Holiday Special: Music Cruises & Broadway Adventures, LGBTQ+ Travel, with Singer Bill Spera--Episode 140
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Episode 140: The Ageless Traveler: Adventure and Wellness for the 60+ Traveler
What can a travel-themed cabaret reveal about the journeys we take and the ones that happen within us? I interview Bill Spera, cabaret artist, raconteur, and Santa Claus at the Boston Pops, on this holiday season show. Bill has created a rare cabaret on travel and its arc from wanderlust to finding home.
You’ll hear about the recent unforgettable solar eclipse at sea, favorite live-music venues you can visit, and the realities of LGBTQ+ travel. I get personal with a true stage performer, and dish about everything from LGBTQ+ travel to why shows on cruise ships can be iffy in quality. THIS IS THE INTIMATE CONVERSATION YOU WANT TO SIT BACK AND ENJOY.
In this entertaining episode, discover:
Music, Broadway & Cabaret: Explore the magic of live performances, intimate cabaret venues, Broadway favorites, and the extraordinary experience of singing with the Boston Pops.
LGBTQ+ Travel Adventures: Discover LGBTQ+ themed cruises, Bear cruises, musical travel experiences, and the pleasure of traveling with like-minded people. Bill shares thoughtful perspectives on feeling comfortable, finding community, and navigating destinations where LGBTQ+ travelers may face challenges.
Cruising for Every Interest: From Mediterranean voyages and solar eclipses at sea to Broadway-themed cruises, learn why cruising offers flexibility, entertainment, and unforgettable experiences.
Where to Find Extraordinary Music: Bill shares favorite musical venues in Boston, New York, and Palm Springs, including cabaret, jazz, and live performances that make travel even more memorable.
Travel as Inspiration: Hear how journeys, friendships, music, and meaningful experiences inspire us to keep exploring and embrace life's possibilities.
And yes, you'll discover how Bill became Santa Claus for the Boston Pops!
Whether you love Broadway, LGBTQ+ travel, cruising, cabaret, or simply believe that life should be filled with adventure, this episode will inspire you to get out there and experience something wonderful.
Resources:
Bill’s Website:
Bill’s Music Venues:
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Transcript:
Adriane Berg: hello, hello, hello. This is Adriane Berg, and this is the Ageless Traveler. And you all know that around this holiday season, I particularly love to have performers for you to meet. And now I have one that is not only a great performer, a wonderful singer, loves to travel, has traveled. But you won't believe this. You can't make this stuff up. He is Santa Claus. Oh, yes, he is. We will be talking about that. And. And for my wonderful, loyal gay listeners, he is also loud, proud and gay. And we're going to be talking about some gay travel. Where to go, where to feel comfortable, where to have the best fun. And for my music lovers like me, you're going to hear the stories of a real performer and how you, yes, you as the audience, can help him. So here we go with Bill Spera. I am so thrilled to speak to you today, Bill. Thank you for being with us.
Bill Spera: Good afternoon, Adriane. How you doing?
Adriane Berg: We're doing great. And, of course, I gave that little, tip there. We're going to talk to you about being Santa Claus. We're going to jump right in for this holiday season. Explain that. That's something that you do in Boston, as I understand.
Bill Spera: So, yeah, that started up about four years ago with the Boston Pops. I had done a show with them. They did a symphonic concert
Bill Spera: version of Ragtime. So I got to meet some of the people at the Boston Pops, and then they called me that fall, said, hey, would you ever be interested in doing Santa? And I'm like, sure, why not? So it's been a lot of fun. It's, you know, they have multiple Santas, so we kind of take different gigs. It was great. Santa comes out in the second half during the Holiday Pops concert, interacts a bit with Keith Lockhart. Sometimes it's just a skit. It could be about the trouble with understanding Gen Z. Language was kind of one of the themes of one year and then another year. It was a song about Santa. So it changes every year. But I've been doing it. This'll be my fourth year doing it with the Boss. So I go back every December, and they have a bunch of gigs. I do a lot of the cities around Boston. So there's Lowell, Providence. Like, we have two shows in Providence, Rhode island, this year, and then Worcester, which is about 45 minutes from Boston. And, I've done Symphony hall as well. That's not on, this year's calendar, but it's. It's a lot of fun. Every year, it's a lot of fun. So.
Adriane Berg: And of course, you know, in our show notes, as I told you, we're going to have the different gigs that you've got coming up all over the country, really. And we will also tell you that he's not from Boston. He's from my hometown. Right. Of Palm Springs. Now, I gotta ask you a couple of Santa questions. Number one, do you get dressed up in the traditional costume? Because you've already have a beard, but did it give you another beard? What's the.
Bill Spera: Yeah, they do give me another beard because it's gotta be like, you know, down to my chest to be a true Santa outfit. So, yeah, I have a beard. Yeah. The full get up. I come from the back of the audience. I make my way. I high five the audience members, make my way to the stage, and then do my little skit with or song with Keith Lockhart. And then it's ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas, and I'm off. So it's.
Adriane Berg: So let's start the show. Give us a ho, ho, ho. I want to hear the Bill Spera. Ho, ho, ho.
Bill Spera: ho, ho, ho. How are you all doing today? Merry Christmas from the Boston Pops.
Adriane Berg: Great. All right, now let's go to real Bill Spera, not Santa Spera. So you got started a while ago in the world of singing. How did that happen?
Bill Spera: Yeah, I mean, I was always in choruses in high school and college. And then I. I got my undergrad degree in marketing, and I thought, oh, a good, sensible business degree. And I moved out to Boston. But I was still studying voice out in Boston with actually faculty from the New England Conservatory. And I dabbled a bit in opera and opera scenes with that teacher for a while. But then I realized that I really kind of liked musical theater more. So I began to do a lot of theatrical productions, musicals in the area with community theaters, etc. And then it actually kind of happened. By happenstance, back in 2010, there's a local LGBTQ restaurant, bar in Boston called Club Cafe, which has been there since 1983. And they featured singers every week. and I had approached them because I was with doing the Boston Gay Men's Chorus at the time, and they said we need more singers, and you have a great voice, and we'd love for you to come sing here regularly. So I started doing that back in 2010 and was there pretty much every month. I brought in one of my good friends, Katie Connor, who has a phenomenal voice, and she and I were doing, cabaret duets at Club Cafe for like, 14 years before we moved out here to Palm Springs in 2024.
Adriane Berg: Well, you know, one of the things that I've seen you on YouTube and of course I've seen you live as well. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But on YouTube, I see you do a lot of Disney speaking of the holiday season, and you're putting on your costumes again, big costume. You do that. How does that feel? Because you're not really Bill Spera. You're also acting at the same time.
Bill Spera: Right? I think that's important because a lot of the times, if you're just doing like, we do, sing alongs at the cabaret kind of thing. So there's a difference between if it's just like, a show tunes night and everybody's kind of involved in singing versus if you're doing a cabaret where you're sort of telling a story. And for the most part, when you're doing that, you're kind of trying to be yourself and leaning into a song and. But still being the character, so to speak, within the song, singing about whatever the emotion is that you're singing about. But in other cases, if you're just doing like a showcase of Broadway tunes, you want to try to become the other character that's in that song specifically. So that's kind of how I do that for that. The video I think you're referencing was the, that was with the Boston Gaming's Chorus, and we had an orchestra and we did it at Symphony hall in Boston. That was their Disney Pride concert. And I was Ursula from the Little Mermaid. So I got to do that fun song on stage, which was a blast, actually.
Adriane Berg: I know he was the biggest octopus I've ever seen. It was really, really quite something. I love to go down in New York. We're going to talk about different venues, places where you can hear cabaret and anyone can hear cabaret. I like to go down to the Beekman, which is, you know, really in the middle of the Broadway area. And they do a lot of Disney. They do the Disney villains and villainesses and so on. It's very clear that this is singers, but also actors. So, let's go back to Your background?
Bill Spera: I did acting, yeah, acting workshops in Boston when I first moved there over like a three year period. And then I'd been actually coaching with individual acting coaches over time in the interim. So that's kind of where I got my acting background. And obviously just being in musicals and plays, you you obviously have to become a character. So that's my experience with acting. So I do try to bring that into every song I'm singing. Even if it's just me singing about myself, there's still. You want to convey the person, if it's. Whether it's me or if it's a different character, what the emotions are that they're feeling.
Adriane Berg: So before we go on, I want to tell you that this is a travel show. And one of the things we've been doing is showing people where they can get really extraordinary music in an intimate setting. Now, one of those is actually our own Palm Springs Cultural center where I saw you live at a beautiful concert. But what really attracted me, as you know, is that the entire concert was about your travels and other people's travels. And it was all songs, all great songs about travel. So what inspired you to create a travel show?
Bill Spera: I would say I had to come up with a theme for this year's show. And we had just gotten back from my husband Joe, and I just had gotten back from a cruise along the Croatian coast and another cruise out of Barcelona to see the total eclipse of the sun. And I was like, why not just do a show about traveling? And the more I thought about it, I was like, this is a great theme because obviously there's literal travel where you're going from one destination to another, but then journeys could be both internal and external. So it seemed like a great theme to work with for the show. So I kind of built an arc. When do we first get the desire to travel? And usually we learn about other places when we're small. So I sing some songs like Downtown and Moon river, which kind of really, as a kid were like, where are these places and how do I get there? And then kind of as you grow up and you. You have this urge to travel or go somewhere, what finally gets you going or pushes you or you get enough courage to actually go out there and do it? And then I think you're on the road. There's a bunch of road songs. So I pulled in songs like King of the road and Route 66 just to kind of exemplify the adventures that people have just traveling from one place to another. And then things that happen to you along the way. You know, I kind of worked in travel. Buddy of mine, Rhonda, who I used to travel with in the 90s and early 2000s, and then she sadly passed away in 2008. So there's some great songs just about that type of journey. So a little more, metaphorical as opposed to a literal journey. But. But then I think, you know, I wanted to end the show with, we travel all over the world. We see all these places, we experience all these things, but I think it just gives us a greater appreciation when we do come back home. So I did end the show with the song Home from the Wiz. And just. I think that was a good way to tie the whole story together. But then, you know, I wanted to just say, once you're home for a while, it's great, but you really want to get back out there into the world. So we did a song called the New World from Songs from a New World with the whole group of singers that I had assembled for the show. And then we did a song from Rent to just sort of a Seize the Day. This is Now. Do It Now.
Adriane Berg: I go on a lot of cruise ships and I speak a lot. And I think that. What I think I'm talking about is geroscience and the science of aging and how travel makes us younger cognitively and physically. That's what I think I'm talking about.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: But at the end, everybody comes up and says, I took the picture of your slide of Mark Twain saying, do what you want to do now. And it turns out to be, what they're hearing is inSperation.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: And, very similar to what you did, because, yes, it's a cabaret. Had some great singers, great songs, wonderful. Beautiful. By the way, I loved all the videos behind and all this, but really what it was is motivational inSperation.
Bill Spera: Right. At
Adriane Berg: the end of the day, these folks might think, gee, I can. I could go. I could go too, but I need to get back to the eclipse.
Bill Spera: Oh, yeah.
Adriane Berg: Tell us a little bit about that experience as a travel experience.
Bill Spera: Oh, that was wonderful. That was on Virgin Cruises and it left out of Barcelona, and it did several islands in the. Along the Spanish coast. But the total eclipse of the sun was at 8pm off the coast of Ibiza. And the captain of the ship sort of aligned the boat so everybody could be on one side of the ship looking at the eclipse. And they had an astral photographer on board who was taking pictures that we got to later see in one of the sessions that they sponsored on the ship, they had an astrophysicist there lecturing about what happens during a total, eclipse of the sun. So it was a great experience, but seeing the eclipse itself was just amazing. Obviously, you don't get to see those every day. So it was beautiful in and of itself. But what was even more cool was, you know, it was almost sunset. And so as the eclipse was sort of waning, you got this. It was like a shark fin of the sun over the ocean. It was really incredible. I'd never seen anything like that. And so then the sun and the moon set beyond the horizon that way. So that was the last thing you saw, was this orange shark fin setting in water. So that was amazing.
Adriane Berg: Yeah, because we always talk about one of the problems with travel, as we are veteran travelers, is that we get burnout. Where do you go next? I mean, how many meals can you have in Paris? A lot. But, you know, there are other places. So what you're talking about, we call experiential travel.
Bill Spera: Right?
Adriane Berg: You went and you experienced that, and it will last you all your life. And that's like the aurora borealis, you know, in Iceland is that sort of thing. You have a lot of those experiences in. In Alaska and Africa.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: Close to bears, or you're close to gorillas. And these are the experiences that you can never take off your bucket list. There are always more and more of those. And you really created the scene for us.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: Very beautifully. So we come back. I'm going to ask you to create a few more scenes of places you've loved to travel. We'll talk a little bit about LGBT travel in and of itself.
Bill Spera: Okay.
Adriane Berg: But also where you've had to travel because of your work, that you suggest people to go just to hear great music. So don't you guys go anywhere. We'll be right back.
Bill Spera: Life down a hole takes an awful toll. But with not a soul
Bill Spera: there to share with Curry, it's lovely up here
Adriane Berg: to become and stay an ageless traveler. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter, Travel Tuesday. Just visit agelesstraveler.com Click subscribe and enter your name and email for a surprise gift. What's the surprise? Well, if I tell you it's not a surprise, what I can say is that Travel Tuesday tackles travel barriers like money, health, companionship, and even travel burnout and gives you a taste of what our blog and podcast have to offer every single week, helping you explore the world effortlessly. And now we're back. And we're back with Bill Spera, and he is I don't know. What is a male chanteuse?
Bill Spera: A devo? I don't know.
Adriane Berg: Okay. We'll be a devo
Bill Spera: called Il Devo, which is four men. I think it was a, kind of a take on divas. So Il Divo is sort of the male version of a, diva.
Adriane Berg: I just came back from Cunard Lines and they have the evening performers. They had a group called the Company of Men, and it was four wonderful, wonderful singers and it was just great. But then they came down to this beautiful dance floor. And you should see all the single women, even women who weren't single got up there by themselves just to pretend to be single for a little while. That's what music does.
Bill Spera: I know. It gets you energized, gets you going. Yeah.
Adriane Berg: I was dancing with people I could never even think I would meet. And now here we are, actually eye to eye. Beautiful. So in terms of your travels as a performer, first, where are some of the venues? I love a jazz. I, just came back from Miami. I love ball and chain.
Bill Spera: Yeah.
Adriane Berg: But singing cabaret, there's not enough of it. So. So where would you go or have God as a performer?
Bill Spera: Well, it's, you know, here in Palm Springs, there's places like the Roost that have open mic on Monday nights. That's kind of where I first came. When I came out here two years ago, I was just like, I wanted to get a lay of the land and kind of see who the singers were and who the pianists are in the area. So that was a great place to go. And it, you know, it's free on Monday nights to go over there and just listen to people get up and sing yourself. So that was kind of great just to kind of get a lay of the land. In Boston, obviously, Club Cafe has cabaret every night and you don't need to pay for a ticket. You just reserve a table or reserve a seat and you can hear whoever they have playing that night. And there's a ton of places around here as well in Palm Springs that are similar. I think Gertie's Salon and Bar has live music Wednesday through Sundays. And actually I'm going to be singing there end of the month, so that's exciting.
Adriane Berg: We have a wine bar, of course. We have our own cultural center that has somewhat. Every night. We're the only place where a concert starts at 4:30 in the afternoon. No, not a joke. I went to see an Alien Rhymes concert and it said my tickets at 4:30. I said, it's not possible. It's got to be 9:30. It was 4:30. I was in Palm Springs. Okay, so we go. We go back. How about you? Your favorite place that you've ever performed. And all the other places don't listen. So if you had one place you'd like to go over and over again.
Bill Spera: I mean, in terms of the experience, Symphony hall in Boston was just kind of amazing to sing there. I mean, that wasn't a cabaret show, but I got to sing there in the symphonic concert version of Ragtime and as Santa and doing that Ursula number with the Disney Pride concert. So that is a great, incredible venue. I mean, acoustically perfect. It's just. It's overwhelming when you're in there. You're like, I can't believe I'm singing in this hall.
Adriane Berg: I want to talk about the audience.
Bill Spera: Oh, yeah. Did the
Adriane Berg: audience make it a favorite venue, particularly? There is a different kind of audience.
Bill Spera: Yeah, those are bigger audiences. And they were very appreciative, especially for the Disney Pride concert. They were, like, cheering after every number, which was just amazing to be a part of that. And. And I would say also, you know, the Boston Gamins Chorus, when I sang with them, we did a tour of South Africa, which was amazing. And we sang at various smaller concert halls in different communities, including Soweto. And the audiences were like, they were so excited to have us and so welcoming. And every song we sang was just met with, like, standing ovations. I'm like, this is incredible. So those are, you know, audiences differ depending on where you go. Club cafe. If we're just there kind of on a piano bar night where we're just singing songs and songs, people are chatting during dinner, and some of them are listening to you occasionally. So it's not like a straightforward show, but you're still providing entertainment. Some of it might be background for some people. Some people might be fully paying attention to you. I think it depends on the venue and what the type of show is that you're doing. I've
Adriane Berg: had a wonderful time listening to
Adriane Berg: jazz and Sweater. For those who don't know, it's about an hour and a half from Johannesburg. It's in south, Africa. We have a wonderful podcast called Heroes Holidays. A woman named Lorene Keenan takes you all the way to Johannesburg, Sweden. All the places they tell you not to go, and they're the best places. Also, a lot of people don't know that the source of the Nile is not in Egypt. It's in Uganda.
Bill Spera: Wow.
Adriane Berg: And it's a big town, so it's a. It's a town like Siem Reap, where you might go to see Angkor Wat. Well, there's a really good town near the source of the Nile. And I wanted to hear jazz, and it was amazing. Fantastic jazz. But cabaret I love, too. Are there places you like to go to hear music?
Bill Spera: Well, in New York, we've been to the Duplex, which is a piano bar, and actually I sang there. It's just great to go there. There's a lot of people just listening to whoever's getting up to sing, and it's just kind of a nice venue. And then there's Don't Tell Mamas that does a lot of cabaret. A lot of the Broadway folks tend to go there.
Adriane Berg: That's on Restaurant Road. That's right in the heart of Broadway.
Bill Spera: Yeah, yeah. So those are the two places I can think of from New York. And then in Boston, besides Club Cafe, I was thinking of Scholars Jazz Club. I don't know if you've been there, but it's funny because it's in a Doubletree Hotel. But it's in Cambridge, across the river from Boston. But they have a lot of great music there that, very accessible. And I think a lot of restaurants here in Palm Springs in Boston and probably in New York as well, have a lot of live music that you can go to. There's a place called the Beehive in Boston, South End, that does jazz brunches. So it's great to kind of delve into those different venues and experience music.
Adriane Berg: And I'll just add on jazz. We've got la and we've got baked potatoes there, and we just went to a recent one in London. But la, of course, is a mecca still. The reason that Palm Springs is so rich in its culture, frankly. Other retirees who are great stars in la, you never know who's going to walk in,
Bill Spera: right.
Adriane Berg: Just sit down on a karaoke night. It could be just anybody. But there's, a lot. There's a lot there. Now, before we take our break, I have noticed because as a paying customer, I have been in a Broadway show. This is Hand to God. The people next to me not only took out their cell phone, but a pastrami sandwich.
Bill Spera: No,
Adriane Berg: not kidding. You the only. And I, I, I couldn't stop laughing. Aside from the aroma, they were definitely from another country. And I looked and I said, you, you went to juniors, didn't you? I said, did you have the cheesecake? Of course. I said it in intermission. But we really wanted to Say is, how dare you do this to me?
Bill Spera: It's interesting.
Adriane Berg: I mean, are we degenerating as an audience? M.
Bill Spera: I don't know. It's a good question. I think, for theater product, like big productions and shows, I think mostly the audience has been respectful and not on their phones. Obviously. There's always one person, and you hope the usher will go shut them down, like, please turn off that phone, which I've seen happen, which is great. So I think they're kind of enforcing that kind of thing, which is good. But it depends. I think, like, Boston and New York audiences are very theater savvy. It depends a lot on the venue, the audience, what the type of show is. Like I said, if it's just a piano bar, people are going to be chatting amongst themselves, your kind of background music, that kind of thing. And there'll be people on their phones the whole time. And some of them, including my friends, I'm like, did you enjoy the show? Oh, yeah, I was listening. I'm like, oh, good. Okay, good. But then other times, if it's more like this is a show, you tend to get more of the audience's direct attention, and I think they know that this is a show with an arc and a story, and the songs relate to the story. Audiences tend to more naturally pay attention that way. I don't know. But. But I do agree that it is frustrating when you run into that, and I hope it's not a continuing trend.
Adriane Berg: I've been thinking a lot about it, and I would say this. This is my personal conclusion. I don't think it's rudeness. It's treated as rudeness, but I think it's an addiction.
Bill Spera: Oh, yeah. Social media addiction. Yeah.
Adriane Berg: I think it's actually that. Because most people don't do it. Most people do not. Right. So there's, as you say, there's always one or two in the crowd. And what happens is they really can't stay away.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: And then it morphs into the people who would never do that feeling that they do have permission to do it because another guy did. Right. So what you're seeing now is not so much that everybody is doing it during the show, but they don't turn their phone off until the last second when somebody walks on the stage.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: Used to be you would put it in your pocket maybe 10 minutes before, wasn't even on your mind. Now you're on it waiting for the curtain to come up.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: And then you have to have that split second because. So I'm Just watching this behavior. Let's talk a little bit about lgbt. plus, let's talk about travel. Is it a problem?
Bill Spera: I think it's less so now. I think it's still nice to travel with a group of LGBTQ people just because you feel very relaxed, very at home. You have commonalities with these people. But, you know, we've done both. We've been on cruises where we just went alone or we went with some friends of ours. It's nice to have that option as an LGBTQ person. Also, I'm a member of the sub segment of the LGBTQ community called the Bears. So larger hairy men, basically, who like other larger hairy men. And there's actually a whole cruise industry aligned around that group. several different cruise companies that sort of cater to that population. And we've done a number of cruises to the Caribbean, to Alaska, to New England to Mexico with those types of groups, which have been a lot of fun.
Adriane Berg: I probably have never been on a cruise or even a group tour because I'm a walker, but so a lot of my tours are walking. I probably have never been on one where there wasn't at least one gay couple or gay individual. But just like anything else, it's affiliations.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: So what I think is happening, and I'm seeing it and people enjoy it, is they really are what you would call themed, themed shows, themed cruises, themed walking, themed sightseeing, particularly for the LGBTQ community. Bears, I never heard of. Till you.
Bill Spera: Yeah.
Adriane Berg: Then I went to all my. My gay friends and I said, what's a bear? And they said, wait a minute. The one with furs or the one with beards? So they. Everybody knew it was good. The second thing is solo. Solo and meet each other now. And generally, if you see those posters, they're very looking gorgeous. I mean, like to die gorgeous. Right. But I'm sure it's not always like that. And then you have music cruises for gay people. You have this. I just went on one niche cruise, nothing to do with gay. The Texas country music. Not country music.
Bill Spera: Oh, wow.
Adriane Berg: Only. And I didn't know Texas country music. It's very different,
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: And it's fantastic and very, very funny or heartbreaking. It's only funny or heartbreaking. These people know every word.
Bill Spera: Wow.
Adriane Berg: Every word of every song. So it's the same idea, right? Like minded people.
Bill Spera: Like minded people and that. You know, I've seen cruises for that are sort of Broadway cruises where they'll have a bunch of singers from Broadway that are going to be Featured throughout the cruise. Those are attract. We have not done one of those yet, but it's like, oh, that might be fun because you're with like minded people who love show tunes. So I think that would be a great experience.
Adriane Berg: I think Rudy. Rudy who comes to. Oh,
Bill Spera: Seth.
Adriane Berg: Yeah, Seth Ruditsky. He does sponsor some of those cruises. Those Broadway cruises.
Bill Spera: Exactly.
Adriane Berg: Those are very interesting niche cruises. Speaking, though, about the LGBTQ meeting. When you go on a cruise, is everybody. There's no heteros. How do they know? They ask you on a form.
Bill Spera: We just did this Croatian coastal cruise with a bear group and there were only 40 of us on the boat. It was a small yacht, basically, which was really nice. But then we've been on some of the larger cruises where there's only about two or three hundred bears and the rest of the 3,000 people are just regular people. So we've done both types of cruises and it's nice. It's funny, I remember back, we did our first one back in like 2010, and some of us bears were on an elevator and this woman was like, oh, are you guys brothers or, you work for the same insurance company? They thought, the name of the cruise was Chumley's Bear Cruises. And they, I think they were confusing with Chubb Insurance. So they're like, do you guys work for some insurance company? And we're like, no.
Adriane Berg: I do have to ask you a very serious question, though. And that is, are there any places that you still don't think are safe or that you personally or your husband personally would not go?
Bill Spera: I think Egypt is still. We'd love to go there. And, you know, I've heard of friends who've gone there. Not with a gay group, but with a larger group. So there's sort of anonymity in that. That still is a little worrisome to me. You know, when we were in South Africa with the Boston Games chorus, I think just generally they told us in Johannesburg, don't go out unless you're three or four people together kind of thing. But I didn't feel threatened in any way. And all the audiences that we experienced in South Africa were like, hugely welcoming and loving, which was great. But still, I think obviously Russia. I'd love to see St. Petersburg someday, but I don't think that's a great climate for gay folks right now. And Turkey has seemed to taken a few steps back. We did go to Ephesus on one cruise, which was fabulous, but that was about, 2006, so it seems like it's kind of slipped back in time a bit in terms of its conservatism versus then when we were there, we didn't feel uncomfortable at all. But now I think I would be a little wary. Especially because the Boston game of course went there on a tour that I didn't go on. But I heard that they were trying to get rid of the Gay Pride parade that was happening. And so they used tear gas to sort of end the Gay Pride parade, which I think there's some of that still. And you know, some countries are leaning a little more conservative these days. So there's still some concerns. I think there's some places that are sort of off limits right now. But maybe at some point in the future we'll get to go back there.
Adriane Berg: Well, with all the fun and games we have on the Age of Traveller, we still have a serious side and safety is one of the biggest. One of my most listened to broadcasts was with a woman named Carol Delinko
Bill Spera: who
Adriane Berg: spoke about safety for single women travelers. There's all kinds of safety. That's one kind. A solo woman or even a woman with a partner. There's the LGBT plus gay community. There is everybody who doesn't want to go to places in the world now.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: I mean people have. They shun Russia. I've been to Russia many times. Russia is my ancestral background. And now you have to think twice. Ukraine, certain parts of the Middle East. I have found my trips in the Middle east to be the most wonderful open people. Now there are places that we're told not to go.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: And rightly so. And rightly so. And just even what you just explained for your community are some of the things that you can do, the bigger mixed groups, the internal affiliations, the small groups where you're just all together and a watchful eye.
Bill Spera: Right. I would agree with that. Yeah. I think even in the places which were we were worried about initially just being with a group, a larger group where you could have more anonymity, or even with groups of our own people, safety in numbers is sort of how we felt and we got through it without incident, luckily. I think that's just something to bear in mind.
Adriane Berg: So we're going to go on to our last segment in a minute. But on the same idea of affinity, we are a 60 plus travel show. Right. So, what is the age range of the folks when you go on A one that is specifically for gay people or even for bears? What's that age range that you're finding?
Bill Spera: It's Like I would say 40 to 80. Ish. You know, we've seen all, all age ranges on those. On those ships it tends to be people who can afford vacations. So they're probably a little further into their careers than 20 somethings. So I don't see a lot of 20 somethings on those. I know there's the. Some of the bigger gay cruises are more party boat type people. So that attracts sort of the 20 and 30 something crowd, I think a bit more
Adriane Berg: like anything else.
Bill Spera: Yeah, exactly. but these that are more just dedicated to sightseeing and camaraderie, that kind of thing. It spans ages from like 40 to 80. Ah, I'm guessing.
Adriane Berg: So you said something that's very dear to my heart and I'm going to write it down. This is what he said. If you guys caught it. Oh, I would say 40 to 80. You know, all the age rangers. That's what we're all the age Rangers. 40 to 80. Okay guys, we're gonna take a little bit of a break and you notice we have some wonderful music being woven into this show. And guess who's singing? Yes, it is. Bill himself. Let's hear a little bit more of that right now and then we'll come back for our last segment. Don't you guys go anywhere.
Bill Spera: I don't want to go along with the crowd. I don't want to be life under a cloud Give me some air and space and the sun on my face I want to live out loud.
Adriane Berg: If you've been thinking about a cruise, I've definitely got you covered. With Cruises it now we have just become affiliated with them. And who are they? Well, Cruises it is the top agency for all the main cruise lines and some of the less known cruise lines as well. Cruises it has access to booking space that's been open years in advance so you can get the best cabins. That's just number one. But they also make the prices lower. The cruise lines give cruises at their own exclusive agency discounts. And if you're not from the cruise line, they have their own agency discounts that would apply as well. So you get both any discounts you would normally get on the cruise line plus additional discounts that are given exclusively to cruises. It because they bring in so much business on top of all those discount perks. When you book with them, you get the best rate guaranteed. And this is because cruise fare watch system takes place. Now what cruises it does is it tracks the pricing until the final payment date. So you keep in mind that to get the best rate guaranteed. You have to use my site. We have affiliated with them specifically. I sat down, I met with them in Tucson, Arizona. I met with Marianne Weather. We've now become good friends. She gave me a direct line. Not only a link, which you can certainly use right away, but if you have questions, even a specific phone number cruises, it offers this not just to anyone that is one of our followers, but if you have friends and family, you can bring them in too. So just take a look at the show notes and you will see our, dedicated phone line and our, dedicated link. Happy sailing.
Bill Spera: I want to tour the sky without after love I want to live I'm loud.
Adriane Berg: And now we're back with a real charmer, Bill Spera. Of course, he is a music man. Let us say he's a. A devo held devo, Male Chantus. We made that up for the moment. And of course, he's a world traveler. And the reason I was so attached to the idea of having him on the show was that the first time I saw him live, his actual show was all about. And he himself is a traveler. You do a lot of cruising?
Bill Spera: Yes.
Adriane Berg: What attracts you to cruising?
Bill Spera: I think they offer sort of flexibility in terms of how active or relaxed you want to be. So if you want, there's so many onboard activities for you to do. Karaoke, there's games, there's comedy shows, that kind of thing. So you can really, immerse yourself in that while you're at sea. And then I think it's nice because for the shore, the ports that you come to, you can do a shore excursion or you can stay on the boat if you want to, but there's a variety of stuff that you can choose in every port to see. So it kind of aligns with whatever you're most interested in. So I think I like that. And it's also nice just to not have to unpack every night in a new place because your stuff's right there. So, you know, I think I found one of the worst mistakes that we could make is sort of over scheduling ourselves. Like, we're going to do this today, this tomorrow. But, you know, I think the cruise gives you the opportunity to say, you know what, I'm just going to go sit on my balcony and look at the sea for the next three hours because I just need some alone time and recharge.
Adriane Berg: So, now again, we talk truth here.
Bill Spera: Yeah,
Adriane Berg: every night. I will never miss the show on a boat. I'm, the first one. I want to get a certain seat. Some of them are not good. Bill. My daughter says, I'll go to the opening of an envelope. So I like everything. You don't have to name the shade. What do you think about some of these?
Bill Spera: I think they run the gamut, as you said. Sometimes you're really surprised. yeah. I think we've seen some shows which I was like, is this really enough of a theme to tie the show together? Because it seems pretty weak. And the act, the singing or the acting is not always super duper. But then other times I'm kind of, wow. I'm like, wow, that's an amazing production that they did. I believe it actually was Holland America to do sort of a biographical show of how Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse met and the relationship they forged through choreography and singing through a bunch of Broadway shows. So it kind of was a retrospective of their career. I was like, wow, this is a great show. But then, you know, you have other shows which are like, this is some cruise ship years ago where they like the ghost light on stage and they come on stage and like, oh, I wonder what shows have been performed here? And that was sort of their excuse to tie together a bunch of.
Adriane Berg: I'm going to give a shout out. I have to give a shout out to Cunard, because I speak on Cunard, but I speak on other ships too. But I love the British sense of humor. So they always have the comedian I like. And this time it was off the charts. We did a transatlantic in September and they had the symphony orchestra.
Bill Spera: Wow.
Adriane Berg: The National. It was unbelievable. And they did a 911 tribute, memorial tribute.
Bill Spera: It
Adriane Berg: wasn't a dry eye in the house. Unbelievable. Even young people hadn't lived through that as we had.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: Got it this time they had got. Come from away, as you say. They got the rights. one hour and 45 minutes. Every word of the show.
Bill Spera: Yeah.
Adriane Berg: I could not believe those singers and dancers. How they were actors too,
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: I had seen it twice, once on Broadway, once on the Strand, and I'm not kidding, this was better.
Bill Spera: Wow.
Adriane Berg: So you can. You could really look out, suffer, but you could really look at. But I. Again, just to finish this conversation, because I've always loved to speak to performers. Look, you're professional. If I see lighting, I don't know if it's right or not. I don't even know about lighting me. Right. If I hear a wrong note, I don't even know it's a wrong note.
Bill Spera: Right.
Adriane Berg: But are you like one of those guys that Sit there like my daughter. She knows she's a casting director. They picked the wrong person. He's off key, you know, like, are you one of those annoying performers or are you accepting?
Bill Spera: I'm accepting. I'm pretty forgiving. Unless somebody's really the wrong casting or then I might say, I don't know if that was the best choice for that singer or you know, they couldn't reach the notes or whatever. So I might think that in my mind. But generally I'm pretty forgiving because I know how hard performers are working, you know, and this is their, their income basically. So they're trying to make a living. And so I'm very supportive, I try to be very supportive of other
Adriane Berg: so. And of course you're Santa Claus, so what could you do? You have to be a good guy. So we're going to leave our show today, with the music of Bill Spera. And you know what I'm going to tell everybody? I'm going to say please, please become one of our community. And that is the ageless traveler community, adventure and wellness 60 plus. All you have to do is go to agestraveler.com we have everything on our show notes right under where Bill is performing. You'll see that right on your page if you're on Apple, Spotify or ageistraveler.com and you can get our free newsletter. It's every Tuesday. It's called Travel Tuesday. It's too long, I know that. But I have a lot to tell you about each topic and of course free ebooks and most importantly our Facebook salon where you can meet like minded people who love to travel the way you do. And listen, give us a good rating on Spotify and Apple. I cannot tell you how much that means to us. Thank you so much. And never stop traveling. Thank you, Bill.
Bill Spera: Thank you, Adriane.
