RESPECT THE WEIRD: HOLY SHIP!!! 2015

Your nostrils fill with the cool, salty scent of the ocean mixed with hints of pineapple and rum. The very floor beneath you seems to sway with the sea swell as the music pulses through the night sky. As you crane your head back and jump into the air repeatedly you catch a glimpse of the stars above and a laugh escapes from your lips. You are among a family that few can understand and fewer will experience. This is the party you always wanted to be at. This is what it is like to be a “shipper,” this is Holy Ship!
HARD Events, Cloud 9 Adventures and The Bowery Presents have announced pre-booking details for the fourth annual, critically acclaimed electronic music cruise HOLY SHIP! 2015. This year more fans will have a chance to step onboard the MSC Divina and become part of what is known as #ShipFam. Shippers now have the choice of two cruises: January 3 through January 6 and February 18 through 21, 2015 (originally scheduled for February 25-28 but changed due to a better itinerary for the ship) from Miami. By the time you are reading this both will already be sold out with waiting lists longer than the vessel itself.

So what makes this event so special? Everyone’s grandparents I know go on annual cruises and frankly they don’t ever sound like anything more than a bunch of people with bad skin wearing short pants and eating disgusting buffet food. This however is not your grandmother’s cruise.

“Holy Ship is a life-changing experience that I believe everyone who enjoys EDM should venture on,” said Nadia Carcamo, 23, of Mesa, AZ. 2014 was Carcamo’s first Holy Ship experience and as an “OG” she was able to book her voyage for 2015 while others will be standing sadly dockside waving goodbye. We caught up with her and got the insider scoop on just what makes Holy Ship so epic. Carcamo said that the whole adventure started when she had seen a friend’s endless Facebook posts about Holy Ship 2013. “He would not shut up about it,” Carcamo said. “Almost every post and status for about two or three weeks after his return was about it. Finally, I decided to look into this Holy Ship business and I came across the official recap video for 2013. It was the craziest thing I had seen and couldn’t believe such a thing existed.”

The lineup for 2014 included Skrillex, Diplo, Disclosure, Baauer, and Boys Noize as well as top secret guest Tiesto. “Being able to have kept that a secret from everyone on the boat is insane and well thought out,” Carcamo said. “All DJs have to take the same elevators or walk up and down the same stairs as you do. They have to go to the same restaurants and/or grab food from the cafeteria as you do. Bumping into Diplo, Dillon Francis and Zedd in those three days was mind-blowing!”
Ok so you can see a few DJs in an exclusive setting, so what? Lots of events offer that. There is something more however that Holy Ship offers, that X factor which defies description. A bonding experience that you can only get when on a vessel eating drinking and living with so many like-minded human beings. “One of the rules of Holy Ship is RESPECT THE WEIRD,” said Carcamo. “And it is definitely enforced because on the ship, everyone expresses themselves and they are free to be who they are.“
Just how crazy and weird are we talking? “Expect the unexpected on Holy Ship from new music premiered to shippers in the most absurd costumes,” Carcamo says. “Beyond pasties and tutus and booty shorts.” Just do a quick YouTube search and you quickly find out she isn’t kidding.
Perhaps years from now, having been infected by the rantings of a rabid fan like Nadia Carcamo was, you will find yourself standing knee deep in the ocean off a private island. The sun will make millions of tiny rainbows as it passes through the droplets in the air as dancers splash in the water. Hard bodied bros with squid hats will hold skinny, fist-pumping females on their shoulders and among all the chaos your favorite track drops into the mix. You will feel that chill of excitement run crackling and tingling up your spine and you will finally understand what it is to be a shipper.