Gentleman Hosts on Board

G  Gentleman hosts - may they continue to dance across the seven seas.
It is a sad fact that many more women love to dance than do men. Go to any function where there is dancing and you will see women looking wistfully at the couples on the floor while their significant other, if they have one, complains of having “two left feet” and won’t get up to dance.  In fact often when there is club and disco music being played women will form groups on the floor and dance with wild abandon. However it is much harder to do that in the context of ballroom dances which by definition are partner dances.    

So imagine a ship like the wonderful Cunard ocean liners, where they have their great Queens Room Ballroom, often with big band music being played. Women traveling solo or with female friends sit and watch from the sidelines, wishing they had someone to dance with.

Enter the gentleman hosts. They are aboard to dance with any of these women who want to venture out onto the floor. I chatted to some of the dance hosts on previous Cunard trips (Dance Hosts on Board) They come from all over, have varied background, but they like to dance and they have congenial personalities and enjoy meeting new people.

Hosts have to pass a screening process before they are hired and are expected to adhere to clearly defined standards of conduct.

Unfortunately not many cruise lines provide dance hosts, and if you are not traveling with a dance partner you are out of luck, as I found on my recent Celebrity Cruise.

One of the top items of my list of things to do this year is to find out which Cruise lines beside Cunard currently have a host program and try out a cruise to see how they work

In the meantime my dance cruising has been with Dancers At Sea who provide both male and female dance hosts depending on the makeup of their group on a particular cruise. Dancing one in three sure beats sitting on the sidelines every night.