En route to Darwin, Australia. Arrive on 12-Feb.

I’ve taken two week-long cruises before I started my current world cruise on Silversea.

• I spent a week cruising around the Hawaiian Islands. There the ship is just background – the point are the actual islands, so I don’t remember if there were ship board entertainment at all.
• I spent a week cruising the western Mediterranean with my sister and her family on Disney. Disney does cruising very well, and they certainly had entertainers.

However, I had never heard of “Gentlemen Hosts” before arriving on the Silver Whisper. These guys:

• Teach ballroom dancing at 2:00pm every sea day – rotating thru the rumba, waltz, tango, foxtrot and swing
• Meet solo travelers for drinks at 7:00pm every evening and arrange dinner tables – sometimes there are four people, sometimes there are 12
• Sometimes escort shore excursions
• Dance with guests at the bar and lounge before dinner
• Dance with guests at dinner (on those nights where there is dinner dance music)
• Dance with guests at the bar and lounge after dinner

You’re getting the idea. These guys are contracted by the cruise ship to dance with the ladies. Let me say that again – they are hired, flown to and from the ship and given room and board, eating with the guests (which the crew don’t do), for the reason of giving women someone to dance with.

I can kind of understand it – Silversea has an older crowd and women have longer life spans then men (notice there are no contracted female ballroom dancers). I find the concept fascinating – part of my world cruise ticket price includes paying for the importing of other guys for women to dance with.

Give it an internet search yourself. Wacky.