Guests on board Atlantis Events Mediterranean cruise 2022 (personal photo)Atlantis Events, producer of gay-centered vacation events around the world, has instituted a new social media policy asking cruise ship guests to bring the temperature down a bit when it comes to sharing the onboard antics online.
In other words, guests need to refrain from sexually explicit social media posts.
The new guest guidance was shared with vacationers prior to embarking on Atlantis Events’ cruise this week on board Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas.
“While we want everyone to have fun, there are limits and so we ask that you be respectful of all guests and our cruise partners,” reads the new policy. “Please do not post anything explicitly sexual on social media in a public forum or other online space.”
The handbook also states, “Any guest who posts or publishes an explicit and publicly visible photo or video will be asked to leave the ship with no refund.”
The new policy applies not only to public social media accounts, but also “any private media posts (whether or not behind a paywall) that identify or could identify either Atlantis, our vendor brands, their properties, or any other guests with or without permission.”
I’m guessing that language is in reference to content creators on adult oriented sites like Just For Fans and OnlyFans.
Atlantis Events adds that they “take this seriously and have a team of volunteers monitoring most sites.”
In a statement to Buzzfeed News, Atlantis Events’ founder and CEO Rich Campbell shared that the social media policy was created at the request of cruise ship companies that allow their vessels to host the LGBTQ-themed cruises.
“The cruise lines have asked me to include that and that’s not such a strange request,” Campbell explained. “They don’t want their brand featured.”
The language was added to the Guest Handbook “after several sexually explicit public posts were made by our guests with clear identifiers of either Atlantis or our host brands.”
This sort of social media content is just fineCampbell said that, in the past, when such content was shared on the interwebs, Atlantis Events would reach out to the poster asking them to take it down. And in most cases, the guests complied.
“And the cruise lines asked us to put that out publicly, so we did,” added Campbell.
For more than three decades, gay-owned Atlantis Events has produced gay-centered vacation events around the world, including over 200 ship charters.
A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean International, whose Harmony of the Seas is hosting this week’s event, told BuzzFeed’s David Mack the two companies “together established this policy to protect the safety and privacy of all guests onboard.”
Buzzfeed spoke with one guest onboard the Harmony of the Seas this week named Chris, who said that while he and his friends noted the new guest guidance, it wasn’t generating much discussion among guests.
“I think it makes some sense though,” said Chris. “These cruises get a reputation as nothing but a sex boat because the videos of performances go viral and because they can be inflammatory and people see them as the norm.”
A veteran of five Atlantis Events cruises, he added, “These cruises are more than that.”
As I’ve shared in the past on The Randy Report, hubby Michael and I have enjoyed several Atlantis cruises. We love the energy, the sense of community, and the atmosphere.
Are there sexual shenanigans going on? Of course – here and there. But I agree with “Chris” that the new guest guidance makes sense not only for guests’ privacy but also to protect the brands of the cruise lines that host the events.