The 'alternative' guide to the NKOTB Cruise 2012

There is nothing I like more than waking up on a miserable Monday morning to the news that the NKOTB annual cruise is going on sale 3 days. Didn’t we just get back…like yesterday or something? My bank account hasn’t recovered from the cruise in 2010 and 2011! In fact, if you were to smell my flip-flops there is still a marked stench of sweaty sand and seaweed. Now, if you are rich, I’m sure being given 3 days to get together the deposit that is going to determine if your summer is full of fun and frivolity on the high seas or the most depressing summer of your god damn life is no problem.
However, for most of us 3 days is not enough time to organise our finances. As I sit here and ponder the psychology behind NK Managements consistently bizarre decisions when it comes to announcing events, I find myself at a loss. Surely they know further in advance than 3 days that they are going on a nice ole trip on a big ole boat, no? Is it on purpose? Let’s use some creative licence here at the possible emails send between Jared and those pesky lil New Kids. In my brain it goes like this…..

Hi Guys, its Jared. So I’m hooking up this cruise thing. I’m thinking June instead of May this year. Whatta ya think? Love Jared

‘Sup Jared. WORD! Love, NKOTB

Hi Guys, its Jared So I booked that big ass boat again that everyone hated last year. More capacity = more $$$’s! Am thinking of dragging some dinghys behind the ship this year too. We’ll call them ‘floatable rooms with a sea view’. Anyways, let’s announce it 3 days before they need to book so we can capture the ‘panic buyer crowd’. Love Jared.

‘Sup Jared. WORD! Love, NKOTB

Hi Guys, its Jared OK, we’re good to go. I’ve put together a cruise video. Start tweeting the link out! Even you Joe! Jordan, this is going to coincide nicely with the release of Like A Wave so tweeting your song lyrics will get people in a beachy mood. LETS SAIL THIS! woooooooo! Love Jared.

‘Sup Jared. WORD! Love NKOTB

lol. OK maybe not exactly like that…..but that’s what it feels like! haha!

Anyway, enough of all that. The cruise goes on sale tomorrow, so here is my ‘alternative’ guide to the cruise…

Booking the cruise

On a scale of 1 to 10, booking the cruise registers at about a 9 on the stress scale. You basically need to take the entire day off work ad formulate a plan of attack with your besties to make sure that you come out top in the game of ‘who can refresh the fastest’. I advise having the following at hand on booking day.

Sit on something comfortable. A couch, a bed, your ass….whatever is soft on your butt cheeks….cause you are gonna be there for a long time!

Surround yourself with sugary food and drink. You will need the energy by about hour two of the booking process.

Make sure your BB or iPhone is fully charged and you are in constant contact with your ‘team’.

If you have more than one computer in your house, use them all, running between the two, refreshing like a mad thing.

If you are a smoker, buy a carton.

Do not answer the door to anyone! Do not leave your computer. Even if your house is on fire.

Animals, children and husbands need to be sent away for the day. They only provide a distraction.

Wear army pants. This is war after all.

If you feel faint, it will pass. Drink some Red Bull and carry on.

Once your finally navigate your way through the mine field of server crashes, page time outs and infuriating messages telling you you’ve spelt your own name wrong……success….you get right to the end and then…..TIME OUT! I call it the ‘Yippeee yippeeee, NOOOOOOOOOO’ phase. If that happens you have no time to lick your wounds and look for sympathy from your friends on Twitter at your misfortune. Everyone is secretly glad that you’ve failed miserably cause it means more tickets for them. Suck it up and start again. Wash, rinse, repeat this process and if you are lucky you will end up with a cabin the size of a postage stamp, in the bowels of the boat not dissimilar to where they stored all the Irish people on the Titanic.

The minute you have secured yourself a cabin, be sure to get your ass straight back on Twitter and spend the next 7 hours smugly tweeting to anyone that will listen about your good fortune. Even if your finger has gone numb from all the refreshing, make sure you act like it was all very easy. This will infuriate and annoy the people still trying to get a room and will increase the possibility of them giving up. Also, for extra annoyability credit, be sure to blow up your favourite New Kids timeline by tweeting to them over and over again ‘See you on the boat!!! Squeeeeee!!!’. Your million sisters love that shit. lol

So how much do the cabins cost?

A lot. That’s all you need to know. It’s about 3 times the price of a regular cruise….but you do get a very snazzy goody bag. In fact, I would go just for the NKOTB passport holder and chapstick.

Countdown to the cruise

So booking is done. You’re as broke as a herpes riddled hooker. You’ve waited 10 whole months and finally its the week before the cruise!!! NK have just announced all of the theme nights…..yes a whole 7 days to plan outfits for 4 separate theme nights. If you live in the UK, where the shops shut at 5pm everyday that means you literally have 1 day to do ALL of your shopping. Your stress levels start to soar again as you traipse around TopShop looking for a something that you can pass off as a toga, finally resorting to bed sheets as your rock slowly back and forth crying. Not to mention the manicure, pedicure, tanning, tooth whitening, weave ordering, fucking nail polish fucking colour selection, accessories, hats, glasses….the list is endless. By the time you actually get on the boat you feel physically and emotionally exhausted! And all of this to achieve the highly sort after ‘naturally, sexy’ look. I don’t think men realise how much makeup and effort is required to make it look like we are wearing no makeup. urgh!

Arriving at the Port

Arrival at the Port is traumatic to say the least. As the taxi starts to pull up and you see that long ass line full of people who look like they’ve had a fight with the New Kids Merch stand and lost, it will begin to dawn on you that you are going to be on a boat with a bunch of scary people who like to pee in their pants and change their tampons in the middle of the Lido deck. Uncontrollable sweating and urge to turn back is not uncommon. Then of course there is the whole getting out of the taxi in front of a line of staring women, all looking you up and down. I usually put my glasses on at this point and scuttle with my suitcase behind the nearest grassy knoll. To be fair the line moves fairly quick. If you haven’t passed out from heat exhaustion by the time you get inside you are doing well.

Checking in

Checking in can be super exciting or soul-destroying. Its at this point where you find out where your room is and more importantly, what colour wristband you’ve been assigned. The wristband basically rules your life for the next 4 days. It’s welded to your arm by an angry-looking Rose Tours rep and by God you cannot get that thing off. That wristband laughs in the face of a pair of scissors! The colour of your wristband tells you where you will be seated for all shows. If you happen to pull an awesome seat right near the front, be sure to make this known to everyone waiting in line by squealing loudly, high-fiving your besties and hyperventilating like a Miss Iowa. This tells everyone else, that YOU are Queen of the seating chart!

So, you are on the boat now what?

Obviously the first thing you need to do when get aboard is go and try to find the NK’s rooms. This isn’t as hard as it sounds. Just go up and down in the elevator a few times and someone will be talking loudly about how their room is like “OMG right next Jon’s on the 6th floor!”. Proceed immediately and with haste to aforementioned floor and just spend the next two hours, hanging out in the corridor attempting to flirt with the only guy that stands between you and a romantic meeting with Joe……Earl. If you do happen to bump into a new kid at any point be sure to let as many people as possible know. Even if they are not interested, tell them anyway. Sisters love to hear about other sisters good fortune. lol. Be sure to start every conversation with ‘So, have you had any encounters yet?”. That’s pretty much the first thing anyone said to me when I met them. My pessimistic brain took this to mean that they had so I would just say no quickly so they could get on with telling me all the details of how Danny brushed past them at the buffet. Smile, laugh, be enthusiastic through gritted teeth and if they patronisingly say to you at the end ‘oh well, I’m sure you’ll have some luck soon’ before breezing off in a cloud of smugness, avoid the urge to slit their throat with your Sign and Sail card.

The events

The events are great when they are organised. When they are not, they are a living hell. Point in case, last years backrub! Did that shit go down!!!! woah! Back the fuck off bitches!! Never in my life have I seen so much insanity trying to get into a show where you watch a 40 something guy lick his lips and do suggestive things with fruit. I didn’t go to the backrub but from what I saw and heard of it, I’m glad I didn’t. Rose Tours were about as useful as a chocolate teapot when it came to gaining control. I think they vastly underestimated the power of stupid people in large groups. Pushing, shoving, shouting, punching, weave pulling, crying and to top it all off…..some enterprising biyatches were selling the FREE Backrub bracelets they got from Donnie to other fans. hahaha! Of course, the moral police immediately condemned these ‘evil’ girls as taking advantage of their sisters. I saw it slightly differently. If you are dumb enough to pay someone 200 dollars for their bracelet then that’s up to you. If you are not a Donnie girl and he gave you a bracelet anyway, you need to recoup your losses somehow. lol

Jordan’s Stretchify was a more relaxed affair but essentially we are all going to the Lido deck to watch a guy wriggle his butt around a bit whilst listening to his latest album!  Whilst there was no kung fu fighting in JK’s Yoga den, there was the hideous sight of a chick having her period whilst stretching out in her bikini and NOT wanting to lose her spot so badly that she just let it all go in front of everyone!!! For real, WTF? She didn’t even bother to quickly fashion her towel into a fetching sarong to cover it up. That incident combined with the girls who relieved themselves on the Lido Deck is enough of an indication to me that some people have lost their god damn minds. Even if Jordan was laying in front of me stark, bollock naked, with a semi, singing IBLYF whilst inviting me to ‘Jump on’ there is no god damn way I would be going anywhere other than the nearest bathroom. I hope NK seriously consider putting Depends and tampons in the goody bags this year.

VIP

People constantly want to know what the deal is with VIP on the cruise and how you get up there. It’s quite simple. You got regular VIP and elite VIP. You need a VIP bracelet to get into regular VIP. These can be obtained in one of the following ways:

Just be really hot

Being hot and brunette increases your chances 3 fold.

Being hot, latina and slightly chunky in the ass area increases your chances 10 fold with 3/5 of the New Kids.

If you are blonde, be really blonde and hang round Joe like a lost Golden Retriever.

If you are not hot, hang out with hot people.

Suck up to the people who were up there last year

Raise a million dollars for Komen and make sure Danny knows about it

Be really rich. This means that fans that have ‘ins’ will wanna hang out with you.

Win some beach games. Offer to hold the limbo pole. Provide emergency medical assistance to an NK member suffering from heat stroke.

Do so many Ultimates and 5 stars that even the NK’s forget that you are not actually in the band.

Suck up to Johnny and get your name on his swanky iPad list.

Find Donnie and tell him that your dog died. He’ll give you a sympathy pass.

Elite VIP

Invite by the band only

Generally reserved for people they know aren’t gonna act all crazy, take a gazillion photos and generally be a big ole hot mess when in close proximity to a New Kid.

Things that won’t get you into VIP

Blowing a member of the NK entourage. This may get you into regular VIP but not Elite.

Blowing a member of Rose Tours security.

Flashing your breasts (debatable)

Grinding against a pole.

Kidnapping lumpy.

At the end of the day, this is a tongue in cheek look at the cruise. Essentially, we all love it and if it wasn’t for crazy people doing crazy things, we would have nothing to talk about it! So my friends, good luck tomorrow. I hope you get the cabin you are after. If you could all hold off booking until I’ve got mine, that would be awesome. See ya on the boat.

LETS SAIL THIS!!! NKOTB CRUISE 2012!!!!