The story of the ShipRocked Cruise is built on the foundation of the people. These connections, friendships and community last long after the cruise is over. The story of friendship is also a personal one.
Back in 2015 two photographers met on the floating music festival, surrounded by fun fans in vacation mode and buckets of beer. Amy Harris and Liz Ramanand have been friends ever since that fateful cruise the bonds of friendship have lasted far beyond the cruise. Now they run The Travel Addict together and the journey comes full circle as they’re back on ShipRocked 2023!
Ode to ShipRocked, Amy Harris:
In 2015, I stepped onto ShipRocked for the first time. It was my first music cruise. I have covered music festivals for 15 years but doing it 24 hours a day while living on a boat with fans and rockstars together is a lot different than your typical day at Coachella.
In the photo pit of Limp Bizkit, I met Liz Ramanand. Liz was covering the festival for a rock site and was a ShipRocked pro. She was a vet who had covered the festival since 2012.
Liz was the quintessential New Yorker who immediately gave me the side eye as I started to become chatty before the show. I knew she was skeptical but I eventually won her over and we became fast friends who have now gone on many adventures together.
Eight years later, I can’t imagine my life without Liz who is always there to lend an ear no matter how crazy our lives become. We have seen hundreds of live rock sets, talked for hours about life and our careers and probably enjoyed too many Carnival chocolate-melting cakes but I can’t wait to see what is next!
Our birthdays are only a few days apart so we are strong Aries who will continue to push each other out of our comfort zones! I hope I can always continue to fill our jelly bean jar of friendship and we are rocking on this boat until we are ShipRocked grannies.
Ode to ShipRocked, Liz Ramanand:
I started going on ShipRocked in 2012 but in 2015 when I connected with Amy, the cruise’s fun amplified! Beyond ShipRocked, our friendship, travels and adventures have exceeded what I could ever conjure up. Since then, Amy and I have been on all kinds of music cruises together, and festivals, we went parasailing in Haiti, we’ve partied in New Orleans, and we even found ourselves on a floating car ramp in the Midwest (long story).
On the cruise, we laughed, had conversations about figuring out life and the next steps, and so much more. We’ve visited each other’s hometowns/cities, she even came to my grad school while I was stressing out!
Like many friendships formed on ShipRocked, they’re lifelong. The cruise is a place to enhance relationships with music, with yourself, and with other people. Some people gain and lose connections but ShipRocked is an experience where you learn and explore. I’m grateful that I’ve gotten to go through lessons and adventures with Amy! Here’s to many more years of friendship, hard work, laughter, traveling and ShipRocked!