Social Media (And Rick Springfield) Set Sail on Carnival Destiny

For four days beginning last Thursday afternoon, 60 or so "social media types" boarded the Carnival Destiny and set sail for Cozumel Mexico. The journey was dubbed SocialFresh Cruise and it's goal was to bring together people and ideas. The cruise was organized by Social Fresh, an organization founded by Jason Keath that puts on conferences for marketers involved in advertising, PR, SEO, PR, brand development and, of course, social media. It's also the "conference that comes to you" in the sense most of its conferences take place in smaller markets such as Charlotte, Nashville and Tampa.

Handling the actual cruise details was CruiseDeals.

While there was much sun and fun (it was a cruise after all), for two of the three full days aboard the ship, we attended about eight hours (four each day) of session given by Chris Brogan and many others on topics ranging from personal branding to SEO and everything in-between.

Because recaps of conference sessions are boring...at least the way I write them...let's just move on to the pictures, OK? After all, that's what you really want to see, right? A bunch of social media types in beach wear. Oh and let's not forget random cruise hotties playing Battle of the Sexes and Rick Springfield. Yes, he was on the cruise and yes I have tons of pictures of him for those who are into him.

There were hot tubs, concerts, bathrobe night, Carlos and Charlie's, getting glass stuck in my foot while walking on the sidewalk in Mexico (thank you Allie Sullivan for extracting that nasty piece of glass), drinking in public (did you know it's OK for tourists to do it in Mexico but not citizens?), the amusement of watching 50 social media types lose their mobile connections as the ship pulled away from port, karaoke, silly deck games (with the aforementioned cruise hotties), Rick Springfield's army of cougar-like fans, inflatable rock climbing, trampoline injuries, gambling, dancing, Mojios, Pina Colatas, Orange Mango Daiquiris and so, so much more.

And if you're the type to toss this off as some sort of boondoggle, you'd be wrong. Everyone paid their own way and we all had a chance to mix and mingle with each other for four straight days. You don't get that at your average conference.