Couples Cruise Review for the April 25-30th on Radiance of the Seas.

Let me preface this review with the fact that while some of the comments and review may seem negative, we are booked for the November Cruise in 2012 and plan on keeping the reservation, even though we could cancel it now without penalty. If it was 'that' bad we would not be going on another one. I say this now so people who quit reading half way don't get the wrong impression.

First lets start with the good. The organization on the part of the Couples Cruise people was very good, at least from the guest stand point. Perhaps they were working behind the scenes like crazy to keep things working on their end, but on the guest end it looked smooth and polished. In fact I was surprised just how much organization and money went into it. This was a true take over, where 90% of the onboard activities were swinger/sex related. They had classes on squirting, teaching more people the joy of water sports (sorry can't resist and its true, more on that in another post), erotic massage, erectile dysfunction, bondage, and others. There were pre-arranged theme parties every night, pool parties, couples speed dating, meet and greets based on websites, etc. They also had more traditional themes (if not content) with comedy shows, movies, and that sort of thing.

Now we did not do many of these things, and you couldn't do all if you wanted to since many overlapped in time. So I can only give a bit of a review of the ones we participated in.

Our experience started out simple and cruise like enough. We got to the cruise terminal, and did what everyone would do at a swingers cruise, looked around for people we would find in our swinging strike zone physically. Now while we are a 'picky' couple, we are not exacting. We are looking for couples in reasonable shape in our age ranges. We looked around and saw neither. They say cruising is more of an elderly hobby, and apparently the fact that it is a swingers cruise didn't change that. Even though we are late 30's, we were some of the youngest people we saw while getting on board and filling out our paper work. Some of the people were quite literally one foot in the grave, and while I thought 'more power to them , some day that will be me if I'm lucky', it just wasn't what we were looking for as swing partners. After the cruise, talking to a Couples Cruise organizer he stated the average age on this cruise was six years older than the last one. Luckily, while a majority of the cruise was of an older age group, there was a substantial enough minority of 30 somethings to keep things interesting in that department. Speaking with these couples the constant complaint was the same though about the small number of 30-40 years age range couples. My fear is that because of these complaints, as word gets around fewer couples in our age range will sign up and it will cascade down. I fear this sort of thing because the experience overall was good. Where else are you going to get 1150 swinger couples together for five days?

So age ranges aside, most of the people were very fun and friendly. There were a handful of people who might be categorized as 'freaky' but only a handful and of course they were all talked about by everyone else so perhaps they got what they wanted.

On the surface you wouldn't be able to tell this from any other cruise, other than the lack of children from a distance, and up close it was a lot more chatty and friendly than an average cruise. Jokes in the elevators (and the elevators are worth mentioning later in the 'bad' section), random chatting with anyone next to you, just overall friendliness was a lot higher on this cruise than others.

Once you got below the surface things were different, the rules were rather simple, nudity only on 3 decks, hallways, and topless in the disco. The rest was suppose to be standard attire. Well this is a group of swingers, and some enjoy rather extreme exhibitionism. So 'covered' became a bit of a joke, as someone would be completely nude under a very very wide mesh dress and it would be 'covered'. Mind you these are not complaints but observations. My running joke for the trip at dinner was never has a Royal Caribbean cruise had less panties worn on formal night. Some of it passed from 'sexy' to 'slutty' to 'just really poor taste', but taste is subjective and while I might find EE implants with stretch marks, barely covered by a horizontal strip of fabric 1.5 inches wide inappropriate for dinner, I'm sure some think thats just awesome.

Surprisingly open sex was less of an issue than I thought it would be. The rule was 'no sex outside your room or the playroom' and almost everyone stuck to this. In fact the only overt sex act I saw outside of the allowed areas was a man giving another man a bj on the last night in a very dark area (was an MMF). I guess they figured they couldn't get in too much trouble it being the last night, as the Couples Cruise people were good at keeping things within the rules.

The theme parties were a lot of fun with some people really going all out with their costumes. If you go I'd really recommend bringing costumes for the themes as it was a lot more fun that way. My only complaint and one I will forward to CC's is that the parties don't need to start at 11pm (well officially 10 outside but high winds made everyone go to the disco regardless). With all the activities onboard, shore excursions you need to get up early for, and just being worn out from all the activities, being up to 3 am every night and getting up early looses its charm. There really is no reason to start the party late on a ship thats about 95% swingers. No kids to put to bed, that sort of thing. I heard this from just about every couple we talked to. Most of the time the party didn't get into full 'swing' until around 1145, but I would bet if the party started at 9, it would be going by 10.

Still, lateness issues aside, they were good parties because they were full of swingers. The down side is they were the same party every night in different dress. It wasn't any different beyond the costumes. The same bar with the same music.

This brings me to the music. It could use improvement. Its too loud by the pool for starters if you want to talk to people (you know so you can fuck them later). It was also the exact same techno style remix of popular songs played over and over. Why they had a DJ I don't know, just put in a mix tape and it would have been the same thing. The disco has basically the same type of music, and was the same for every party. Some icebreaker activities etc would have been a very nice touch.

The playroom was interesting. Basically a very large room off the bar was converted into a giant playroom with both individual beds, group beds, and a giant group bed. They also had a chocolate room which I'll get to later. Despite its size the play area was usually packed. These were mostly older swingers who just wanted to fuck, anything and everything. (Vegas Lee you would have loved it ). It really wasn't our thing but obviously for a lot of people, they really enjoyed it.

Then there was the chocolate room. When we took the early tour of the playroom on the first day of the cruise this area looked mostly the same as the rest, a little to the side. A man in front of me said 'why is this the chocolate room?' and no one knew the answer. Now Mr. Chicup here isn't a newbie, but I don't know everything about swinging and apparently I didn't know this one. It seems the chocolate room is for white women to have sex with black men. Now these were not black men who were normal passengers (and there were more than a few), but black men who were brought along to do this servicing. I'm going to assume they were officially for security, but unofficially it was 'where da white women at?'. I was unaware that this sort of thing required its own special side service on a cruise that was aimed at couples 100%. It seemed a bit out of place compared to the rest of the cruise and activities, but then again, I don't know what the market it for this sort of thing. Based on how packed the play room was, my feeling is it would have been better to just have had that part of the main playroom as beds were in very short supply and there were often open ones in 'the chocolate room'.

Let me make a brief statement on the g-spot squirting seminar. Anyone who has read posts on squirting in this form knows I believe very strongly its pee. Well in this seminar, within about a minute of simulation, despite 100 people watching and a camera shoved in front of her vagina, she managed to 'squirt' across the room, now thats a fast orgasm. A couple we met there said they saw her chugging water all morning prior to the seminar. Just take it for what you will and enjoy your water sports. As one man stated when we were talking about it 'its all in the marketing'.

So anyways, overall, the experience froum the swinging side of it was quite good. There are some changes I'd love to see for the next one, but over all I think CC did a good job with everything.