A Crystal first: Female dance partners

There’s a certain group of cruise ship passengers who travel frequently and often alone. We’ll call them the Golden Girls although some are Platinum and others are Silver or just Blue. As well as the hair, they have the time and they have the money, because – let’s be frank – they may have an inheritance or an insurance pay-out to support them.
What they don’t have in abundance is male company. Which is why many cruise lines employ gentlemen hosts to partner these ladies on the dance floor and to provide conversation over dinner or a drink.
Because that’s as far as things are allowed to go, the widely-accepted practice never attracts more than the odd quizzical eyebrow over nudge-nudge, wink-wink suggestions of gigolos cruising for a schmoozing. Gentlemen hosts, ambassador hosts – call them what you will, they are STRICTLY for dancing.
Up-market Crystal Cruises have set tongues wagging this week by announcing the introduction of FEMALE dance partners for its solo gentlemen passengers.
The company has employed Ambassador Hosts – four or more on every voyage – for some time. Now its president, Edie Bornstein, has decided it’s time to embrace equality.
The Ambassador Hostesses will take part in three Transatlantic crossings, each with a Ballroom At Sea theme; in October aboard Crystal Symphony and again for the return voyage in June 2015, and on sister ship Crystal Serenity in December 2015.
In Miami this week for the Cruise Shipping convention, Edie told me: “I wish I could take the credit for this idea myself, but it came from one of our dance instructors.”
There’s another particular passenger Edie would love to bring on board. She is Rod Stewart’s biggest fan, and despite her current newlywed status would do (almost) anything to get him Sailing with Crystal instead of Cunard, on whose Queen Mary 2 he has crossed the Atlantic.
Perhaps the promise of a dance partner will do the trick.