August 21, 2012
Pride of the Ocean Launches 4th Annual LGBT Film Festival Cruise in 2013
Mark Thompson READ TIME: 2 MIN.
SEATTLE, Washington - Pride of the Ocean, the originator of the gay and lesbian film festival at sea, announced its 2013 cruise itinerary. After three consecutive sailings from New York to Bermuda, the floating film festival is heading west.
Next August, LGBT movie buffs will board the Norwegian Pearl in Seattle for a week of food, films and fantastic scenery on the 4th Annual Pride of the Ocean cruise. The ship sails August 18-25, 2013, the best time of the year to visit the 49th State.
The Pearl is one of Norwegian's stunning Jewel Class ships. It features 13 premium restaurants, 13 bars and lounges and a casino. It has a full theater where Pride of the Ocean films will be screened as well as a full-service spa, fitness center, rock-climbing wall and a chic bowling alley. The ship is fun for the whole family and will be especially geared toward film fans on this Alaska cruise.
With filmmakers and a few surprise guests on board, the luxury cruise ship will head to Alaska, making scenic stops in Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan, where passengers can absorb the beauty of the state by helicopter, zip-line or kayak. Then passengers will be treated to a full day in resplendent Glacier Bay.
The 8-day, 7-night cruise will return to Seattle, traveling through the famed Inside Passage and stopping in historic Victoria, British Columbia.
Pride of the Ocean is the brainchild of President and CEO, Jim Pollin, of the Pollin Group, and John Scagliotti, an Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and creator of the first LGBT television series, In the Life, which airs on PBS.
The first LGBT film festival at sea marked the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York where it fittingly sailed from on the inaugural Pride of the Ocean cruise. After three successful years, Pride of the Ocean is expanding its range.
Scagliotti hand-picks documentaries and features - including a couple that haven't been released - that film lovers will relish. Pride of the Ocean combines the appeal of luxury cruise travel with the intimate atmosphere of a film festival. And on Pride of the Ocean, filmmakers and filmgoers mix and mingle at group cocktail parties, dinners and film screenings throughout the cruise.
Pride of the Ocean offers a high-value cruise, including port taxes, a full lineup of high-caliber LGBT films and documentaries and high-demand filmmakers and special guests, all for a low, low price.
Cabins start at $919 per person, based on double occupancy. Book online at www.prideoftheocean.com
Pride of the Ocean is proudly sponsored by The Advocate, the nation's LGBT news magazine, the Pollin Group, Center for Independent Documentary and After Stonewall Productions.
A long-term New Yorker and a member of New York Travel Writers Association, Mark Thompson has also lived in San Francisco, Boston, Provincetown, D.C., Miami Beach and the south of France. The author of the novels WOLFCHILD and MY HAWAIIAN PENTHOUSE, he has a PhD in American Studies and is the recipient of fellowships at MacDowell, Yaddo, and Blue Mountain Center. His work has appeared in numerous publications.
