The Cost of Attending JoCo Cruise 2017

Photo credit: Phil Comeau, CC BY 2.0.

Last year, I came back from the JoCo Cruise and tallied up the money I spent on treating myself. I also tallied up the cost of a single day’s travel between Port Canaveral and Seattle. (Spoiler alert: it cost $457.47.)

This year, I’m going to tally up all the costs, and see what kind of extraordinary number we come up with.

Cruise booking cost: $2,176.00. (This was for a single-occupancy booking in an interior stateroom. It wasn’t the least expensive stateroom, but it was in the lowest tier, cost-wise.)

Round-trip flight, SEA-SAN: $266.40.

Bag check, both ways: $50.

30 minutes of Gogo Wi-Fi on the initial flight to San Diego: $4.95. (You can cram a lot of emails into 30 minutes.)

One night at the Wyndham San Diego Bayside: $215.75. (Yes, this cost nearly as much as the round-trip flight.)

Lyft rides to/from the airports: $80.76. (Remember I have a Lyft discount pass.)

The one time I shared a taxi ride: $5. (The taxi was unpleasant and the driver kept all of the windows down.)

Meals before and after the cruise: $89.28. (I also spent $31.84 on takeout when I got home and made it last for three meals. Then I spent $94.38 on groceries.)

Meals in Loreto, Baja California Sur: $35. (We literally drank the restaurant out of margarita flavors.)

Adult beverages purchased on the ms Westerdam: $114.10. (This number represents twelve individual beverages, or roughly $9.50 per drink.)

Bottles of water purchased on the ms Westerdam: $13.63. (This was the first year I paid for bottled water instead of drinking from the tap in my stateroom. The bottled water cost $3.03 per liter and I am pretty sure having it around kept me both hydrated and healthy—I usually end the cruise with some variant of “cruise crud,” and this year I did not.)

Photos purchased on the ms Westerdam: $39.95. (For one group photo of myself and my friends. They didn’t tell me how much it would cost until after I agreed to buy it.)

TOTAL COST: $3,090.82.

As I’ve written before, the JoCo Cruise community is an incredible group—many of whom have become my friends and collaborators, and in some cases connected me to work and/or hired me. (I was the official JoCo Cruise blogger for JCC 2016.) It’s hard to explain without sounding like an enormous cliché, but I’ve grown as a person, I’ve found my people, I’ve become myself because of this cruise.

I’ve also gotten to see amazing performers and creative people such as Welcome to Night Vale, Rebecca Sugar, Jean Grae—this year’s guest list was incredible. (No, seriously. Click and scroll and look at it.) Being around people who are doing great work, both in terms of the official guest roster and the people who sign up as attendees, is so inspiring. I am ready to work hard and get better at my stuff and support my friends who are doing the same thing.

So yeah, it costs a decent amount of money to go.

But it is absolutely worth it.

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