Many people associate a cruise holiday with being in a floating hotel, with buffet lines and various forms of entertainment and recreation, plus the obligatory port calls for shopping. As for the passengers … well, grey is the dominant hair colour.
But even Baby Boomers like to rock out, and music cruises featuring artists who were popular in the 1960s and '70s are a big business in North America. At least 30 such "Woodstock with waves" itineraries, as one travel blogger dubbed them, now ply the Caribbean circuit.
Now music cruises are making their way to Southeast Asia -- and for a decidedly younger crowd that might not normally consider a floating holiday. One such example is It's The Ship, run by Livescape Group, a lifestyle and corporate event management company based in Kuala Lumpur.
"Doing a music festival on a cruise ship is very, very new and we kicked it off in 2014 with the first music cruise in Singapore," Livescape CEO Iqbal Ameer told Asia Focus in a telephone interview.
"We've been doing it for about five years and this year we're looking to expand the concept to new markets because we have hit critical mass. There are opportunities to go into new markets to show what a music festival on a cruise is all about."
It's The Ship caters to fans of electronic dance music (EDM) and trance from various DJs or hip-hop, trap and other genres from live performers, seeking to re-create the atmosphere of a giant beach party.
"We charter the entire cruise ship, we get international artists from all over the world, we build a world-class production on it, and then we develop an entire experience for the shipmates (passengers)," said Mr Ameer.
The company's fifth event last year brought together over 90 musicians and 4,000 passengers. The lineups for previous cruises have included the Dutch electronic duo Dash Berlin, Moldovan DJ Andrew Rayel, artists from 88rising including Keith Ape, and the Higher Brothers, a Chinese hip-hop group from Chengdu. Each trip has a different celebrity "captain", one of whom was the American actor David Hasselhoff.
"What we are trying to do is to curate various types of content for a 24-hour party experience for three days straight," said Mr Ameer.
It's not all music and dancing -- there's also bowling and arcade games, morning yoga with DJs, mini-golf, rock climbing with the artists, cooking classes and more. As there is no "backstage", the musicians and captains are really involved with the activities.
Mr Ameer's favourite feature, however, is the lack of cellular reception in international waters. Passengers have to undergo "digital detox" whether they like it or not.
"This lack of phone reception has also created a totally new dimension to your music experience because you're not just there to record videos of artists performing. You are actually there immersing yourself what is going on at the time," he said.
Some people continue to use their phones, with or without reception, and walkie-talkies are available for security. But the majority, he observed, eventually accept the reality.
"The moment they decide to let go of their phones, everything changes, as they will live in the moment instead, and I have seen that on the ship."
For those seeking a break from music and partying, other activities are available.
It's The Ship has been operating out of Singapore for the past five years, sailing from the city-state to Langkawi and Penang in neighbouring Malaysia. A Singapore-Phuket route was added in 2016. Livescape is now looking to offer a music cruise out of China in June, followed by Japan in August, with India also on the horizon.
"Australia is another market that we think will really, really work, and we also looking at Dubai," said Mr Ameer, stressing that a good local partner is essential to the success of each cruise.
Apart from making good use of local partners, the company is able to further refine its offerings based on five years of passenger data to create an online community. It has 110,000 followers on Facebook and 34,000 more on its Instagram account @itstheship.
The ships chartered for the cruises have included the Genting Dream, operated by Dream Cruises which is part of the Genting Group in Hong Kong. Passengers have come from 88 countries with Asians making up around half, and another 40% from Europe and North America.
"We have people who came from Guam and we had a shipmate that actually came from North Korea last year," said Mr Ameer.
An It's The Ship cruise has to be booked eight to 12 months in advance. Quoted prices for a three-day package range from US$500 per head excluding transport to and from the port of departure, to $25,000. The latter gets you a two-storey presidential suite with butler service and a grand piano.
Security is a high priority for Mr Ameer, who has seen what can go wrong when thousands of people gather for land-based music events. He and his partners used to run the Future Music Festival Asia in Kuala Lumpur, but six drug-related deaths brought an end to that event in 2014.
Drawing from that experience, they decided that staging a festival on a ship in international waters would give owners full control of the content and the event. Working with cruise ship companies helps since they have well established security systems.
"In terms of drugs, we are departing from Singapore which enforces the death penalty on drug-related crimes and this is the main medium to deter people from bringing drugs on board our ship," he said.
"For the past five years, there have not been any drug-related issues at all. A lot of people that come on the ship may be thinking that it is going to be one thing, but when they leave they will find out that this is a completely new experience."