Desire Lisbon will sail round trip from June 5 to 13, with port calls in Madeira, Portugal; Tenerife and Lanzarote in the Canary Islands; and Gibraltar, a slice of the United Kingdom in southern Spain. It will be a chartered ship on a cruise line that has yet to be announced, and will be geared toward couples only.
Later in the year, Desire Rome-Athens will sail from October 9 to 16, leaving from Rome and stopping in Sorrento, Italy; Siracusa, Sicily; Kusadasi, Turkey; and the Greek islands of Santorini and Mykonos, before culminating in Athens.
So what makes these cruises all that different from other cruises? Well, like any theme cruise, they draw people heavily invested in a certain interest or lifestyle. Sometimes that means spending a week listening to Bon Jovi. Sometimes it means jacuzzi lounges, clothing-optional areas, and playrooms where couples can, as Desire said in its press release, “expand, experiment, and enhance their sexual freedom in a surreal atmosphere.”
This, we assume, means playing copious amounts of cribbage and swapping pictures of your pet schnauzer. But it’s open to interpretation.
There will also be theme nights, couples’ workshops, and aphrodisiac-inspired menus to get things going.
In addition to the couples-driven Desire Cruises, Temptation — Desire’s sister resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico — will sail the second iteration of its massively popular Temptation Caribbean Cruise from February 11 to 16. As any topless-optional operation would, it will begin in Tampa, Florida, then sail to Key West and Riviera Maya.
As opposed to the couples-only Desire cruises, the Temptation cruises are open to singles, groups of friends, or pretty much anyone who wants to spend a week on a ship with tantric workshops and an R-rated red room. The atmosphere is more party-driven than romantic, a little like Yacht Week with a better female-to-male ratio.
All three are all-inclusive and include deluxe beverage packages, or premium beverage packages on Desire Cruises.
So while you’ll still find plenty of other fantastic cruising options in 2021, only a handful of journeys will be this kind of surreal trip into the sexual sublime. Maybe you and bae are looking to dip your toes into something new. Maybe you’ve taken your last nine vacations to a swingers resort like Hedonism in Negril, Jamaica, and are looking to branch out. Either way, these are sure to be the sexiest cruises of the year. 