Hurley, also known as Titpig, a “specialty” adult performer. If you know who he is, you’ll know what he does.. otherwise, I won’t spoil your innocence.

Porn performer Roman Heart was on board, and made several special appearances. He’s got such a cute little round ass!

I think Brian looks so cute in the leather hood.

We enjoyed hanging out with Mark and Arthur.

You’ve got to love a mini disco-ball.

We met Jason, along with his friends Peter and Mike at the formal dinner – hopefully I’ll be able to get some of Mike’s photos as well.

It almost makes me think of Catwoman, somehow.

We met Mel and Mitch at dinner the first night.

Somebody brought along a portable sling. I didn’t notice it until the next to the last day – I have heard that quite a few people enjoyed watching the show.

Kinsey Sicks were HILARIOUS. They’re amazingly talented. This is Chris with Winnie and Trixie.

I bet they had to clean the filters a lot. There were a lot of hairy bears in the water.

This is the deck at the back. There were, I think, five pools plus about a dozen hot tubs on the boat.

I was fascinated with the colors of blue in the wake. The air from the engines turns it more turquoise, and the deep water is very navy.

Love the texture in these.

Our first port of call was Puerto Vallarta.

We had a really, really cool excursion in Puerto Vallarta. We should be getting pictures from it in the mail, but I didn’t take the camera with us because the excursion involved getting totally soaked to the skin. It started out with getting on a military-style all-terrain personnel transport truck, and driving into the mountains for an hour and a half. The last half hour or more was almost not a road at all; we were glad of the handles to hold on to. We got to the site, harnessed up, and rode burros up to the top of the mountain. We hiked the rest of the way up, and started zip-lining our way down. We traversed 8 zip lines, the longest about a thousand feet in length. It was SO fun. We rappelled down a ninety-foot section of rock face with a waterfall, sluiced down a river rapids on a tarp, plunged into a deep pool, belayed down two more segments of cliff… it was wonderful. The jungle isn’t quite rainforest there, but it’s very tropical, with orchids, poinsettias, bromeliads, and butterflies. I saw heliconiids, paper kites, and a bunch of others I didn’t recognize. The damselflies were particularly striking, with clear wings with yellow spots at the edges. There were golden orb weaving spiders everywhere along the road – their webs were massive, and shone yellow in the sun.

I missed getting pictures of the underwear party – I didn’t want to drag a camera around with no pockets. Suffice to say, there was a lot of flesh and not a lot of cover. I had on fitted black spandex boxer-briefs and a black silk T-shirt.

Our second port of call was Mazatlan. We took a lazy day, did some shopping, walked on the beach.

The dock is kind of industrial looking, but it gives you an idea of the scale of the ship.

Here’s Chris on the beach.

And a closer shot.

I’ve heard the expression “glistening sand” but hadn’t really experienced it before this. Most of the beach appears to be mother of pearl (seashells pounded into powder), and it sparkles like mica when the light catches it.

As we were walking along the beach, there were a couple of outfits doing parasailing. This was a lot of fun.

Here’s me, just landing.

And this is Chris – you can get a better idea of how far up you go. The views were amazing.

Chris decided that he didn’t want sunscreen. I kept offering it.

He got really, really sunburnt. His feet are still swollen and sore – they seem to have gotten the worst of it. I got a little burnt, where my shoulder bag rubbed off my sunscreen. And in case you didn’t know already – Chris is bilaterally syndactylated. It’s relatively rare.

Swimsuit competition was more campy than hot… but some of the spectators were yummy!

This is so wrong, in so many ways.

Donna Sashay, the MC, was fabulous in a red Catalina suit.

Porno boy Roman in his swimsuit.

We did a sea-kayaking and snorkeling excursion in
Cabo San Lucas; I should get photos a while later from that, if they turn out. We had waterproof cameras, and took photos of the fish as we snorkeled. The kayaking was neat, and we got to see sea lions – but the snorkeling was a little disappointing because the waves were very strong and the equipment was a little less than optimal. It was fun, though. Kayaking on the Sea of Cortez was very different than any of the peaceful lake and river boating I’ve done before.

The Thursday night party was the White Party. There were all kinds of interpretations. Chris was feeling too sunburnt and sore to go – he would have been in agony with his poor crispy feet. I went and had fun, and took a lot of photos.

This photo is almost representative of the color of things – the whole party was a black-light blue color, although with my flash, it typically looks more plain white. Unfortunately, the lighting wasn’t bright enough to get good exposure with no flash.

Brian was working the sailor-with-no-pants look. You can do that if your butt looks like his does.

The wind kept trying to take Brian’s hat away, so he walked around half the night holding it like this.

Angel wings were popular.

So was lots of bare skin. These boys seemed particularly hot.

Mark and Arthur again. What you can’t see in this photo, is that the thing sticking out of Arthur’s pants, is a stuffed sequinned silver fabric cock a little bigger than his forearm. He walked around bopping people with it, and swung it like a hooker’s handbag when he danced.

He said, “My grand-daughter calls me Glam-pa.” Isn’t that precious?

We met Larry and Jim on the rapelling excursion.

Don’s lycra singlet leaves very little to the imagination.

These guys remind me so much of Tom of Finland.

Two LiveJournallers – it was great to meet you!

Very tall Paul and his friends made me feel very welcome at the party. And slightly molested. They invited me to a party the following afternoon in their suite, but I politely declined.

These two guys made their outfits entirely out of bar napkins and related paper goods. The one hat is made of straws, with a cup-cover for the center. Very creative!

Two more hot guys, Mark and Tom.

This outfit is made entirely of light rope. It’s kind of bondage-costume.

Roman again. There was a lot of body-paint going on at this party; it looked cool with the lighting, although my flash doesn’t really do it justice.

The great big guy in the middle is Esera Tuaolo – an ex-NFL player. He seems really nice, although I didn’t talk with him much.

I love the contrast in this shot. Look closely at what is bedazzled on the guy’s chest.

Chris thought this guy was hot. He seems a little over-processed to me, but I took some shots for Chris to look at.

This is Elisa, our cabin stewardess. I could SO get used to somebody cleaning up after me twice a day, and turn-down service! With different chocolates on the pillow each time, mind you. Elisa was fun, and really enjoyed our group. This was the first gay tour for Princess Cruise Lines, and it seemed like the staff all had a good time with us.

Friday was really windy. We went up on the deck, and Chris played Superman.

I took a few shots of Chris in his robe.

I love his face in this one – sweet and sleepy, yet very studly at the same time. Chris often doesn’t photograph well, and it’s nice to get the rare shot that looks as good as he does in person.

We met several LiveJournal folks – thanks to Craig and Vance for the excellent company and the drinks!

There will likely be more photographs, as other people get in touch with their shots.

It was a great trip, so much to see and do. Chris and I are talking about how to manage another cruise, maybe year after next.