Marc's Blog: clubbing - Groove Cruise 2026 to Nassau, Bahamas

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welcome back

The new and even bigger boat: Wonder of the Seas

The boat this year was ever so slightly bigger than last year, although it looked quite similar in size and where things where, but it came wit ha few bonuses. It was a the biggest ship in the world when it was launched a few years ago, but now it's the 3rd biggest (although the biggest one is really just 10ft longer).

I signed up for the flowrider on the first day, did ok standing but it still didn't feel natural compared to snowboarding. I forgot to give my phone, so therefore it never happened and you can watch better people:

After I managed to hurt my back and my neck there, which is very easy to do, the boat left Miami around sunset:

Many swimming pools and definitely more cool things on the deck than last year's Alure of the Seas (which I'm told has been remodelled since then), including water slides and the abyss ride from floor 16 down to 6:

unfortunately waterslides were not open when I tried to go

looked cool, though

The rest of the boat was equally nice:

different decors, equally cool

nice promenade

Nice art gallery:

The dual abyss slide was cool looking:

get in here

reality is that it was mostly dark

And because the GC crew is really a bunch of overachievers, they even setup side quests with riddles where you could unlock secret doors and get stamps for bragging rights:

Boat staff/policies/security

This is mostly a repeat of what I wrote last year, the only difference is given how long it took them to scan and deliver one of the pieces of luggage last year, I hand carried everything this time around, which wasn't a huge pain and was much easier in the end.
Carribean's 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, my small one in my laptop bag was allowed

last year, we spent 2.5h in line to get on the boat which was quite poor. This year was a lot more efficient and we were in, in less than 1H. Much better.

I felt the restaurants had better hours to be compatible with the party crowd, that was a nice improvement.

The boat staff was of course amused by all the craziness GC brought to their boat. They were great sports dealing with all the craziness and did the best to accommodate us. Like I wrote last year, 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).

Like last year, instead of having to worry about thefts like some festivals, people were happy to get their lost items brought back. Awesome!

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.
I also need to give the GC crew a shout out for really being chill trusting. This year, I added lasers to my outfit, which I researched carefully for power and safety with the help of specialized engineers to make sure they would not be a risk to others. I also did my best not to point them at people's faces for obvious reasons. While they looked super cool, a couple of GC technicians came to talk to me and ensured I knew not to point at people or DJ, and generally to make sure I knew not to be an idiot with them. After that, they told me to have a good night and have fun. The trust was very much appreciated.

People

Ok, so I've been to many festivals (over 80 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:

towelie!

Running into Friends:

Great to see DJ friends again:

Groovecruise Days 1-2

Getting on the boat was a lot less painful this year, but the weather was shit on the arrive day (thursday), and the rain continued all day and night, which unfortunately messed up Darude's decks for his pool set, until he had to stop. Still it was great to see it until it shut down, and then we retreated indoors as trance must go on :)

Adam Scott continued at the promenade

The next day, we got another cool balloon drop during Markus Schulz's set:

See balloon drop here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DT3ysZREXCt
The boat had nice restaurants that were reasonably priced:

After some food, time to check out more sets:

casino

Abyss stage

and no matter where you were, other parties were going on :)

Day 3: Nassau, Bahamas

Nassau was very close, most of the time, the boat went up and down the coast, and on Day #3, dropped us off in Nassau

Last year, we spent 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. This time, we had a full day in Nassau, which was a cool place to visit:

there was an outdoor stage and party, although I spent most of the day visiting Nassau

The day in Nassau and Atlantis was very nice, you can read more here. A few pictures below:

our ship was big :)

And Atlantis:

dolphins!

Back on the boat, turned out it was easier to watch Jon Summit from our room:

skydeck VIP backstage view :)

Groovecruise Days 3-4: Partying

After Nassau, it was trance night at Aquatheatre:

Darude!

Wonderful views of Dave Dresden and Adam Scott while the boat pulled out of Nassau:

bye bye Nassau

Day4 (Sunday), I took things easy, got some sleep and an easy day on sunday:

Blastoyz by the pool

and then, make fun of me, I went to bed not nearly as late as the previous year, because of Day5:

Groovecruise Days 5: Rough Trip Back to Reality

I remembered how terrible monday morning was last year, so I didn't go party late sunday night, it wasn't worth the pain of being woken up and pushed off the boat a few hours after going to bed :) As a result, I wasn't as sleep deprived as the previous year, getting off the boat was less rough this time around and there was almost no line to get out, so it was pretty painless.

Should you go? Would I go Back?

First, I will point you to my thoughts and conclusions from last year, I won't repeat the same ones here

This is mostly what I wrote last year, as it still stands. 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, including side quests, even

internet package worked significantly better this year

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.

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 :-// Huge thanks to Adam Scott and all the DJs who did trance for us.

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.

Things to improve:

The GC android app was pretty poor though, it mostly didn't work to show you what should be your saved schedule and selected sets, if you were offline.

Some amount of the stages in the GC app were not mapped anywhere or visible in the Royal Carribean app. Maybe it was part of the game to have to find those stages, but if not, better info could be given.

The morning announcements while really lovely were also very painful if you happened to be sound asleep. Honestly a fair amount of people were upset to be woken up so early by then, and so loudly. There is literally no way to turn them off as they are (mis)-using the ship's emergency alert system. If there was only one wish I could have is to be able to turn them off or not have them. Having them be forced on everyone and ruining sleep is just not cool

The last thing I really hope GC can fix is allowing people to sell/transfer back their room to whet travel if there are people on the waiting list who really want one (for a small fee for their time and of course preventing any scalping and reselling over face value). They tell you to get insurance, but insurance that covers "change of plans" costs a lot and only covers 50% of what you paid, so that's not really a reasonable option.

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 5-10mn 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.

included food in buffet and restaurant was more than decent and "for pay" restaurants were very good

Nassau excursion was nice and nice to have an entire day there

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

All IG stories

All IG stories in a single video

Video Summary of the 5 Days

Entire Google Photos album

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).

Marc's Public Blog - Clubbing and Trance