Social Fresh Cruise, 11.12.09 – The recap
Cruisedeals.com and Social Fresh, LLC teamed up to bring the 1st Premier Annual Social Media Cruise to the Carnival Destiny on 11.12.09. CruiseDeals.com is a leader in Group and Conference Cruises and Social Fresh is a leader in Social Media Conferences. on 11.11.09, we teamed up with the South Florida Social Media Community to throw the Social Fresh Bon Voyage Tweetup which was the largest Tweetup in Miami history. By the end of the Social Fresh Cruise, we proved that “Social Media and Cruising are like peanut butter and chocolate, two tastes that taste great together”. Most of the Social Fresh attendees have been long-time evangelist for the importance of making online connections stronger by taking advantage of opportunities to meet face to face. On Social Fresh Cruise, we took Face to Face to another level.
We shared many once-in-a-lifetime experiences with those who are equally as passionate about the impacts of Social Media on all aspects of business. We had a diverse group of attendees who create incredible content online for a wide variety of audiences. We even had few owners of Social Media Applications in the mix of attendees. Cruising with a group of people who share a passion whether it is Golf, Poker, Bridge, etc. adds value to the cruise experience. Cruising with some of the most Social people involved with Social Media today, and it was a homerun.
We had 6 hours of Interactive Sessions with content and direction from Jason Keath, Chris Brogan, Greg Cangialosi, Amber Naslund, DJ Waldow, Lyell Petersen, Ryan Wynia, & Katie Morse. We had an impromtu Bloggers Roundtable that was wide open with all kinds of great lessons learned flying around the table. At the bottom of this post are links to the note for all of the Sessions.
We were in Cozumel from 7AM – 10PM. We had a 3 hour beach party scheduled from 2 – 5 PM at Carlos and Charlies. Everyone went their own way in the morning and we all met up at 2PM. At Carlos and Charlies, everyone shared fun stories about how they spent the morning in Cozumel. Many like @Kitmueller and I rented scooters and toured the entire Island. @ChrisBrogan and some others ate Fresh Grilled Lobster on the backside of Cozumel. At Carlos & Charlies (Charlos & Carlies according to Greg), 3 hours of Beach + Sun + Cervezas + Social Media Peeps = one of the highlights of the Cruise.
Each night we ate dinner as a group in our own designated section. The Dinners on the Carnival Destiny were delicious as always. I’m surprised Carnival did not go broke after @DJWaldow and @LuggageBoy put away multiple entrees each night. I can’t talk too much since I did eat two Lobster Tails on the formal dinner night. Social Fresh Cruise is one of the few Social Media Events that your non-social media spouse wants to attend. And with the amount of time that we put into social media, we sometimes need to reconnect with them too.
At night, we played together in the Casino, sang Karaoke, danced in the discos, watched Rick Springfield perform on the Lido Deck, and on the last night we all dressed up in our Bathrobes to dance to ‘I’m on a Boat’ in the Piano Bar.
For the past 2 years, my big two passions have been Social Media and Cruising. So although I’ve been on a lot of cruises, the Social Fresh Cruise was by far the most fun and valuable. The Cruise attracted the FUN Social Media Leaders who needed a vacation and saw the value in getting away with 50 other Social Media Insiders. By disconnecting for a couple days we actually made our strongest online connections. While the Cruise was close to perfect, we did have some places where we can improve the experience. We look forward to making the Social Fresh Cruise 2010 even better.
All Photos in this post were taken by Steve Hall, @Adrants.
We book 100s of group cruises each year. If you would like to do a conference or themed group cruise please email me at rtucker@cruisedeals.com .
A few of the tweets from attendees after they returned from the 2009 Social Fresh Cruise (#SoCruise is the Twitter Hashtag):
@GeekMommy DITTO! I’m looking forward to CO in Feb, and #SoCruise next year!
Posted By MissKatieMo
Really missing all of my #socruise #sofresh people. I’d break an ankle instead of just sprainig it to cruise w/ them all again. Wild.
Posted By @GeekMommy
@93octane Lyell! I had a blast! Thank you for being such an awesome host! #socruise
Post by @JenChicago
@tomtravel2 Sure thing! Most valuable for me was an informal bloggers roundtable – a great peer-to-peer discussion. Very helpful! #socruise
Posted by @MaidenVoyage
@RichTucker many thanks again for an awesome trip. Finally got to relax for a bit;) #socruise
Posted by Elizabeth Hannan
Links to the Session Notes:
Real Online Communities – Amber Naslund of Radian 6 & DJ Waldow Community Mgr. Blue Sky Factory
The Future of Connectivity – Greg Cangialosi CEO of Blue Sky Factory
Future of MicroBlogging – Lyell Petersen aka @93octane the dotcom in CruiseDeals.com
Reverse Q & A with Chris Brogan Author of Trust Agents –
The Recording and Music Industry Today – Katie Morse aka @misskatiemo