OK, Carol, I'll try a few quick words. I discovered nude cruising and sailing about the same time I discovered nude resorts about ten years ago. Although I've settled down into two nude resorts in CA, I've made a point of taking one nude cruise a year--initially on the Windjammer's Yankee Clipper, and after their demise on one of Bare Necessities Cruises, of which this Royal Clipper trip was one. Though I occasionally take one of the 'big boat' cruises (the Alaska one was notable), my preference, for a number of reasons, is to go on the sailing ships. The Royal Clipper is the largest sailing ship on the planet--five masts and a passenger capacity of 227. There are two other ships in the Star Clipper fleet--the Star Flyer & Star Clipper which BN also uses (the Tahiti/Cook Islands tour in 2008 was fabulous). This particular trip was 11 nights out of Civitavechhia (Rome) and ended in Venice. The itinerary was Capri, Amalfi, two ports in Sicily (Taormina & Siracusa), Kotor in Montenegro, 3 ports in Croatia (Dubrovnik, Split & Rovinj), Ravenna and then Venice.
I'll skip the detailed review of the ports, but each contained sites of historical significance that I've always wanted to visit.
The ship as expected was incredible...the service was good...and the food, not surprisingly, the biggest threat to one's waistline. One interesting tidbit about the sailing ship cruises is the extremely high percentage of repeat customers--80% of the passengers on this cruise were repeat customers. One always ends up renewing old friendships and forming new ones.
On the Med cruises, with the exception of a day at sea, one spends (if one chooses) part of each day off ship exploring that day's destination; in contrast, going back to the old Yankee Clipper days, the highlight of each day was choosing which beach to be naked on. Nudity is possible most of the time on ship...only when at a dock, or when local officials are on board is some coverup required...even then, it's a bit loose depending on which part of the ship you're on. A great advantage of the sailing ships is that they typically drop anchor off shore, thus obviating the need to be clothed. The only other requirement is that some sort of coverup is required in the dining room--'tho that can be pretty interesting at times too. The dates for this particular cruise were June 25-July 6. Bare Necessities usually has about 4 cruises per year (no, I have no connection of any sort to them other than as an occasional passenger). I might also add in passing that Croatia (where we had 3 stops) is a very nudist friendly country with a gorgeous coastline and a number of nudist resorts, particularly on the Istrian Peninsula. I stayed at one (Koversada) in 2002 and had a wonderful experience--at the time no other Americans were there...I suspect that has changed by now. There's something about being on the water under sails that is completely relaxing...