Come and knock on our door, we’ve been waiting for you — if you’re ready to romp!
The newest cruise ship craze is Mrs. Roper Romp, a kooky get-together in which passengers dress up as the flamboyant “Three’s Company” character, complete with super-sized sunglasses, orange wigs, multicolored muumuus — and plenty of oversized jewelry.
Royal Caribbean, Holland America and Carnival Cruises are all sailing full steam ahead with the fad.
“It’s a lot of fun, and it’s turned into a phenomenon,” John Heald, brand ambassador for Carnival Cruise Line, told The Post.
Heald even embraced the mania in a playful Instagram post donning an orange wig, flowered frock, nautical knots of necklaces and a hilarious caption in which he jokes, “I’m sorry, but this Cruise phenomenon of dressing as Mrs. Roper is getting out of control and needs to be stopped now!!!”
The Mrs. Roper character, sexually frustrated with a sardonic wit, was part of the peculiar cast on the popular sitcom, which aired for eight seasons from 1977 to 1984 and starred Jack Ritter, a closeted heterosexual who pretended to be gay so he could stay with his two female roommates — played by Joyce DeWitt and Suzanne Somers.
Audra Lindley played Mrs. Roper and Norman Fell her hubby. Don Knotts later joined the wacky crew as Ralph Furley, the landlord who replaced Fell’s character when he and Lindley left for a spin-off.
Mrs. Roper was loud, proud and gloriously liberated. Decades after the first show docked in American living rooms, her look — and her wild, carefree spirit — resurfaced as a cult-favorite costume, beginning in the LGBTQ community.
Mrs. Roper Romps began in 2013, initially as a parade in New Orleans at the LGBTQ celebration known as Southern Decadence, according to NPR.
“New Orleans is where it occurred first and then San Diego,” confirmed Jen Lewis, one of the “founding Helens” of a Ypsilanti, Mich. romp. “We just got together and made it happen here.”
Cruises are the perfect harbor for this kind of wholesome nonsense. With work worries tossed overboard and the outside world left at the dock, passengers lean hard into fun: hiding rubber ducks, decorating cabin doors and forming roaming packs of matching outfits.
The Roper Romps are usually organized through social media groups before sailing, where cruisers plan bar crawls, deck walks, dance parties and photo ops that leave the ship awash in color.
“Just when you think you’ve seen everything on a cruise, this happens. Only on Carnival Radiance would over 100 Mrs. Ropers casually stroll by like it’s totally normal,” commented one passenger on a Facebook Cruise Addicts Group. “Cruise people are just built differently.”
Yes, and some brave souls even dress as Mr. Roper or Mr. Furley.
