Marc's Public Blog

Back to ASOT after 2 years, my last (and first one) was (ASOT 1000, read report here). After the last event, I wrote that I felt there was a a bit too much non trance, and while it was the first 2 day-ish event, it was weird, 6H + 9H with strange time offsets.
Well, they actually listened to that and made a proper 2x 9h event last year, but I missed it in favor of EDC Mexico that happened the same exact weekend.
So this year, I figured I'd come back to see the new format and 2 full days, just to be very disappointed when I found out that they had reverted back to the weird 6h + 9h schedule, and a lineup that clearly looked weaker compared to last year :( (fewer hours and I think fewer rooms).

Anyway, flights were booked by the time I found out about the limited hours and downgrade compared to last year, so I went to check it out again. The hightlight as always is to meet all the fellow trance lovers:

nice welcome at the train station

Instead of a long report, which I wrote anyway below, haha, I also had a bit of fun this year, and made this new style summary :)

Thoughts for this year

Security was nice and chill. They still looked but knew how to look. Every time I have to state that I'm thankful for this, and need to say a heartfelt thank you.

Cheap, maybe too cheap? (by that I mean, not enough hours, stages that felt a bit lesser, lineup that felt gutted compared to prior years). I would have paid more for a bigger/longer festival

Unfortunately the amount of hours and stages was a clear downgrade compared to last year

Too much techno and non trance for me. Some liked it, other pure trance lovers like me, did not. Not sure who is the biggest crowd of the 2 since you can't please both easily.

Started too late on day 2, maybe it was to give time to see afternoon talks, but those were not announced to ticket holders (maybe only hotel package people), so what's the point? I missed that all because I hadn't heard about it and was stupidly waiting for the day to pass and 21:00 to finally happen.

VIP and hotel package people were allowed in 30mn earlier, but it wasn't clear this would be true for the VIP folks (the official FAQ didn't say they would be), and hotel package people actually ended up in a longer line than VIP and some were pissed to have paid so much and then wait 45mn or more to get in. Apparently at least some of the hotel package hotels were not that great either. Honestly I was happy with the VIP weekend package

I found production value was good overall. It was not transmission good, but then again transmission is the best indoor show I have seen in the world, so nothing is as good :) I was just sad for area 5 which while pretty was way too small and I was never able to see Ciaran play as there were too many people for the very small stage. Ironically the super small stage was next to a sea of lockers that was 10 times bigger than the stage itself :(

Unlike other festivals that were very annoying with personalization like parookaville and tomorrowland, ASOT did ask you to personalize but in the end, it didn't matter, you just had to scan a bar code at the entrance. Also, they had a good resale platform setup, so it was easy to buy verified resale tickets. Kudos for this

ASOT had reasonable food options and they took real money, none of that fake money bullshit like Tomorrowland, Untold, Parookaville, Transmission Bangkok, EDC Mexico, and a few others. Thank you for being sensible.

So, what did I think of this ASOT and ASOT in Ahoy vs ASOT 1000 at Jaarbeurs 2 years ago?

actually they were similar and but in a not great way (for me): friday was only 6h or so and saturday was 9h but starting 3h later, ending at 06:00. I'm fine if it ends at 06:00, but I prefer if it's because it was 12h long and started at 18:00, not just 9h

Obviously it was Ahoy Rotterdam instead of Jaarbeurt, Utrecht. While Utrecht is a nicer town to visit, I think Ahoy worked a little bit better for getting around, although I think it also had one stage fewer. I think the stages in Jaarbeurs were overall better.

Ahoy had lockers inside the event, after security, which was convenient (Jaarbeurts was outside security, which was a pain)

The security team at both sites (maybe the same team?) were chill and professional. They seemed to limit their work at the level that was necessary.

That said, many people complained of long lines getting in (some got 45 to 60mn), so that was no ideal. For me, arriving at opening time for VIP (30mn before everyone else), it only took around 15mn to get in, so that was good.

The locker they gave to VIPs (only one locker for 2) was very small and could not fit my small backpack, they had medium ones but you had to know in advance to book one and that you'd get a small one with VIP

I remember walking around at Jaarbeurs that was way too much between stages. It was a bit better at Ahoy, although the mandated long walk around for stage 1 was a pain in the rear and unnecessary for the people who came (pictures at the bottom of the page). Also, mainstage never filled it up (it did at Jaarbeurs), so all the gates and long way around they had was a waste of time in the end (also the benefit of VIPs to be allowed in at any time, didn't matter in the end)

The stage production level was average or above average depending on the stage, but I actually felt that it was a shame they put so much work into those stages for those to not even be used 9H.

That said, I clearly felt that some stages were better at Jaarbeurs, so it was a bit of a downgrade.

Still, with all the time, effort and money to setup those stages, I really wish this had been a 2x 12h event, or at least 2x 9h, which is what it was last year (see bottom of the page for multi tier pricing idea to bring in more money without penalizing people who can't afford more).

So this is where I was disappointed, after so many years, ASOT had finally graduated to a full 2 day festival, and got downgraded again to 1.5 days with weird hours and weird offset between the 2 days

Small detail: Cell phones mostly didn't work at mainstage unless you were lucky enough to get wifi to allow you in, other stages were ok (an issue if you want to regroup with friends). There was public wifi but it wasn't sized properly and collapsed easily. It would have been easy to add wifi in the VIP areas as a bonus for those who paid more.

About the stages:

Mainstage was similar looking to Jaarbeurs, but older videos show more lights before including individually addressable color balls that were very pretty. This mainstage was just average.

Area 2 was reasonably pretty but awkward narrow footprint, didn't love that part

Areas 3 and 4 were actually decent, but I didn't spend more than a few minutes there since not really my music

Area 5 was pretty but way too damn small. I was kind of embarrassed for my favorite DJs that ended up there.

And now let's talk about the music:
ASOT 1000 had a fantastic 20 years of trance 6h set from Armin on day 1, and day 2 had mixed music which sounded more and more techno-like. This year was unfortunately worse (for me at least) as mainstage seemed almost overrun with techno (with a few exceptions like Ruben and Ferry, or the great classics closing set from Superstrings). But the rest at mainstage sounded more like basic EDM, techno, and a set from Armin that went from great trance that made you fly to hard crash landings by mixing hard techno on the next track, and doing that multiple times. I read that some enjoyed that, for my ears and brain, it was honestly much harder to enjoy and disappointing.
It's clear that some people on FB clearly liked the new music, and others did not. I have no idea who is the bigger of the 2 groups and whether my losing team may just be the smallest one, so it's all working as intended, but at the same time I also understand that keeping Trance the same for 20 years+ is not the best idea ever.
I think my request would be to keep at least one stage or 2 with real trance classics and other 2-3 stages including mainstage can play whatever seems to make sense today.

ASOT Day 1

AHOY was a 15mn subway ride from most of Rotterdam and easy 5mn walk:

clear signage. I never got to see how long the regular lines were since I went VIP

strangely, the weekend VIP line was the fastest. The hotel package lines were longer and people there were not thrilled

all the staff was nice, kudos to everyone, it really makes a difference

ah yes, Insomniac merged/took over ASOT, no idea how much input they had this year, but I expect they will have more next year

security search felt reasonable although some people said the lines got slow later

Day 1, started with Ruben de Ronde and Ferry Corsten:

Armin took over for a lot of different B2B sets

pretty full for a friday, so should friday only be 6h and not 9h or 12?

one of many B2Bs

stage production had nice lighting

Stage/Area 2 had more real trance, but it was a weird "wide corridor" layout :-//

no VIP area for area 2, which was unfortunate

thankfully Fadi/Aly and Fila played a wonderful set as always

nice to have ferry afterwards

Susana was back!

nice LED walls in stage 2 to make up for the awkward layout

FactorB killed it again

Meanwhile Armin was busy at mainstage with lots of B2Bs and even a new f2f :) It sucked to miss some of FactorB, but it was interesting to see the face2face with Maddix:

Then back to Area 2 to see the end of FactorB:

And then it was over, very early (01:00), so it was time to go to the after party in a small club by the train station. It was better than nothing, but kind of sad to go to a small local club when we should have stayed at Ahoy for another 5h.

nice to see Roman Messer again

oh yeah, almost forgot I was in Holland

and my TFSF Friend Alastair was also there to play

ASOT Day 2

For reasons that I can't really imagine except legacy and maybe no one asking "why are we still doing this?", ASOT still started at 21:00 on the 2nd day. Why? probably because that's when it used to start at that time as a single day event, but for a 2 day event, it's nonsensical. Everyone has had time to sleep have lunch, go see the talks that were not announced and most people missed, and still make it in time for a 18:00 start. Starting 3 hours later makes little sense, especially for people in hotels where they get kicked out of the room around noon and getting to bed around 07:00 does not leave room for a lot of sleep on the 2nd might

it was very cool to be able to stand behind mainstage

but I went to Area 2 as soon as it opened for Xijaro and Pitch's Anthony

it was a fantastic pure trance set, real joy

yes, it takes a few people to run all this :)

Area 3, which was unused on day 1

later when filled up

Area 4 was also interesting, even if a bit narrow

Area 5 was the most narrow and smallest though

What a shame given the lovely lineup

Ciaran was in there, but was never able to get close enough to see him

Back to Area 2 for Ruben:

then Giuseppe

And it was time for Armin's main set at mainstage:

it was reasonably full but not at capacity

So, for Armin's set, honestly his trying to go back and forth between lovely trance and techno didn't work for me. It took all the flying feelings of trance, and crashed them into a wall when the hard techno got mixed in. This is me though, others have said they enjoyed it, so there you go.

Anyway, at some point I had to leave for Alessandra's set at Area 5, the smallest stage, but it was Alessandra, can't miss her!

she was excited to see us :)

and we got to say hi :)

Once she was done, there was only one hour left, and I had heard good things about superstrings, so back to mainstage. They played a new style of trance similar to what TDJ plays, high energy with an engaging beat but without falling into techno. All the techno is the new trance people, please look at these guys and TDJ, isn't that where you want to go instead to evolve Trance instead of trying to merge it with Techno, which will never work for people like me (and I'm not the only one)?

Yes to VIP behind mainstage :)

And just like this, it was 06:00, the mere 9h were over (could have been 12H had they started at 18:00 like the day before).

shuttle bus back to main station because metro didn't open until one our later

back to the room by sunrise :)

Should ASOT cater more to World Wide Trance Lovers? If so should it conflict with 2 other festivals that same weekend?

In the many past years, instead of doing a bigger event in Holland that would bring more people from around the world, ASOT went around the world for smaller parties, which was not a terrible idea, and explains the roots of ASOT not really meant to be an event for international travellers outside of Europe and being a mere 9H on a single day (fine for Europeans, not enough for people to travel from other continents). But fast forward to today where trance or ASOT seem to have shrunk so that most of the ASOTs that used to be around the world, are now gone.

Last year, I missed on out on the first real 2 day ASOT ever, the only one! before they went back to 1.5 days :(
And why did I miss it? Because I was at EDC Mexico which was the same weekend and that one was 3 12 hours days with more stages.

Still, my plan was to come back to ASOT this year, but what did ASOT do this year? Not only did it conflict with EDC Mexico where many of my friends went instead (can't blame them, there was much more music there than the 1.5 days of ASOT), and to make things worse, it also conflicted with Trance Unity in Montreal. Triple conflict!!!

Not only did this take attendees away from ASOT, but it also took multiple DJs away, DJs that played at ASOT in the past (although somehow Ferry Corsten and Fadi managed to play at both events, troopers!). Actually Ferry Corsten played at all 3, go Ferry! :)

But seriously people, is this really necessary? EDCMX isn't exactly a trance festival but still has a lot of trance, and Trance Unity, well, is Trance, so did all 3 events need to be the same exact weekend?

That being said, while I missed some amount of friends who were attending one of the other 2 events that weekend, I still got to see some:

Conclusions/Suggestions

ASOT is at crossroads between trance and non trance, as well as a 1 vs 2 day festival, and it felt uneasy in the middle this year. From my perception, Armin was struggling to play several genres at once to please everyone, and at least in his main set, when he would mix what almost felt like hard techno right after a euphoric trance track, that really killed it for me. I do have to repeat that some don't feel the flying from those trance tracks and thought they were just slower tracks to recuperate from the hard techno, and actually liked those transitions. So yeah, once size clearly does not fit all. Still, my advice for Armin would be what he did at ASOT 1000: a dedicated trance set, and more progressive/techno-ish sets. Please don't try to mix them, I don't think it can be done gracefully in a way that works for all.
I'll also repeat my suggestion to look at new styles of trance that aren't techno like what Superstrings and TDJ are doing, or Gardenstate/Aname's legendary remixes of trance tracks with a slowed down dubstep beat.

My thoughts/improvement suggestions for this year's venue:

find a way to raise the ticket price at least somewhat, maybe more ticket tiers to allow people who can't pay more to keep their current price, and people who can and spent quite a bit on the trip anyway, to pay more.

I've been asking for 2 full days instead of 1 or this 1.5 day weird setup, but it does cost more. How about running the event 18:00 to 06:00 both days, selling the same basic price tickets that only let you in at 21:00 or 22:00 (until 06:00) and higher price tickets that let you in 18:00 to 06:00 both nights?

Then you can still add VIP tickets and make sure the VIP benefits are real. Too many VIPs and especially hotel package people complained it took 45mn or longer for them to get in. That is definitely not ok, VIPs can pay double but they should get in 5 or 10mn for that price.

The point is not everyone can pay the same, charge each what they can pay, but bring in more money to pay for more hours and let's say at least 4 stages both nights (or hell, I'll setlle for 3 as long as good trance is guaranteed for sure at at least one stage every hour). Honestly 5 or 6 stags is more music than we can see and should only be if there is enough money to run them, but not at the expense of more festival time.

New music is the present/future, fine, but it's ASOT, don't let trance die. ASOT must have at least one dedicated trance stage for both nights. Honestly 2 dedicated trance stages with 2 styles of real trance (new style trance like TDJ / Superstrings is totally fine, hell even psytrance, why not?), but not techno or basic mainroom EDM everywhere please

If there is enough revenue for the above changes, a few improvements in stages would be nice. Area 2 honestly felt like a big corridor, very awkward layout. Area 5 was sad, a nicely lit super small stage shoehorned behind a seat of lockers. I was so disappointed for the DJs there.

When I checked online, the subway system claimed it would start running at 06:00 on sunday, but that was not true. We all needed to take the bus back to town, and ASOT thankfully made busses available, but you had to pay for them through a long a tedious checkout procedure on your phone in the street. This should have been an add on offered when I bought tickets online and sent back again via Email a few days before the event "Do you need to sign up for the return shuttle?"

Please optimize the routes between stages. This is not tomorrowland, are all those tedious one way routes really necessary? They sucked for us.

the black bit was really not needed

this fence was 1000% unnecessary, making everyone walk around added lots of pointless walking and did not improve any flow. They literally made you walk a long away around to the other side of that same fence, and it was so stupid that all the staff went through the shortcut, but we could not

Oh and please make sure this half step at the Area 1 VIP bars does not exist again. It was near invisible in the dark, many people stumbled or fell on it, I did even after taking this picture, and at least one person reported a non minor injury due to it

someone literally stumbled on that same raised step and almost fell in front of me while I was taking this picture

ASOT 1000 had pre-parties the days before, this one did not.

The post party on saturday night/sunday morning at 06:00 was not really helpful. How many people were still awake? If ASOT had started at 18:00 on day 2, then 03:00 for the after party would have been more reaosnable. But really it lacked pre-parties on wed and thu for international travellers who arrived early.

And things I liked:

The VIP area being mainstage was very cool:

Security was nice

Lockers were inside the event after security even if they were too small

VIPs got in 30mn earlier

18:00 start on the first day was nice even if it ended too early and started too late on the 2nd day

Food options were good, and they took real money

Here is my video summary:

Watching other videos, I also found out I was randomly visible in a few of them, fun :)

Should you go, Would I go back?

If you're in Europe, going to ASOT is a no brainer. But if you're coming from far away like me (but I realize I'm very likely a small minority), it's a bit of a hard sell in its 1.5 day format and lineup and means that were somewhat lesser this year (my personal rule is to avoid going across the world for less than 2 days given the time and costs involved). Ideally a festival should at least match the previous year or exceed it, so it was a bit sad when it shrunk this year. I hope Insomniac Europe invests more into ASOT next year, to bring it back to a real long term sustainable 2 day festival worth flying across the world for. And yes, please raise ticket prices to pay for this, or at least offer higher tier ticket options to bring in more money from people who can pay.
And maybe not conflicting with EDCMX would still be a good idea, that said maybe it doesn't matter too much since realistically few people can afford to fly around the world to go to festivals every weekend.

But don't let all this feedback confuse you, although some things can be improved in my opinion, and my feedback is actually in the hopes that some of it does get implemented, and I get to enjoy an even improved ASOT, I did have a great time this time too, it's hard not to :)
A heartfelt thanks to all the crews who put all the work that went into this event for our enjoyment.

Links

Google photos album: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DfgAqZQANQnp18MZ9

IG stories: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18488592634019838

And I will end with this (real t-shirt saw at ASOT), haha :)

2025/01/23 Groove Cruise 2025 to Labadee, Haiti

π 2025-01-23 01:01 in Clubbing, Festivals

Props to Trancejesus who is responsible for me coming after all these years:

I used his signup code to thank him for encouraging me to go :) If you like this report and it inspires you to go, or to go again, you can use my signup code for a discount of up to $200: "ledtranceguy"
As I write this, barely a week after the cruise is over, the 2026 cruise is close to being sold out (it felt weird that it went on sale before the 2025 one even left, but now I know why). If you are interested in going, don't delay :)

This looks like the canonical page to sign up for 2026.

Wait, after it being around 20 years, you only went on groovecruise this year for the first time?

Yes, Groove Cruise has been around for a long time (20-ish years), but I had never been so far, because:

lots of festivals, can't be everywhere :)

I've been avoiding festivals in the winter because winter is for snowboarding :) (but realistically January has often been dry in CA, so not a terrible month to lose)

Most years until recently, I was going to Australia for linux.conf.au at the same time, and that was not something I wanted to miss. These wonderful 20 years are however over for me, now

Going all the way to Miami is not exactly next door for me :)

Yes, there was a 2nd yearly cruise leaving From CA instead in summer, but I heard that one had no trance, and if no trance, not really interested :)

Last year it conflicted with 6 days of Unkonscious, so both were not possible

And I'll also admit that I have mixed feelings about cruise ships, as I find them pretty wasteful, especially in a case where quite frankly if the ship were anchored to a parking lot, and connected to the electrical grid instead of having to burn ridiculous amounts of fuel in the middle of the ocean, most attendees would probably be just as happy (let's be honest, the fact that it went travelled 4 days to go to to Labadee for a few hours, was probably not the most important part of the cruise)

I'm on a boat... I'm on a boat... Take a good look at me, I'm on a motherf'ing boat :)

Now that this is out of the way, and you probably think I'm a killjoy :) I did obviously end up going this year and had a fantastic time. Yes, I would have had just as much as a good time if the cruise ship (Alure of the Sea) had been sitting in the middle of a parking lot somehwere for those 4 days, since it's really a small city with all the fun happening inside and the mere 3.5h in Labadee were fun but didn't seem essential. That said it's a cruise ship, so it's somehow supposed to boat somewhere, and it did :)

The ship was the 4th largest in existence as of today if I read right, and was pretty impressive. It did lack waterslides, and the kart racing track I saw on some ship commercial ;) but it had:

2 flowriders (wave makers to surf)

I'm not that great at it, but I tried :)

2 climbing walls that didn't seem to get used

minigolf

promenade that was pretty

game room and room for kids that went unused for that cruise

many pools and jacuzzi

some levitating platform you could drink on, this thing:

many restaurants and shops of course, including a yummy Teppanyaki. The regular restaurants/buffet were below par unfortunately, but the specialized ones were good:

good food and presentation

casino:

running track:

yes, it was legit :)

very many theatres and rooms that were turned into night clubs or stages

outdoor theatre that became mainstage, except when it was raining, which it did (also the first day was very cold due to highly unusual weather)

This is a good time to point out that the Groovecruise team did an amazing job decking out the place and turning a cruiseship into a small city with nightclubs and festival areas. They really went all out, all the way to confetti that had to be cleaned carefully afterwards and even balloon drops. Multiple stages had lasers and cool lighting and overall the sound was good. Given the location and that it had to be installed and torn down in record time because the ship was used for regular cruises just before, and just after, was nothing short of amazing.
The crew was very amused by the GC crowds (who wouldn't), and put up with the decorations people brought from LED walls to a wall of hanging dicks you had to walk through to cross the corridor :)

cabins with view on the promenade

this display was fun to read :)

Boat Policies/security

The boat rules were of course geared towards the normal cruises they had the rest of the year, but ultimately they worked well for GC too, and they were pretty lenient with the many things people brought it for the party. Department of immigration somehow brought sniffing dogs to do their own scan of people getting in, but outside of that, the rules were mostly reasonable:

they did allow one bottle of alcohol per person

no issues with costumes or led gear for people like me

there was a restriction on bringing your own power strips, since some can be crap and unsafe, but I didn't hear that it was much of an issue

they did scan all check in luggage, and that caused delays in getting your luggage of up to 8H. That was no ideal

as mentioned below, the line management and arrival slot times that were handed out, were a joke and it took 2.5h or more to get in. That was disappointing.

the restaurants had non festival hours, so getting food after 22:00 was challenging, at best. At least food did not seem to run out in the few places that still had food at night

speaking of food, they took my half open bag of chips at the entrance because it was open. ooops :)

overall I think the cruise company and definitely the staff, were very very good sports dealing with all of us. I'm sure we made their 5 days interesting, but they did the best to please anytime they could (polar opposite of Creamfields and Lumi where the customer was almost an enemy in multiple places).

I did not hear about major issues with theft, which is good (better crowds to start with, and I guess you can only run so far on a boat, haha)

Actually a lot of people returned lost items, thank you

I was worried about the lack of plugs, but with 2 big multichannel USB chargers (10 and 8 outputs) plus a 4 port one, I was ok :) This also answers the question of how many batteries I use and have to charge (a bit too many, haha):

People

Ok, so I've been to many festivals (over 50 in 20+ years), and I like the costume aspect of those who encourage them, like most insomniac festivals in the US including EDC Vegas, Beyond Wonderland, and Dreamstate Socal. But I have to say that Groovecruise won as "best vibes and most costumes" by a good amount. I was positively impressed and it was loads of fun:

bringing a full LED wall, great job!

and let's not forget the dick wall from deck 14

[rigimg:1024:3128*|the elevator rides were "fun" :)]

Kudos to this couple for the fantastic LED costumes:

the same folks again

And then this guy, impressive tech but it must have been fragile and with inadequate batteries because I only saw it once for 20mn or so:

A good amount of nice LED outfits, well done!

Of course, I had fun taking pictures with existing friends and new ones:

as odds are, Daxson was the first person I ran into :)

anjunafam

Nadine and Robert Nickson

of course Thorgodofbass was there, and I was ready for him :)

also ready for Nilsix :)

and great to see Maddix, he said 'you again' :)

had fun with my new hat :)

Groovecruise Days 1-2: Strong Warmup

The arrival was not that great. They gave us arrival slots just to ignore them and round robin people between 5 lines independently on when people arrived. That was a very bad move. The poor line management and respect of peoole's time (ignoring when they arrived and their timeslot) caused a completely needless 2H+ wait before being able to enter and get ID verified and scanned :(

even when you got inside, and that was after more than 1H wait already, it still took another hour or so

finally upstairs, ready for security and luggage scan

once up things were finally good, but it sucked to have arrived 2h30 early just to wait 2h30 in a slow line to get in

finally!

welcome!

Aqua Theatre

Promenade

Eric Prydz/Pryda

crossdresser lunch

it started raining on day 2, it was nice for lights and lasers

it got pretty

poor Mark Sixma got rained out as the rain became more severe

Labadee, Haiti

Yes, the boat did go somewhere, I mapped it and checked :)

While I will note that it felt a bit weird to boat an entire 2 days to get to Labadee, Haiti a mere 4H before the boat had to leave and boat 2 days back to Miami, at the same time I'm sure it would also have been weird at least for some, to be on a boat that went nowhere (it would have been fine by me, haha).
Haiti is a troubled country that is kind on the "do not travel" list, but we went on a private beach in a way that we never really entered the country (so no need for passports and so forth, which was nice). They did a good job sheltering us from all of this, and making it a welcoming party island with some fun rides when we came to visit.

I'll admit that getting up to make it to the island was a tad challenging when you had been partying all night the night before, but we made it :)

welcome!

they had a market but the sellers were way too aggressive, that was a turn off

Zipline:

Rollercoaster:

Beach Party:

The beach party was fun, but way too short (barely 4H)

Groovecruise Days 3-4: Peak Partying

Back to the ship, for lots of partying and a very long night until sunrise:

When 6 lions is not enough, and 8 lions is clearly too many, seven lions!

Abraxis with Dimibo and Blastoyz!

then Blastoyz took over

great job with the decors, confetti, lights and pyro!

After good times at Amber Theatre, went to see Daxson on the 8th floor until sunrise. Not much of a trance set, but lots of energy:

Then it was try for sunrise, although it was cloudy:

Day4 started a bit later when you go to bed around 07:30 :) Going to catch lunch somewhere before lunch closed, was work enough :) After that, trance night was by the swimming pool on deck 15, but it was pretty cold and windy as the boat was sailing back towards Miami:

Then back to Amber theatre for some lovely base, DnB, psytrance, and epic B2Bs:

Groovecruise Days 5: Rough Trip Back to Reality

By then, it was far enough in the night that it was really Day 5 already. While the party was still going strong at 03:00, knowing that we'd be rudely woken up around 07:xx and kicked off the boat, made it less appealing to stay much longer (even as is, and as fantastic as the entire experience was, monday morning was very rough).

Sadly it didn't matter whether you stayed on the boat (some booked the next cruise to stay), everyone got woken up by a "good morning Vietnam" message from I believe John, who runs GC, and as lovely as the message was, I was so not awake and shaken by the wakeup that I struggled to find any way to turn the room speaker off, and didn't find any.

From there, it was a suite of announcements on how to get off the boat, as soon as possible, while I was struggling to pack and vacate said room as quickly as possible (as it had to be cleaned and made ready for the next trip leaving later that afternoon).

The line out was long but not as bad as the way in (maybe 30mn?) but it was challenging since I opted to drag my full luggage since it was simply not going to be ready that previous night by 22:00, deadline for luggage pickup. On the way out, we had to go through US immigration again, but since they have our IDs and pictures, it was a quick glance at a face recognition camera before being waved through.

I was able to find Adam Scott/Adam Levine to thank him for the great music just before leaving

Thoughts and Conclusions

I'll start with a few random things as a first timer, aka virgin:

This was the first time GC was going to use this new boat, and they did a beyond fantastic job getting everything decked out and getting all the stages festival quality with very little time to setup and teardown.

For those who like alcohol the pre-paid drink package was the way to go, but sadly they forced you to get it for all members of a given cabin, which was not fair to those who don't drink, and probably cost the boat some amount of such sales

The all you can drink soda package for around $90 for 4 days was still overpriced but simple enough to get as an alternative. They had cups with RFID tags that got recognized by the soda machines before deciding to dispense, or not. Places that had bars would just serve you soda by request when showing your seacard.

The internet package, also around $100, I can't say if that's expensive or average, but of course there is no competition. I did get it, but the wifi on the boat was totally overwhelmed in multiple locations, so you couldn't connect to either the ship wifi to talk to other guests, or to the internet if you had it. Obviously I still posted a bunch of IG stories, but a fair amount had to be done "blind" and were uploaded a fair amount later when wifi/internet became available in some other boat location.

As mentioned earlier, given how little time we spent in Labadee, I would have been fine if the boat went nowhere and was plugged into shore power, but that's just me :) (and yes, that's to say that the GC did such a great job with parties on the boat, that the outside didn't matter much)

The food in regular restaurants/buffets was on the disappointing side, but honestly I didn't care too much. I didn't really need to get fat on this cruise :) (but many attendees noted this and did not love it). Also, lack of food options between 22:00 and 06:30, was indeed an issue for people partying all night.

checkout was very rough (getting up after very little sleep and being strongly and repeated encouraged to leave the boat for the poor staff that only had hours to clean everything and get rooms ready for people coming for the next cruise later that day). I would have loved to be able to check out peacefully end of day on monday evening.

Should you go? Would I go Back?

While I don't have official numbers, it looks like the return rate for Groove Cruise is very high, and that's for good reason. I was impressed by how many things the crew did right, and things I was worried about were not much of an issue.

Fantastic job decorating the boat and decking out the stages

Attendees were the best, and the most costumed I had ever seen anywhere

security was just what was needed, nothing more, never an issue, and I never felt like I had to "fight" to be there or be able to enjoy myself in a PLUR way.

The morning announcements while really lovely were also very painful if you happened to be sound asleep. I think it it would be crucial to tell everyone how to turn off those speakers if they really need to sleep.

4 days go by quickly, I wouldn't have been upset with another day or two :)

there was a fair amount of stuff to do on the boat outside of partying

there was trance! I hate to have to say this, but too many festivals are dropping trance. Even untold which was a trance heaven for a festival of all EDM genres, severely reduced the amount of trance last year :-//

Is it worth flying across the world for? Yes. It's actually a long flight from SFO, and I didn't regret it. I think it's almost the same distance from Paris or London :)

Generally, the team really cares, they go above and beyond, and even after 20-ish years, they are still humble and always want to try their best and improve. This is huge, too many festivals rest or their laurels, or "it's just a job" and the experience is nowhere the same. This kind of culture is crucial for the best experiences, and only at insomniac festivals have I seen something similar.

And you're going to ask: Isn't it expensive?

So, yes, it's not cheap, around $1500 to $2000 per person, but it includes:

4 days of music with up to 10 stages, mostly non stop

all the amenities of a cruise ship if they appeal to you

your room is about 10mn away, you can go back and forth any time you want. This is priceless! I really need to emphasize how awesome that part is and how alone it's worth the bit of extra money.

food, it was not fantastic food, but it's right there and included. Again, convenience was great.

island excursion was nice, even if short

To me, this is not that much more than what I would spend at EDC with VIP tickets + hotel + food and I felt the experience was close enough to VIP like. The crowds were also more mature and more PLUR than the average festival, and that was a good thing to me. Ok, the stages are not to the level of a real EDC or Beyond Wonderland-like festival, but they were good enough for me to have lots of fun.
All in all, I was very satisfied and felt it was well worth the price. Clearly plenty of people seem to agree as more people are going every year and they keep having to migrate to a bigger ship (another bigger one even for next year and this year's was already one of the biggest on the market).

I will leave you with a few links:

If you'd like future reports/stories, please subscribe to https://www.facebook.com/ledtranceguy/ and/or https://www.instagram.com/ledtranceguy

IG stories: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17911809144070646

All IG stories in a single video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoJuahrrxM8

Video Summary of the 5 Days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIELepADLyY

See You Next Year?

While groovecruise was not in the cards for me for a bunch of prior years due to conflicting events and priorities, I also regret not having gone sooner, it's a pretty awesome event. If you already have been, you know. If you have not, take my word for it, it is cool and unique (and has lots of styles of music, most I didn't have time to go see).

If you'd like to sign up for next year: canonical page to sign up for 2026. And you get a small extra discount with ledtranceguy

See more images for Groove Cruise 2025 to Labadee, Haiti