Ok, so I like electronic dance music, more specifically Trance. When I started in the 1990's, the US was a bit behind in that department.
Still, with San Francisco and San Jose nearby, I've had some opportunities to see some great EDM/Trance DJs. Back in the early 2000's, they sadly played club music in the US that was nowhere close to the hits they had composed and were known for, but over the years, as Trance started becoming more popular, those DJs finally started playing their good tunes in the US too, and maybe from 2004 on, it's only been getting better. Popsicle Halloween 2004 was really the beginning of great music parties in the San Francisco Area, and thankfully things have gotten even better since then
As a matter of fact, after another 10 years (2015 and beyond) the good news is that Trance has grown quite a following in the US, and places like the SF Bay Area, and while Trance has been declared dead a few times in the last 10 years, it's still going strong here.
Trance Family SF is definitely strong in the area, we've been getting more big trance parties every year, including many top DJs that come visit us what feels like every other week now (as of 2018-2019), and through those events, I made many friends in Trance Family SF. Thanks to you all.
Over those years, I got the chance to meet a few of my favourite DJs, including Armin more than once, and my last hobby has been to work on lights for my shirt and pants (version 3) and (version 4)
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:
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
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