The Results are Less than Hairy

The Hairy Chest Contest was not quite what I expected. Based on the name, I expected that it would be a contest in which the person with the hairiest chest would be declared a victor. Does that not sound like a reasonable expectation? Of course, what I was led to believe and what the Hairy Chest Contest actually was were two different things. Not terrible, but strange. Most annoying, though, is that contestants did not face the audience, making photography a bit tricky.

Things seemed odd when Ricky the Cruise Director (below) called for contestants and their wives or girlfriends. (Sorry, Scott #1 – it seems that this was a hetero Hairy Chest Contest, which is probably why it was not as good as it should have been.)

It seems that Hairy Chest Contests on the Norwegian Dawn are not about who has the hairiest chest, but about whose wife/girlfriend can identify him by blindly rubbing said hairy chest. To that end, as depicted below, the women were lined up and blindfolded. They were then guided down a gauntlet of men, whose chests they rubbed. Once a woman thought she felt up her husband, she said so and was placed across from him.

You’ll be thrilled to know that all the women correctly identified their guys, thus no men were eliminated in the first round. The second round commenced. Men were told to make Tarzan whoops into Ricky’s microphone and dance like a caveman. The audience then cheered for the “manliest,” who was then declared the winner of the Hairy Chest Contest. This method actually produced a victor who in fact, had the least hairy chest of all the contestants. He is on the far right with the goatee facing the camera. (He did have the hairiest face of all of the contestants, but this was not a Hairiest Face Contest.)

That, my friends, was sadly one of the highlights of the entertainment offered by the ship.