After December 1, 2008, you may book your airfare with promotion code A1520AA at AA.com or call 1.800.433.1790 from anywhere in the United States or Canada.

International guests, please call your local American Airlines reservations number and refer to STARfile A1520AA.

Please be advised that there’s a separate $20 USD ticketing charge per ticket for phone purchases or $30 USD ticketing charge per ticket for purchases at the airport (subject to change).

pricing | ship | ports | fun | excursions | extra | overview

Join us for seven sun and fun-filled days in the Western Caribbean, November 8-15, 2009.

Our journey starts in New Orleans, where we’ll light up Bourbon Street with a huge party to launch our first cruise the night before we leave. Additionally, we’ll offer a three-day pre-package that offers guests the opportunity to pitch in with the Katrina relief effort by day and enjoy New Orleans’ legendary clubs by night.

From New Orleans we chart a course for the sunny, sleepy (until we get there) fishing village of Costa Maya, Mexico. Designed for cruise travelers bent on relaxation, Costa Maya has a hammock with your name on it as well as a gigantic saltwater pool with a swim-up bar.

Mayan ruins, colonial buildings and wildlife sanctuaries await in bustling Belize City, Belize.

We’ll spend an entire day in Roatan, Honduras, where the beach is plentiful, the water is clear and the coral reefs are full of amazing creatures. Roatan is one of the best places in the world to scuba dive and snorkel. Not a big fan of getting wet, explore the depths in a submersible boat.

Mmm, Cozumel, where the jungle hides ancient ruins and mystical cave formations draw travelers to Chac Tun Cavern. Whether you want to relax on the white sand beaches, enjoy a catamaran party cruise or peer at the brightly colored fishes from on top of the water or underwater, you’re sure to have a blast.

pricing | ship | ports | fun | excursions | extra | overview

pricing | ship | ports | fun | excursions | extra | overview

NEW ORLEANS PRE-CRUISE PACKAGE
November 5-8, 2009

Join Sweet on our three-day pre-package where we’ll enjoy the French Quarter at the Hotel Monteleone, a gay and lesbian history tour, a French Quarter tour, a cooking demonstration (followed by lunch), exclusive Sweet party and wetlands restoration project to protect the city from future flooding.

Located on the world famous Royal Street, the four diamond Hotel Monteleone is a beautiful and historic hotel. It’s a block from the sights and sounds of legendary Bourbon Street. Because we’ll be located in the heart of the French Quarter, you have easy access to charming antique shops, one-of-a-kind galleries and lively jazz clubs. There are many great things to see and do within walking distance. Take a stroll along the Mississippi River, win big at Harrah’s Casino or enjoy the delectable New Orleans cuisine at nearby restaurants.

For our volunteer project in New Orleans, we will be taking part in a replanting project with Bayou Rebirth. We will spend about four hours out in the bayou, replanting various plants and learning about this fragile ecosystem.

The top floor of the Hotel Monteleone is host to our exclusive Sweet party. We will be able to take in the amazing sites surrounding the hotel, such as the Mississippi River and the French Quarter while enjoying a slide show from our volunteer project in bayou, tasty hors d’oeuvres and hosted drinks.

One of our days in New Orleans will be dedicated to a walking tour in the French Quarter and nearby cemetery. We’ll see and learn about such landmarks as the historic French Market, the country’s oldest open-air market; St. Louis Cathedral, the country’s oldest basilica; and a gay and lesbian tour of the French Quarter. We will end our tour with Cooking Creole, where you will get a cooking demonstration of such New Orleans staples as jambalaya and bread pudding. It doesn’t stop there: We’ll be treated to these delicacies after the demonstration and get to try the local Abita Beer. We will even get recipes to take home and try ourselves.

Included
• Three nights at the Hotel Monteleone (November 5-8, 2009)
• Breakfast every morning in hotel restaurant
• Tour of the French Quarter with lesbian and gay highlights and history
• New Orleans Cemetery tour
• Cooking demo with lunch
• Exclusive Sweet party with hors d’oeuvres and drinks
• Volunteer project: Replanting the wetlands with presentation on the importance of wetlands, project educators, plants, equipment, boots, lunch, drinking water and roundtrip transportation.
• Hotel taxes
• All carbon offset with CarbonFund.org

Not included
• Airfare to New Orleans
• Transfer from airport to hotel
• Meals and drinks not listed above
• Incidentals at hotel
• Gratuities for tour guides on French Quarter tour
• Transfer from hotel to port terminal on November 8, 2009

Price
$669 per person based on double occupancy

$999 per person based on single occupancy

A LA CARTE HOTEL
November 6-7, 2009

Hotel Monteleone
214 Royal Street
New Orleans, LA

Price
$236.17 per room per night single/double occupancy

$264.42 per room per night triple occupancy

$293.67 per room per night quad occupancy

Included: All hotel taxes
Not included: Breakfast or incidentals

To reserve, call 504.523.3341 and reference “Sweet.”

Deadline for booking through hotel is October 6, 2009, or when all spaces are sold out.

MORE ABOUT BAYOU REBIRTH
Bayou Rebirth is a new program that has the mission of matching volunteers to wetlands restoration projects in the Southeast Louisiana. Healthy wetlands once surrounded the greater New Orleans area and protected it from hurricane storm surge, but various storms and human activities have led to their degradation and disappearance. The State of Louisiana and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, among others, are trying to address the rapid wetlands loss along the Louisiana coast through a number of programs, some of which call for planting wetlands plants in various locations. Bayou Rebirth uses a volunteer base for these programs as well as building capacity for restoring the National Wildlife Refuges near the city. In addition to instilling stewardship for their environmental resources, such plantings, it offers visitors from around the country an opportunity to see the beautiful ecosystem that is the Mississippi River delta.

pricing | ship | ports | fun | excursions | extra | overview

overview | pricing | packing list

Join Sweet for a six-day rafting adventure on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, August 16-21, 2009.

Get away from it all on the pristinely preserved Salmon River, where all motors are banned (that includes electric toothbrushes). We’ll wind our way down this gorgeous river in the second deepest canyon in the United States. Its remote location means it has been little changed by humans.

Read Flavia’s blog about her Salmon River experience.

Expert Leaders
Gifted Guides and members of the Sweet team will positively elevate your experience by being educators, companions and friends.

Boats and Rapids
The rapids are rated at 1 to 4 on a scale of 1 to 6. You’ll run these rapids with the aid of experienced, professional, licensed guides. In state-of-the-art whitewater rafts, you’ll run Velvet Falls, Pistol Creek, Haystack, Redside and Rubber rapids. Most guests ride in oar-powered, self-bailing rafts. For the more adventurous, there is a paddle boat, no experience needed, as your boatman steers at the stern while you and your new friends paddle. If water levels permit, you can try out the single or two-woman inflatable kayaks. There is also a large baggage boat called a sweep boat that runs ahead of our group to start putting up camp for when we arrive.

Hiking and Hot Springs
There is plenty of time and numerous opportunities to hike and visit hot springs during your trip. There are six hot springs to visit in the river corridor and we try to camp at or near at least one during the trip. The hot springs at Loon Creek developed by Chinese miners are amazing! Time and logistics permitting, we hike to waterfalls, scenic grottos, Indian paintings and old miners’ cabins in a given day. The Middle Fork Trail runs 80 miles along the Middle Fork, so there is always the option to hike along the river as well from any camp. Many of the hikes bring you to elevations high enough to see a stunning view of the river.

Fishing
The Middle Fork is a fisherman’s paradise. It’s a blue ribbon fishery and all fish are natives, like cutthroat trout, rainbow trout and dolly varden. Special fishing regulations protect the Middle Fork and help restore the fish population. They practice catch-and-release fishing with no live bait and single barbless hooks. An Idaho fishing license is a necessity and can be acquired in Stanley prior to our departure.

Camping
This is by far one of the best parts of the trip, especially falling to sleep by the sound of the river. Camp on the beach or under a ponderosa. In the evening, we set up camp and have chairs to relax in by the campfire. We bring along a wilderness toilet, which goes somewhere private (usually with stunning views).

Food
There will be healthy and delicious meals, accompanied by lots of salads, fresh fruits and vegetables. From breakfast to dinner, you are sure to be impressed by the quality and variety of food options. Organic produce and products are used as available in central Idaho. Our goal is to eat healthy meals so that you feel good and refreshed with lots of energy for fun in this remote wilderness. Vegetarians and vegans are welcome. Please be sure to specify any specific dietary needs to your sales representative.

Environmental Awareness
A No Trace Policy is followed throughout the trip. It is a national program that asks all users to pack out what they pack in, leave places cleaner than they found them and leave natural and cultural resources intact. This is our way to join together to maintain and protect beautiful, fragile public lands.

overview | pricing | packing list

overview | itinerary | pricing | pack | read | faq

Kenya is synonymous with African safaris. It’s where safaris were born. Join Sweet for 10 days of wonder in Kenya as we experience the magnificent diversity of the wildlife and landscape, February 7-16, 2010.

We start our expedition in Nairobi, Kenya’s largest city and capital. Here, we will meet some of the wildlife we hope to see out in the bush. We’ll ohh and ahh at the baby elephants at Daphne Sheldrick’s Elephant Orphanage and crane our necks to see the towering inhabitants of the Giraffe Center. Additionally, we will go to the Karen Blixen Museum, made famous by the Oscar-winning film “Out of Africa.” Another important stop on our list is the St. Lazarus Community School, where we will donate school supplies, meet the students and learn about the impact of education in this community.

From Nairobi, we make our way to Amboseli, where we enjoy our first of many game drives. By day, we’ll enjoy amazing animal viewings against the backdrop of the breathtaking Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in the world.

The spectacular snow-capped peaks of Mount Kenya tower over the lush and golden plains of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy at our next camp, Sweetwaters. This camp boasts a private watering hole and saltlick for prime, up-close wildlife viewing. Adopt a chimpanzee when we visit Sweetwaters’ Chimpanzee Sanctuary, which contributes to the chimp’s feeding, housing and daily care.

The world famous Masai Mara, known for its lions and abundant wildlife, is our next stop. In between our thrilling game drives, you may want to change your wildlife vantage point by going on a hot air balloon ride over the breathtaking game reserve or just take in the sites and sounds around camp.

No matter what you choose to do, you are sure to have unforgettable time on this trip of a lifetime!

overview | itinerary | pricing | pack | read | faq

Sweet founding partner Jen Rainin and chief executive officer Shannon Wentworth share Sweet’s focus on ecotourism, voluntourism and going CarbonFree™.

Now, protecting the environment and human rights is a leisure activity. That’s Sweet.

Watch our short video on how Sweet is making the world a better place while having a blast.

Sweet wishes you and yours a warm, healthy and happy holiday season.

With much love,
Shannon, Jen, Nicoll, Flavia, Jenn, Francesca, Andy, Reggie and Tanner

Denise and Donna of MyLesbianRadio.com have invited Sweet CEO Shannon Wentworth into The Lesbian Lounge, Wednesday, Dec. 17, at 6.30pm pacific / 9.30pm eastern, to grill her on everything from lesbian cruises to single lesbians at sea. Oh, and it’s a call in show, so you can ask her questions live on the air. All you have to do is dial 866.530.4475.

The Lesbian Lounge airs every Wednesday from 9-11pm eastern. It replays Sundays at noon. Or make it easy on yourself and sign up for the podcast at MylesbianRadio.com.

We were joined by Ed Salvato of Out Traveler and John Polly from MTV / LOGO for our crack of dawn chat. Please enjoy our conversation about the lesbian and gay community’s role in voluntourism. Be warned, I’m not a morning person.

Sunrise chat with David Clemmons

Learn more about David’s incredible work.