This is what it’s like to take a nude cruise (and there are more rules than you might expect)

You will need to pack a few outfits as travellers are expected to dress for dinner

Bare Necessities offer a cheeky seven-day round-trip cruise from Tampa, Florida (Bare Necessities)

Catering to thousands of travellers that enjoy skinny dipping and feeling the sun on their bare skin, clothing-optional cruise ship holidays are here to stay.

But one man who took a nude cruise by the Texas-based travel company Bare Necessities has revealed that it’s not quite as simple as jumping on board and letting it all hang out at sea.

If you thought you wouldn’t have to pack any clothes at all, you’d be disappointed, as well as a little hungry, as you need to be dressed in restaurants for safety and hygiene reasons.

Taking to Reddit to share his experience of taking a seven-day cruise from Tampa, Florida, the 67-year old man shared: “Clothes were required in the main dining room and in the specialty restaurants.”

And that’s not all. The round trip includes visits to ports in Mexico and Honduras, where people were required to cover up.

To avoid locals seeing of a ship full of 2,000 naked people docking in port, guests were instructed to put on their clothes shortly before the ship left the open seas.

The man explained that once the ship is out of port the captain “generally makes an announcement telling people they can strip off”. Most people take full advantage, given that’s why they booked that specific cruise in the first place.

An annoucment is made by the ship’s captain when it’s time to remove clothes (Bare Necessities travel)

On the footwear front, “shoes were required walking around the boat, although some folks went barefoot nonetheless” and at dinner, “everyone was in flip flops or sandals”.

Taking photos is banned on board for everyone’s privacy. “Everyone knows you can’t take pictures of other people,” he added. “I was much less worried here than I have been at nude beaches. Almost no one had phones with them outside their cabin.”

On board, it’s easy to tell a staff member from a tourist as the staff remain fully clothed at all times except for one male and one female perfomer at the ship’s theatre.

After the passenger posted his experiences, thousands of people took to the comments to ask for more details, with several asking what his fellow travellers were like.

His response: “Unquestionably, there were relatively few younger couples [and] it definitely skewed older. Certainly most were in their 50s to 70s. Many gay men. Not many gay women that I could tell, but I would think they would be comfortable. It’s an accepting crowd.”

Other commenters asked whether the fellow passengers were attractive, and whether there were any hot bodies to look at while walking around the ship.

However, the man reiterated that it was not a swingers cruise or a sex-poistive cruise, rather an environment for people to enjoy a nudist experience.

“Cruises seem to be for people who like to eat and lie around, so there were a lot of large people,” he added.

But despite the rules and the lack of attractive people, the man highly recommended it to fellow Reddit users.

Summing up his experience, he wrote: “It was awesome. Great weather and the opportunity to do a bunch of fun things nude (beaches, resorts, dancing, be at bars, etc.). My 61-year old partner also enjoyed it very much.”

Read more: 10 best cruise holidays and new cruises for 2024