When was the last time you treated yourself to a real getaway, leaving the cities and towns you know for a bit of a reset? It is certainly not easy. As prices for practically everything goes up, looking for a fun and affordable vacation is getting more difficult. If you are looking to really float your boat on the high seas, look no further than the Big Gay Cruise, the ocean-bound Pride party where anything can happen!
Founded by Michael Sharpton, one of Scorpio’s former managers, as well as his partners Thomas Ziri and Peter Enns, the Big Gay Cruise line touts itself as the ultimate experience for LGBTQ+ community members and their allies while at sea. Bringing together world-famous recording artists, stars from RuPaul’s Drag Race and renowned LGBTQ+ DJs and comedians, each night on the cruise is curated with the passengers in mind. From exclusive nightclub events and concerts to panel discussions and gatherings around themed cocktail hours, there’s something for everybody on the BGC ocean tours.
QNotes recently talked with Michael to learn how the project started, where future trips may lead, and where he’d like to see the brand travel to.
Jonny Golian: Tell me a little bit about the Big Gay Cruise.
Michael Sharpton: So, the Big Gay Cruise was originally created as a thank you for our employees coming out of COVID, and that was how we did our first one, together with our sister bar in Greensboro. And then as we developed the concept, we wanted to offer something that was affordable to our community, something that was completely inclusive for everyone, something that was family-friendly, that you could feel comfortable bringing your kids on. A cruise that certainly celebrated our community.
JG: How long has the Big Gay Cruise line been going for?
MS: We’ve had … our fifth cruise and we have six more lined up over the next two years.
JG: Do you get to go on all of the trips out, or do you more or less just plan them out?
MS: I go on a majority of them. [Between] me and the two other partners in this, someone is always on these trips.
JG: How does the planning work for each of the cruises?
MS: Along with my other two partners in the Big Gay Cruise, we manage all of the bookings, along with our line partner, Royal Caribbean, and work on the tasks of booking entertainment, along with securing the logistics of everything that needs to happen in order to get 400 to 500 people on a cruise ship. We work with the cruise lines to make sure that we have venues in place for all of our private parties. By the time of each departure, on each of our cruises, our group has access to about 40 hours of private events that are held exclusively for our groups.
It takes months of negotiations to get the entertainment in place, to get hotel rooms in place and secure group rates for all of our guests, certainly including employees and entertainers coming into whatever port we’re leaving out of.
JG: Out of the five cruises that you’ve done so far, which trek has been your favorite?
MS: You know, I always have a special place for the very first one, a lot of memories there. We put a lot of work into that, and it came off so successfully. We are extremely proud of what we were able to pull off. And then with our second one, which was our largest, we had just over 800 people on that one, so we were very pleased with that. We’ve been very fortunate to have a good working relationship with Royal Caribbean, so they have been very generous with their support of the Big Gay Cruise.
JG: What has been the biggest challenge in setting up the destinations?
MS: Well, for now, we don’t get to choose our ports. The Big Gay Cruise isn’t a charter, we are simply a large group on an existing cruise. However, eventually we would love to do a full ship charter.
We think it’s important that, as a part of the cruising community, we share the space so everyone gets to be a part of the experience. Our business plan is, beside the 40 hours or so of private events that we have, to arrange the schedule so that our group can enjoy all of the other amenities that the cruise ship offers. So typically, our schedules work around events that are happening on the ship, but allow our guests to attend both our events and also enjoy everything that Royal Caribbean or Margaritaville, which is our October ship, has to offer. So you really get the best of both worlds.
JG: Oh, okay, so the cruises end up being kind of a mixer of sorts.
MS: Absolutely. You know, we feel very strongly that being part of a larger cruise community is important, and that just being in mainstream cruising certainly helps our community.
JG: So, while you don’t at the moment get to chart the actual paths, where would you love to see future cruises go? Do you and your partners have any specific plans after the two cruises coming up?
MS: Right now, our cruises are based mostly in Florida. Some of the cruises that we have coming up will be departing out of California, which will give us different ports along the west coast. After that, we’ll do an Alaskan cruise. We will do another Transpacific cruise. We’ll do something out of Europe at some point, so you know, we have plans to certainly grow this and start our cruises out of different ports throughout the world.
We’ve also looked at an Australian cruise and a Panama Canal cruise, so there’s a lot available to us. It’s just a matter of the logistics, and we offer three big cruises a year. So how do we fit in these smaller cruises throughout? Most people do one to two cruises a year. So we certainly don’t want to saturate the market in that we hurt our main business, the three main ones that we do every year. So right now, it’s a game of numbers to make sure that we offer enough cruises throughout the year, that we maximize our audience and yet not oversaturate the market.
JG: Last question: Do you personally have a place that you would like to see the Big Gay Cruise line visit? Do you have your own wish list for future treks?MS: My wish list, and it’s certainly on my personal bucket list, is the Alaskan cruise. Never done it. So I would expect that one probably in ’27, and I’m very interested in doing a Hawaiian cruise, and then on down to Australia. So those are the few that are on my bucket list.
The next dates for the Big Gay Cruise are from Oct. 26 through Nov. 2, and Feb. 8 through the 14th. Check out their main site, BigGayCruise.com, for room prices and the details on all of the events the cruise offers.