Celebrity Century Cruise brings 1,800 nudists to St. Maarten on Sunday
POSTED: 02/15/11 11:52 AMSt. Maarten – The Celebrity Century cruise ship will dock in Philipsburg on Sunday carrying 1,800 nudists. The cruise is organized by Bare Necessities Tour and travel from Austin, Texas. The vessel left Miami yesterday; it will arrive in St. Barths on Thursday, before sailing on to Guadeloupe the next day and Martini on Saturday. The cruise passengers will most likely spend their day at the clothing optional beach of Club Orient in Orient Bay on the French side, though the beach is not large enough to accommodate 1,800 tourists.
Bare Necessities started organizing nude cruises in 1991 with a dive boat that carried just 36 passengers. By 1999 the organization chartered four large cruise ships of which the largest carried 1,500 passengers with a taste for a clothing optional vacation.
In 2003 Bare Necessities organized a cruise with 2,050 passengers, and two years later it chartered the Carnival Legend carrying 2,124 vacationers.
While nudism is frowned upon in the United States, Bare Necessities is serving a growing market. On its web site the travel organization states that “sexuality is not a state of undress but rather, a state of mind and that social nudity is not a sexual activity. We strive to dispel the misconception that nudity is sexually exploitative. Bare Necessities has worked diligently over the past seventeen years to break down the walls of prejudice against social nude recreation. We have accomplished major goals for the acceptance of nude vacationing and our wide range of superior cruise charters reflects our success.”
The Celebrity Century will dock in Philipsburg at eight o’clock in the morning on Sunday and leave port again at six o’clock in the afternoon, for a two day trip to Coco Cay in the Bahamas. The vessel returns to Miami next week Thursday.
