Feature Friday: Meet Madison J.

Sure, you’ve heard of a cruise. Yes, you might have even been on one. But I have a strong feeling that your experience was nothing like this cruise! One of my best friends, Madison, went on a Norwegian cruise with her mom and sister. To say they had an amazing time would definitely be an understatement! Not only did they have a port stop, as most cruises do, but the on-board activities were incomparable to most. Read what Madison has to say about Sail{ing} Across the Sun!

1. What is your name and age?
My name is Madison Jacobi and I'm 23 years old.

2. What country do you call home?
I call the USA home. I grew up in Acworth, GA but have spent the past 5 years living in Tallahassee, FL and Sarasota, FL when I'm not in school.

3. Which city{s}/country{s} did you recently travel to?
I recently went on the 4th annual Train's Sail Across the Sun Cruise. The ship traveled to Costa Maya Mexico, but the majority of the trip was staying on the boat while we listened to various bands perform.

4. How long was the journey?
It was four nights and five days on the boat.

5. Why did you travel to this country?
Train is my favorite band. My mom went on the cruise the year before and had a great time.

6. What was the most unique thing you did on the trip?
One night we went to headphone disco. Everyone got a pair of noise cancelling headphones. There were two different DJ's and you could pick which channel you wanted to listen to. Everyone was having a great time and dancing to completely different songs and singing at the top of their lungs because no one else could hear them.

7. What was your most unique part of the trip?
Every night had a different theme based on a different Train song. There was "Angels & Demons", "You Wear White", "Rock Legends", and "Captains & Mermaids". Each night, everyone on the cruise dressed up according to the theme and attended concerts in their costumes.

8. What was the weather like during your trip?
It was beautiful. It was sunny every day with beautiful clouds and enough wind that we didn't get totally sunburnt.

9. What was the coolest part of the trip?
During the concerts, the lead singer would occasionally stop singing and hold the microphone out to the crowd. We were in the middle of the ocean and there were 1500-2000 people all singing along in unison to the same song.

10. What was the funniest thing that happened to you on this trip?
On "You Wear White" night, I wore a unicorn onesie. Train attracts a varied crowd of fans and there were a lot of big men who drank a lot. On this night, they all thought they had gotten too drunk and were imagining a unicorn on the ship. Everyone kept asking me if I was real. 

11. Did you learn anything during this trip?
I learned how music can bring people together. Especially when one of the artists, Michael Franti, was singing. His music is so powerful and all about being positive and giving good vibes into the world. It made you want to laugh and sing and cry all at the same time. During his songs, people would hug and skip in circles and wave their arms together. It didn't matter that we were all strangers. The music brought us together.

12. What was the best part of your trip?
Wow. This is hard. One of Train's 3 concerts was on the "Legend" themed night. They performed old music by legendary bands and artists. All of the other guest artists got to come up and play for one song each. It was really cool to get to hear my favorite band play such classic songs and it was even more special getting to hear them collaborate with all of the individuals that they had picked to come on the cruise with them.

13. What was the worst part about your trip?
I never felt like I had enough time. There were artists who played until 2:00 in the morning and I as always exhausted. I couldn't stay up to watch everyone because I had been dancing and doing other activities all day.

14. What is the favorite picture you took during your trip?
The pictures that we took in our costumes every night were always hilarious. Also, the picture we got to take with the entire Train band was really special.

15. If you were to go on this trip again, what would you do differently?
I really hope that I get the opportunity to go on this cruise again. I would see more of the small bands that I didn't get a chance to watch my first time around.

16. If someone else was to go on this trip, what advice or tips would you give them?
I would tell them not to plan. The most fun part is to just go around the boat and experience everything it has to offer. There are so many hidden gems on the cruise in the form of the smaller shows, the comedians, etc that are just as fun as the big shows.

17. Do you have any more travel plans lined up? Where to next?
Currently, no. I'm working and trying to finish school but hoping next year I will be able to go again. Plus, I'm going to be a teacher so after school is done, I will have spring break and summer vacations for the rest of my life to take vacations on without having to worry about missing obligations.

18. Anything else you want to share about your trip?
One of the other really unique opportunities on the cruise was that they had a tattoo artist on the ship. Pat Monahan, the lead singer of Train, wrote out some of his lyrics and people had the chance to them tattooed. My mom, sister, and I all got different lyrics tattooed. It was even cooler that the artist was from Tallahassee and we work on the same street. I got the tattoo "Be Among the Wildflowers" from the lyrics "I you don't feel beautiful / be among the wildflowers / for just a little while with me".

Thank you Madison for sharing your amazing cruise experience! Has anyone else been on this cruise, or something similar? If you haven’t, would you consider going on a cruise like this? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments!