What to Pack for a Gay Cruise

I want to begin with the suitcase.

Not what goes in it. The suitcase itself. Because the suitcase is the first decision and the first decision sets the conditions for every decision that follows, and I have watched enough gay men arrive at cruise embarkation with the wrong luggage situation to know that the suitcase conversation cannot be skipped in favor of getting to the fun part.

The fun part is coming. The suitcase comes first.

I have made every suitcase mistake available. I have arrived at embarkation with a bag so large that the porters looked at each other in a way that communicated something they were too professional to say. I have arrived with a bag so optimistically small that I spent the first night of a seven-day cruise hand-washing things in a bathroom sink that was designed for neither the scale of the task nor the dignity of the person performing it. I have arrived with a hard-shell case that developed a crack on day two and spent the rest of the cruise making a sound on the cabin floor that my cabin neighbor communicated his feelings about via a note slipped under the door on day three.

I have learned from all of this. The learning is what you are getting.

Here is what the suitcase situation should be for a gay cruise of between seven and twelve days, which covers the majority of the cruise itineraries that my clients book and that I personally take:

One checked bag. A spinner, not a two-wheeled bag, because the cabin floor is a rolling terrain of carpet and threshold strips and the four-wheeled spinner is the only format that does not produce the hand-cramp of dragging a resistant suitcase through a ship corridor at midnight. Medium-large in size — not the maximum available, because the maximum available is for people who have not yet understood that a ship cabin is not a Manhattan apartment and the under-bed storage is finite and the closet is a suggestion rather than an architectural commitment. Twenty-six to twenty-nine inches. This is the size.

One carry-on. Hard-sided, fitting the overhead bin of whatever airline is getting you to the embarkation port, containing the things that cannot go in the hold: your skincare (obviously and without negotiation), your medications, your electronics, the outfit you need for the first night if your checked bag is delayed, and whatever you will be doing during the flight or the embarkation day that requires something from a bag.

One personal item. A tote or a backpack that serves the ship during the day — the thing you take to the pool deck, the thing you take ashore on port days, the thing that carries the sunscreen and the book and the water bottle and the ship card and the camera and the accumulated small items of a person in active vacation mode. This bag lives on the ship rather than in the cabin, which means it is the bag you see most and the bag that should be, if you care about such things, the bag you would not mind being in a photograph.

Three bags. This is the configuration. Everything else is a deviation from the configuration that has consequences.

The consequences of overpacking: a cabin that feels like a storage unit, a closet that cannot close, the specific anxiety of having brought too much and therefore needing to make decisions about what to wear each day that the abundance of options makes more difficult rather than less. Also: the fee when your checked bag exceeds the airline's weight limit, which on a cruise trip with a full wardrobe is a real risk and a real cost.

The consequences of underpacking: the hand-washing situation. The shopping on the ship, which is expensive and limited and produces the specific frustration of needing something specific and finding only the cruise line's branded version of it. The daily experience of wearing what you have rather than what you want, which on a seven-day gay cruise with an audience is a different kind of frustration than the same experience at home.

Three bags. Twenty-six to twenty-nine inches. Spinner. Now let's talk about what goes in it.

The Framework: How to Think About Packing for a Gay Cruise Before You Pack Anything

Before I give you the list — and the list is coming, comprehensive and organized and drawn from years of refinement — I want to give you the framework for understanding what a gay cruise wardrobe actually needs to accomplish, because the framework prevents the mistakes that the list alone cannot prevent.

A gay cruise wardrobe needs to cover more distinct dress codes in a shorter period of time than almost any other travel context. Think about what seven days on a gay cruise actually contains:

Pool deck days. Multiple, because the pool deck is the social heart of the cruise and where you will spend the majority of your daylight hours. The pool deck wardrobe is the swimwear wardrobe, and the swimwear wardrobe on a gay cruise is not the swimwear wardrobe of any other context you have ever dressed for.

Port days. Typically four to six over a seven-day cruise. The port day wardrobe needs to cover everything from beach excursions to cultural sites to walking tours to the kind of lunch that deserves better than a wet swimsuit. The port day wardrobe is the most variable and the most often underpacked.

Dinner. Every night. The cruise has restaurants at every level of formality, from the casual buffet to the specialty restaurant that requires something approaching grown-up clothing, and the dinner wardrobe needs to cover the range.

The themed nights. This is specific to gay cruises and it is, frankly, the logistical challenge that distinguishes gay cruise packing from all other forms of packing. The themed nights — White Party, Black Party, Underwear Night, Foam Party, Glow Party, Fantasy Night, whatever the specific cruise has put on its event calendar — require costumes and outfits that exist in no other travel context and that occupy real estate in your suitcase whether you engage with them fully or partially or only to the degree that your comfort level permits.

The bars and the shows. The evening programming outside the themed nights — the shows, the comedy, the bars that stay open until hours the ship does not announce loudly in its promotional materials — require an evening wardrobe that is more casual than dinner and more intentional than the pool deck.

The daytime around the ship. The hours on the ship that are not the pool deck — the gym, the spa, the specialty coffee bar, the places you wander through in the first hour after waking up before you have committed to the day — require the in-between wardrobe that is comfortable enough to not be a decision and presentable enough to not be embarrassing.

Seven days. Six dress code categories. One twenty-eight-inch suitcase.

This is the constraint. Working within it is the skill. Here is how.

Part One: The Swimwear Situation

I want to spend real time here because this is the category that receives the most attention in the gay cruise packing conversation and the most consistently poor advice in the generic packing guides that were not written by or for gay men.

The generic packing guide tells you to bring two or three swimsuits and rotate them. This advice assumes a pool deck that is not a gay cruise pool deck, which is an assumption that I want to correct immediately.

The gay cruise pool deck is a context that operates by different social physics than any other swimwear context. The pool deck of a gay cruise is a space where swimwear functions simultaneously as clothing, as self-expression, as social signaling, and as aesthetic statement, and the investment in it reflects all of those functions simultaneously.

You are going to be on the pool deck for multiple hours per day for multiple days. You are going to be seen by the same people, repeatedly, because a cruise ship is a closed social environment where the same two thousand people orbit each other continuously for seven days and there is no rotation of the audience. You are going to be photographed, because the pool deck of a gay cruise produces more photographs per square foot than anywhere outside a red carpet, and photographs are permanent in ways that the moment itself is not.

How Many Swimsuits

The number is seven to ten. I know. I know that sounds like a lot. It is the correct number for a seven-day cruise and I am going to explain the math.

You need one swimsuit per day, minimum, because wearing the same swimsuit two days in a row on a gay cruise pool deck is noticed in the way that wearing the same outfit two days in a row at a social event is noticed — it is not a crime, it is not actually important, and it is noticed.

You want the option of two per day on the days where the pool deck transitions into an evening pool party, because the swimsuit you wear during the afternoon is not always the swimsuit you want to wear when the music changes and the lights come on and the pool deck becomes a different kind of event.

You need swimsuits that cover the range of the pool deck's varying social temperatures — the casual morning swim, the midday social peak, the late afternoon when the session has been going for several hours and the energy is at its highest.

Ten swimsuits for seven days. Sounds like a lot. Takes up approximately the space of two folded sweaters. Worth every cubic inch of suitcase real estate.

What Kind of Swimsuits

This is the question that requires the most honest answer, which is: the kind that you feel best in, not the kind that the pool deck standard appears to require.

I want to say something about this that I feel strongly about and that I think the packing conversation often skips in favor of the aspirational version.

The gay cruise pool deck has an aesthetic standard that is real and visible and that some men find motivating and some men find anxiety-producing and some men find both simultaneously, which is the most common experience and the most underreported one. The standard is the standard of the specific subset of gay culture that the cruise tends to attract, and it is a specific standard, and you know what it looks like without me describing it.

Here is what I want to say about that standard: it is present on the pool deck and it is not the pool deck. The pool deck also contains bodies and swimsuit choices and relationships with appearance that do not conform to the standard, and those bodies are also present and also having a good time and also photographed and also doing the thing that the pool deck is for. The standard is real and it is not totalizing, and the best swimwear choice is the choice in which you are most comfortable and most yourself, because the pool deck rewards presence and confidence more than it rewards conformity, and the man who is fully, comfortably himself in what he is wearing is always more interesting to be around than the man who is wearing the correct thing and feeling anxious about it.

Bring what makes you feel good. Bring variety. Bring the one that is slightly more than your comfort zone because that is what vacations are for. And bring at least two that are completely comfortable because sometimes the comfort is what you need.

The Coverup

The coverup is not optional. The coverup is the piece that takes you from the pool deck to the buffet, from the sun lounger to the bar, from the swim to the shore excursion that departs from the ship and involves a bus and possibly a historic site and definitely other humans who are not on your cruise.

Bring three. One linen shirt that is light enough to wear as actual clothing in the heat and that you can button fully if the context requires it. One pair of shorts that are not swim shorts — actual shorts, with a proper waistband and pockets, that can be worn over a swimsuit without reading as a person who has not dressed. One sarong or pareo that is the most versatile piece in the bag and that can be a skirt, a wrap, a beach blanket, a privacy screen, or whatever the moment requires.

The coverup is what keeps you from being half-naked in contexts that do not want you half-naked. The ship has many such contexts. Have the coverup.

Part Two: The Themed Night Situation

This is where packing for a gay cruise departs completely from all other packing guides and where the real decisions happen and where the suitcase either works or doesn't.

Themed nights on a gay cruise are not optional in the participatory sense. You are not required to go. You are going to go. You are going to go because the themed nights are where the cruise becomes the cruise rather than a very nice floating hotel, and the energy that the community generates at a themed event at sea is one of the specific pleasures of gay cruise culture that cannot be replicated on land, and you will not want to be the person watching it from the periphery in their regular clothes.

So: you are going. The question is what you are wearing.

The themed nights for most gay cruises follow a pattern that has become relatively standardized over the years, with variations by cruise line and itinerary. The standard themes are:

White Party. The White Party is the non-negotiable. Every gay cruise has it. It is the event that the cruise is built around, the night that the photographs are from, the experience that people are referring to when they tell you about the cruise afterward. You need a white outfit that is intentional. Not a white t-shirt and white jeans, though white t-shirts and white jeans can be assembled into a look if assembled thoughtfully. A white outfit that communicates that you understood the assignment and showed up for it.

What the white outfit should be: something that photographs well under UV light, which is the light the White Party uses and which makes optical brighteners in fabric glow with an intensity that ranges from beautiful to alarming. Something that is comfortable to dance in for several hours, because the White Party does not end at a reasonable hour. Something that expresses your personality in the white register, which is a narrower palette than you usually work with and that therefore rewards thought.

Bring a backup white option. The White Party is the most photographed night of the cruise and the night where you are most likely to spill something white-party-appropriate on yourself, and the backup is the difference between recovering gracefully and not recovering gracefully.

Black Party. Most cruises have one. The mirror of the White Party in terms of significance and in terms of what it asks of your wardrobe. The black wardrobe has the advantage of being easier to assemble from existing clothing but the disadvantage of being a night where everyone is in black and the differentiation comes entirely from cut and styling and the specific choices that make one all-black look different from another.

Underwear Night / Jockstrap Night / Fetish Night. These exist on most gay cruises in some form and they exist because the gay cruise is a context that allows the fuller expression of gay community and culture, including the parts of gay community and culture that are not present in the mainstream. You do not have to participate. Most people participate at least partially. Pack accordingly, which means: bring the thing that represents how far you are comfortable going and then perhaps the thing that represents slightly further, and decide on the night based on the energy of the cruise and the energy you have arrived at by day four.

Glow Party / Neon Night. The one that requires the neon item. Every cruise has this. The neon item can be sourced from a costume shop before departure for approximately fifteen dollars and takes up the space of a folded t-shirt. Do not be the person who did not bring a neon item on neon night.

Fantasy Night / Costume Night. The night where the range of participation is greatest and the outcomes are most varied and the most memorable photographs of the entire cruise are taken. Some people bring elaborate costumes that they have been planning since they booked the cruise. Some people assemble something from pieces of existing clothing and call it a theme. Both approaches are valid. The approach of doing nothing is less valid because Fantasy Night with a committed crowd is one of the more joyful experiences the cruise produces and participating in it, even minimally, is participating in that joy.

The Themed Night Packing Strategy

The themed nights will take up approximately one-third of your suitcase if you let them. This is the correct allocation and should not be reduced in favor of more regular clothing, because the regular clothing is easy to pack and the themed nights are the reason for the cruise.

Pack the themed nights first. Lay them out flat in the suitcase as the foundation layer. Everything else goes around them and on top of them. This is not the standard packing advice. It is the gay cruise packing advice, and the distinction is that the standard packing advice was not written for a context where the sequined white bodysuit is a logistical necessity rather than a whimsical addition.

Compression bags for the bulkier pieces. Not for the pieces that will wrinkle — compression creates the wrinkles that the stateroom steamer will need to address — but for the pieces that take up space without being crushable. The feather boa. The costume that is voluminous but not delicate. The thing you are bringing because the theme demanded it.

Steam everything on arrival. The ship has steamers available. Use them. Your themed night outfit has been in a suitcase for however long the journey to embarkation took and it looks like it. Steam it on the day of the event and it looks like it just left the costume shop.

Part Three: The Dinner Wardrobe

The dinner wardrobe for a gay cruise is the wardrobe that requires the most judgment call, because the cruise's dinner dress codes range from the very casual to the genuinely formal and the ship's expectations on any given night are communicated in advance but not always with the specificity that a person trying to pack seven dinner outfits in a finite suitcase requires.

Here is the framework:

Two or three elevated-casual outfits. The dinner look that works for the main dining room on a regular night — the look that says you understood that this is dinner rather than the pool deck without requiring the full investment of a formal outfit. Fitted trousers and a good shirt. Well-cut shorts with a blazer if the ship's culture is casual enough to support it. The outfit that you could wear to a good restaurant on land and feel appropriately dressed.

One or two genuinely nice outfits. For the specialty restaurants that require them and for the formal nights that most cruise itineraries include. A blazer that coordinates with multiple bottom options. Trousers that are not jeans. The shirt that is the best shirt. This is not the situation for the Mykonos beach shirts, which are excellent in their context and are not this context.

The crossover pieces. The pieces that work for dinner and also for the evening bar scene and also, with adjustment, for the shore excursion that requires more than pool attire. The linen trousers. The versatile short-sleeve button-down that moves from dinner to the pool bar. The sandal that does both the promenade deck and the casual dinner.

The Color Strategy

Here is the packing strategy that took me years to develop and that I am giving you directly rather than making you develop it yourself:

Build the dinner wardrobe around a single dominant color, ideally one that coordinates with both the white and black themed night palettes.

Navy. Always navy. Navy coordinates with white. Navy coordinates with black. Navy photographs well in ship lighting. Navy works with the gold and the bronze that the Caribbean produces in your skin. Navy can be dressed up with a blazer and dressed down with sandals and it is always, in every configuration, the right choice for dinner on a ship.

Bring two navy pieces, one or two white pieces that are not the White Party white, one black piece that is not the Black Party black, and one statement piece in whatever color you are and the rest of the wardrobe coordinates around the statement.

This is not a fashion limitation. It is a suitcase solution. The coordination within a limited palette means that every bottom works with every top and the packing math becomes addition rather than permutation.

Part Four: The Port Day Wardrobe

The port day is where most gay cruise packing guides fail, because they treat the port day as a beach day plus some walking, which undersells what the port day actually requires.

The port day on a Caribbean or Mediterranean cruise is potentially: a beach excursion. A historical site visit. A walk through a market. A lunch at a restaurant that deserves an outfit. A boat excursion. A walking tour in a city that is hot and requires both comfort and coverage. A shopping experience. A cultural experience. The unexpected thing that presents itself in port that you could not have planned for because it was not on the excursion list.

The port day wardrobe needs to cover all of this in a single day with a single outfit, which means the port day outfit is the most functional wardrobe item you are packing and deserves to be chosen with the functionality explicitly in mind.

The Port Day Formula: Comfortable, breathable bottoms that are not swim shorts. A lightweight top that has some sun protection. Footwear that can handle cobblestones, sand, and the gangway simultaneously, which rules out the flip flop and the dress shoe and points toward a sandal with structure or a lightweight sneaker that does not make your feet hate you by noon.

What most people get wrong about port days: They leave the ship in their swimsuit and plan to change later, and then there is no later, and they are navigating a UNESCO World Heritage site in a swimsuit and coverup that was designed for the pool deck and that communicates, to the locals whose city they are in, a specific and not entirely positive message about the priority they have given to the context.

Dress for the port. Not formally. Appropriately. There is a version of yourself that is clearly a tourist and clearly a respectful one and that is the version the port day wardrobe should produce.

The Shore Excursion Specific Items

The day bag. I mentioned this in the overall luggage configuration and I want to return to it specifically for port days: the bag you take ashore needs to be the bag that carries everything the port day requires without being so large that it becomes a burden or so small that the sunscreen and the water bottle and the camera don't fit. A structured tote or a small backpack. Crossbody if security is a concern at the destination.

The waterproof bag or case. For the beach excursions where the bag and its contents are going to get wet, which is more of the excursions than not. The phone in a waterproof case. The wallet in a dry bag. The day bag itself ideally with water-resistant qualities. You are in the Caribbean. Things get wet.

The cash situation. A small amount of local currency for each port — not a lot, enough for the things that don't take cards, which in many Caribbean ports is the street food and the market vendors and the things that are worth having but that exist outside the tourist card economy. Research the currency before you go. Prepare it before you get off the ship. Do not be the person trying to find an ATM in a Caribbean port with a thousand people from your ship already in line ahead of you.

Part Five: The Skincare and the Grooming Situation

You know I was getting here eventually. We were always getting here.

I have written a full guide to in-flight skincare and I will not repeat the entire argument, but I want to make the cruise-specific version of it because the cruise has specific skincare requirements that the flight guide does not fully address.

The cruise is seven to twelve days. The cruise is in the sun for the majority of those days. The cruise involves salt water and chlorine and air conditioning and the specific combination of dehydration inputs that a ship environment produces — the dry cabin air, the alcohol, the variable hydration habits of a person who is on vacation and is therefore in the specific state of knowing what they should be doing and doing other things instead.

Your skin is going to need help. Here is the help.

The Non-Negotiable Skincare Kit

SPF, in quantity. Not one bottle. Enough bottles to apply SPF in the morning, reapply after swimming, reapply again in the early afternoon, and still have product remaining on day seven. This is more sunscreen than you think. This is the correct amount. The dermatologist you are not going to want to see in ten years because you did not bring enough sunscreen will thank you.

The SPF number: minimum 30, ideally 50 for the face. The Caribbean sun at sea level is the sun without the filtering that altitude provides on land and without the natural shade that most urban environments provide, which means unprotected sun exposure on a ship pool deck is a category of exposure that your skin has not been experiencing in your regular life and that it will communicate its feelings about in the form of a burn that arrives faster than you expect.

Mineral SPF for the face. Chemical SPF for the body. This is not a hill I am willing to get off of.

Your full skincare routine. Not the abbreviated travel version. The full routine. Seven to twelve days is long enough that cutting the routine short has visible consequences, and you are on a gay cruise where the visible consequences are both documented by photography and assessed by an audience that knows what a good skincare routine looks like.

Bring your full routine in travel sizes where possible. Most premium skincare brands produce travel sizes of their key products. Where travel sizes are not available, decant. The decanting is a small investment of time before the trip that pays for itself in both suitcase space and the absence of the customs conversation about the full-size products in your carry-on.

Aftersun. For the days when the sun won the argument regardless of your sunscreen application. Something with aloe and something cooling and something that goes on before bed on the night after a long day at sea and that allows your skin to begin the recovery before the next long day at sea starts.

Lip balm with SPF. On the pool deck. In the port. Always. Your lips have no oil glands. The Caribbean does not care about your lips. You need to care about your lips.

Eye cream. Twice daily while on the ship. The salt air, the sun, the later-than-usual nights and the earlier-than-usual excursion mornings, the variable sleep quality that a ship with ongoing entertainment produces — all of it concentrates in the eye area in the way that the eye area specializes in collecting evidence of how you have been living. Address it proactively rather than reactively.

The Hair Situation

The ship is salt air. Salt air has opinions about hair. The opinions are not always positive.

Bring a leave-in conditioner. Bring the specific product that manages your specific hair in the specific way that the salt air will be working against. This is not the time to experiment with a new product or to discover what your hair does without its usual support. Pack the thing that works and bring enough of it for the full trip.

If you color your hair: the sun on a cruise will do things to the color that the salon will need to address when you return. A UV-protecting hair product — there are several excellent ones — is the preventive measure that saves you the salon conversation. Pack it.

If you do not color your hair and you are proud of this fact: the sun and salt will still affect your hair and the leave-in conditioner is still the answer.

The Body Products

Lotion. Every night after showering. Every night without exception. Your body is in the sun all day and the shower washes off the salt and the chlorine and the lotion replaces the moisture that all of it removed and the skin you have at the end of the cruise is determined by whether you did this or whether you did not.

A good body wash that does not dry. The ship's provided body wash is fine and will not help.

Deodorant that is adequate for sun exposure and dancing, which is a higher bar than deodorant for office environments. You know which of yours is up to this task. Pack that one.

Part Six: The Electronics and the Practical Items

The Electronics

The phone. Your phone is your camera, your music, your communication, your map, your booking confirmation, your everything. Protect it with a case that provides real protection — not the slim case that makes the phone look beautiful and provides no structural protection — because ships have hard floors and pool decks have hard tile and the phone that falls on the pool deck tile is the phone that needs a replacement that is not available at sea.

Download everything before you board. Your music. Your podcasts. The movies or shows you want to have available. Netflix offline. Spotify offline. Whatever you need to be entertained during the sea days that will be everything you need them to be and also occasionally twelve hours of being at sea with limited cellular service. The ship has WiFi. The ship's WiFi is priced in a way that reflects the captive audience conditions of being at sea and that should be budgeted for and not discovered as a surprise. The pre-downloaded content is the backup for the moments when the ship's WiFi is doing what ship WiFi sometimes does.

The portable charger. A large one. A good one. The branded one that has been through enough trips to have proven itself. Port days are long and the phone's battery is the limiting factor on how long the port day can be before anxiety about the battery becomes a logistical issue. The portable charger extends the port day indefinitely.

The camera. If you are a person who uses a camera rather than only the phone — and the gay cruise is the trip where the camera produces photographs that the phone does not quite produce, particularly in the conditions of a White Party at sea — bring the camera. Bring the lenses you will actually use. Bring enough memory cards. Do not bring the camera bag that makes you look like a photographer on a job rather than a person on vacation. A small, padded insert for a regular bag is sufficient.

The universal travel adapter. The ship's cabin outlets vary by cruise line and by ship, and knowing what you're getting before you get on the ship is research that prevents the specific experience of boarding with all your electronics and discovering that none of your plugs work in the cabin. Research the cruise line's outlet configuration. Bring the adapter that addresses it. The universal travel adapter addresses all of them.

The power strip. A specific recommendation for cruise ships specifically: a surge-protecting power strip with USB ports. The cabin typically has two to four outlets, which in an era when the average traveler is charging a phone, a camera battery, wireless earbuds, an electric toothbrush, and various other devices simultaneously is not enough outlets. The power strip solves this. Confirm before packing that the cruise line permits them — most do, and most have restrictions on power strips with surge protectors that vary by line.

Wireless earbuds. For the flight. For the sea days when the pool deck is not calling but the balcony or the deck chair is. For the gym. For the moments when you want to be in the space without being in the space, which the cruise produces regularly because the cruise is a social environment and social environments occasionally require the opt-out.

Part Seven: The Medical and Wellness Kit

I am not a doctor. This section is not medical advice. This section is the list of things that I have needed on a cruise at a moment when the ship's medical center was my only option and the ship's medical center is both available and expensive, and the small investment in the pre-trip pharmacy run is the investment that prevents the large expense on day three.

Motion sickness medication. Even if you have never experienced motion sickness. Even if you are skeptical that you will experience motion sickness. The open ocean has opinions about motion sickness that are independent of your personal history, and the ship crosses the open ocean, and the combination of open ocean and a body that has been at sea for seventy-two hours and had more to drink than it does on land is a combination that produces motion sickness in people who have never experienced it before.

The over-the-counter options work. The prescription patch works better for severe cases. The sea-bands (acupressure wristbands) work for some people and are worth having as a backup. Pack at minimum the over-the-counter option and take it before the symptoms start rather than after, because the before intervention is significantly more effective than the after intervention.

Antidiarrheal medication. I know. I know this is not the topic we came here for. It is the topic the Caribbean sometimes introduces without warning, particularly on the port days when the food choices expand beyond the ship's food safety protocols and into the specific terrain of street food and local restaurants and the exciting culinary decisions that a port day produces. Have the medication. Hope not to use it.

Antacids. The cruise is a context of eating at every opportunity, some of those opportunities involving combinations of foods and drinks that the digestive system was not consulted about. Antacids. Have them.

Ibuprofen and acetaminophen. For the obvious reasons and the less obvious ones, including the specific headache that a day of sun and dehydration produces and that the ship's medical center will charge you considerably more than a CVS to address.

Antibacterial hand gel. Ships are enclosed environments with a lot of people in them and a lot of surfaces that a lot of people have touched. The hand gel is not paranoia. It is epidemiology.

Your actual medications. In your carry-on. With their original pharmacy labels. With enough supply for the full trip plus several extra days because delayed returns are real and running out of prescription medication at sea is a situation that requires more effort to resolve than any other medical situation the cruise produces. Bring a copy of your prescriptions. Know the generic names of your medications in case you need to purchase replacements in a port pharmacy.

PrEP. If you are on it, pack it in your carry-on with your other medications. The ship's medical center does not carry PrEP. The ports may not have it easily accessible. Do not miss a dose because it was in the checked bag that the airline misrouted to a different city.

Condoms. The ship's gift shop sells them at the gift shop price, which is the price of a gift shop item in a captive-audience environment. Pack your own. Pack more than you think you need. This is a gay cruise. You know why I'm saying this.

Part Eight: The Small Things That Make the Difference

The category of items that no packing guide gives sufficient weight to but that consistently appear in the list of things that people wish they had brought and that are either unavailable on the ship or available at the ship store price.

A reusable water bottle. The ship has water everywhere. The ship does not automatically provide a good water bottle. The reusable water bottle is the item that keeps you hydrated on port days without the cost and waste of purchased bottles and that the ship can fill at any bar or restaurant. Bring a good one. An insulated one. The Caribbean is hot and warm water is the wrong temperature for the amount of water you need to be drinking.

Snacks from home. Specific to your preferences, supplementary to the ship's food rather than replacements for it, but present for the moments when what you want is not what the ship has available. The specific granola bar. The thing you eat when you are managing your blood sugar on a long port day. The thing from home that makes the cabin feel slightly more like a place you chose rather than a place you are in.

A small laundry kit. Laundry on cruise ships is available as a service and it is expensive and it takes longer than it should. A small bottle of travel detergent and the knowledge of how to hand-wash a swimsuit in the bathroom sink is the alternative to the laundry service price and to the alternative of running out of clean swimwear on day five. The swimsuits in particular — rinse them in fresh water after every use, wash them with the travel detergent every two or three days, dry them on the balcony in the Caribbean sun which dries everything in approximately forty minutes.

Magnetic hooks. The cruise ship cabin is optimized for the experience of not having quite enough places to put things. The cabin walls are metal and the magnetic hooks — small, strong, available for approximately ten dollars for a set — multiply the hanging and organizing options in ways that make the cabin feel twice as spacious. Hang the bags. Hang the towels. Hang the things that are currently in a pile on the chair because there is nowhere else to put them.

A door organizer. The over-door shoe organizer that your grandmother had, recontextualized for the cruise cabin: a fabric organizer that hangs over the bathroom door and stores the sixteen small items that otherwise live on the bathroom counter and fall into the sink when the ship moves. The sunscreen, the lip balm, the medications, the hair products, the things that are small and needed frequently. The door organizer is the packing discovery that every frequent cruiser makes independently and that I am saving you the trip by telling you about.

A small first aid kit. Not a large one. The ship has medical facilities. But the small kit — bandages in a range of sizes, antiseptic wipes, moleskin for the port day blisters that the cobblestones produce, after-sun, the specific things that the medical center charges a consultation fee to address — is the preventive investment that costs twenty dollars before the trip and saves considerably more during it.

Cash in small denominations. For the gratuities that the cruise line will add to your account automatically and the gratuities that are genuinely discretionary — the room steward who has been extraordinary, the bartender who has remembered your order since day two, the person who has made the cruise better through their specific attention and who deserves a specific acknowledgment of that. The cruise line's auto-gratuity is the floor. The envelope of cash you hand to the people who made the trip is the ceiling, and the ceiling matters.

A notebook and pen. I know. The phone. The phone has notes. The phone is also the entertainment and the camera and the communication device and the map and the everything, and there is a specific quality of writing something down in a physical notebook on a balcony at sea — the name of the place you want to go back to, the thing the person at dinner said that you want to remember, the idea for the next trip that the current trip has produced — that the phone note does not replicate.

Bring a small notebook. Use it. It is the best souvenir of the trip that costs nothing and takes up the space of a folded letter.

Part Nine: The Things You Should Not Bring

Because the guide would be incomplete without the list of what to leave behind.

The iron. The ship has one. Most cabins have one. If yours doesn't, the guest services desk will find you one. The iron weighs more than its utility justifies in the luggage context and it is never needed in the first twenty-four hours, which is the period when you most want to be unpacking and orienting rather than managing an appliance.

More shoes than occasions. Three to four pairs of shoes covers the gay cruise entirely. One pair for port days that handles everything from cobblestones to beach approaches. One pair of sandals for the ship. One pair for evenings that want a shoe that is not a sandal. One pair for the gym if you use the gym. Four pairs. The shoe temptation on a gay cruise is real because the outfits invite multiple shoe options and the suitcase does not have room for multiple shoe options. Resolve the temptation in favor of the suitcase.

Full-size products of any kind. The travel size exists for every category of product that matters. The full-size bottle of shampoo is three hundred milliliters of liquid that weighs more than the travel size and produces the same result. The travel size is the answer to every product category on this list and the full size is the answer to a question the suitcase never asked.

The outfit you are bringing because you might need it. The might-need-it outfit is the category of packing mistake that fills the suitcase with items that have no confirmed purpose and that take up the space that confirmed-purpose items need. Pack for the occasions that are certain. Plan for the occasions that are possible. Do not pack for occasions that are conceivable if you squint and imagine a very specific scenario.

Valuables you cannot replace. The jewelry that is genuinely irreplaceable. The watch that has been in the family. The item whose sentimental value exceeds its monetary value and whose loss would cost more than a price. Leave it at home. The cruise has a safe. The safe is adequate for the valuable items you need to bring. It is not adequate as a comfort for the item that cannot be replaced. Leave the irreplaceable item in the place it is safe, which is not a ship.

More books than you will read. The optimistic book stack that represents the reader you intend to become on vacation rather than the reader you actually are. One to two physical books for the person who reads on vacation. The Kindle for the person who reads seriously on vacation. The ship has a library. The ports have bookstores in the languages of their colonial histories and occasionally in English. You will not read seven books in seven days. You will read two if the sea days cooperate and the pool deck does not have a more compelling offer.

The Master List

Because some of you have been waiting patiently through everything above for the list, and the patience deserves reward.

Swimwear and Beach

Seven to ten swimsuits. Three coverups (linen shirt, real shorts, sarong). Rash guard for the sun-sensitive days. Flip flops for the pool deck.

Themed Nights

White outfit (with backup). Black outfit. Underwear/fetish piece. Neon item. Costume pieces for Fantasy Night. Accessories for all of the above.

Dinner and Evening

Two to three elevated-casual outfits. One to two genuinely nice outfits. One blazer that coordinates with multiple bottoms. Versatile dress shoes or nice sandals.

Port Days

Two to three functional port outfits. Walking sandal or lightweight sneaker. Day bag. Waterproof phone case. Small amount of local currency per port.

Skincare

SPF 30 minimum for body, SPF 50 for face, in quantity. Full daily skincare routine in travel sizes. Aftersun. Lip balm with SPF. Eye cream. Leave-in hair conditioner.

Grooming

Deodorant for active conditions. Body wash. Full nighttime skincare. Body lotion. Whatever your specific grooming routine requires, in travel sizes.

Electronics

Phone in protective case. Portable charger. Camera and memory cards. Universal travel adapter. Power strip. Wireless earbuds. Downloads on everything.

Medical and Wellness

Motion sickness medication. Antidiarrheal. Antacids. Ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Antibacterial hand gel. Prescription medications in carry-on with documentation. PrEP. Condoms.

Ship Life

Reusable water bottle. Snacks. Travel laundry detergent. Magnetic hooks. Door organizer. Small first aid kit. Cash in small denominations for gratuities. Notebook and pen.

Documents

Passport (valid for at least six months beyond return date). Cruise booking confirmation. Travel insurance documentation. Health insurance card. Emergency contact information. Credit cards and debit card. Photocopies of everything in both the carry-on and the email.

The Packing Timeline

Two weeks before: Buy what you don't have. Don't buy it the day before because the day before is for other things.

One week before: Lay everything out on the bed. Everything. Every item that is going. Look at it. Ask whether it is earning its suitcase space. Put back the things that are not earning their suitcase space.

Three days before: Check the themed night list against the cruise's event calendar. Confirm you have what you need for each night. Steam or iron anything that needs it now rather than on the ship.

The night before: Pack everything except the morning-of items. Weigh the bag. If it is over the airline's weight limit, find what you are removing. The removal is easier the night before than at the airport.

The morning of: The toiletries bag from the bathroom. The electronics from the charging station. The documents from wherever you keep documents. The medication from wherever you keep medication.

At the airport: Check the suitcase. Keep the carry-on and the personal item. Know that the checked bag will reach the ship because you have packed the first night in the carry-on in case it doesn't.

On the ship: Unpack immediately. This is the rule that separates the people who spend seven days in a comfortable cabin from the people who spend seven days navigating around a half-open suitcase on the floor. Unpack everything. Use the closet. Use the drawers. Attach the magnetic hooks. Hang the door organizer. Make the cabin yours.

The cabin is yours for seven days.

The ocean is outside the window.

The pool deck opens at eight.

You are packed correctly, which means you are prepared for everything the cruise is going to give you, which is going to be more than you expect and better than you can currently imagine.

The suitcase is ready.

Go be somewhere extraordinary.

Be nice to Fluffy. Love Fluffy. Let Fluffy plan the cruise and tell you exactly what to pack for it — down to the number of white swimsuits.

Fluffy is a Manhattan-based luxury gay travel specialist, veteran of more gay cruises than he can precisely count, and the person who finally, on his fourth cruise, got the packing right. He has been refining it ever since. Luxury gay travel, planned by someone who actually goes — and who arrives with the right number of swimsuits every time.