On Celebrity’s ‘Top Chef’ cruise, food and fun are on the menu

Food- and TV-related cruise options

The object of our attention is a chef, Richard Blais, who wouldn’t be drawing such notice except for the fact that he won Season 8 of the Bravo TV show “Top Chef,” of which this entire ship is something of a spinoff. Yes, this is “Top Chef: The Cruise.”

I decline Rose’s offer, but she’s not having it. “No! Go! That’s what you’re here for!” I demur again. She insists again. “Look, no one back home will believe you if you don’t have a picture!”

Fearing that her pushing might get physical, I tell her that I’m on this cruise as a journalist, that I’ve met Blais a few times and that I’m more interested in hearing why she’s here than in acting on any fanboy tendencies of my own. Finally, she relents.

But Rose’s vehemence makes it clear how intensely she feels about Blais — and the show. And it’s reactions like hers that explain why “Top Chef: The Cruise” drew a sold-out crowd for its voyage from Miami to Cozumel and back in the spring. Rose and her fellow fans jumped at the chance to get up close and personal with some of their favorite reality-show stars — or at least as up close and personal as you can get when 2,000 people are trying to do the same thing.

It makes a lot of sense: Cruise ships are fishbowls anyway, floating hotels that devotees love and critics hate for some of the same reasons. (Pro: You don’t have to leave the boat! Con: You can’t leave the boat!) So you may as well bide your time with others who share at least one of your interests. Standing in line for dinner or a safety drill or a shore excursion, all you have to do to strike up a conversation is ask, “Which season was your favorite?”

“I was all about Seasons 7, 8 and 9,” Rose says when I ask her. “Season 10? Well, not so much.”

It turns out that Rose and her husband “are not very into cruises,” she confesses. “But as soon as we saw it on TV, I bought it right away. I didn’t even hesitate.” And therein lies the other marketing genius of themed cruises: They draw people who are more into the theme than into cruising, getting people onto the boat who otherwise would never be there.

Bonding with Blais

But what does jogging have to do with “Top Chef,” you wonder? Blais’s run was part of the cruise’s attempt to put the cheftestants in situations where they could display “hidden talents” and bond with passengers over something that doesn’t involve cooking. (Though there was plenty of that, too.)

Among other things, that means that Blais takes a group for a jog, Washington chef Spike Mendelsohn (Seasons 4 and 8) challenges passengers to Ping-Pong, Mike Isabella (Seasons 6 and 8) holds court at a poker table, Tiffany Derry (Seasons 7 and 8) plays beach volleyball after a cooking demo in Cozumel, and head judge Tom Colicchio straps on his guitar and plays a bluesy set with his favorite band.