Gay & lesbian travel: A carbon-neutral, voluntouristic Caribbean cruise

Does guilt ever stop you from booking a cruise? After all, the cruising industry has long had a reputation as a big bad wolf of the eco-world. Then there’s the fact that your week, or weekend, or however long you’ll spend aboard, will be spent in purely self-serving recreation — nary a finger lifted for anyone but buffet-food-grabbing, cocktail-carting you.

That’s just too much indulgence for some of you to handle.

Enter lesbian-travel company Sweet, which is offering a seven-day western Caribbean cruise on the Norwegian Spirit, departing New Orleans on Nov. 8. The trip is designed to help even the environmentally conscious do-gooders among you feel absolutely fine about hitting the high seas.

First, the company is billing itself as “carbon-neutral,” planning to offset the voyage with the help of partner Carbonfund.org. The beneficiary of the company’s offsetting practices is a project that aids in reforesting part of a river area in Louisiana that was strip-farmed for cotton, according to Sweet’s website. Surely, all of a ship’s eco-sins aren’t going to be erased with carbon credits, but it’s a positive move and a strong statement.

Secondly, the cruise will offer eight optional volunteering excursions, lasting three to five hours, at port stops along the route. You can spend time cleaning a beach, helping restore a reef, assisting in a children’s library, setting up a school’s computer lab, spreading cheer in a pediatric ward, restoring dunes, restoring wetlands or helping re-beautify a park. The “voluntours” aren’t free, but the varying fees cover meals, transportation and needed supplies.

Of course, on the trip, you’ll also get plenty of time to be entertained, see the sights and relax. Performers on board the ship will include lesbian comedians, singer-songwriters and DJs. Ports of call are Costa Maya, Mexico; Belize City, Belize; Roatan, Honduras; and Cozumel, Mexico.

Cost: An interior stateroom is $1,099 per person and an outside stateroom is $1,499 per person. Other options, priced higher, are also available. Prices include taxes and fees.

Contact: Sweet, (877) 793.3830

- Susan Derby, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Photo: Roatan, Honduras, where visitors can dive seawalls and snorkel their way through reefs. Credit: Sweet

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15, 2009 at 12:00 pm by Susan Derby and is filed under Gay, Latin America & Caribbean, New Orleans & Louisiana, Tours & Cruises. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.