Swinger Cruises - Inside Bliss Cruise with CEO Russell Stephens

Transcript

Speaker1: You're listening to the Wanderlust Swingers podcast with Aussie hosts Kate and Daryl. If you're curious about exploring your sexuality or the swinging, hot-wifing and non-monogamous lifestyle, you've definitely come to the right podcast. Or maybe you just love travel adventures. Either way, we share our personal, sometimes juicy, sexy stories as well as Swingers Club and event reviews, interviews with other sassy people and of course our global swinging adventures. We try to bring you a look into the Wanderlust Swingers podcast with Aussie hosts Kate and Daryl. the diverse lifestyle that the swinging and non-monogamous community has. We hope you enjoy. Now let's get into the episode. G'day everyone and welcome to another episode of the Wanderlust Swingers podcast. Now you guys know I try not to do back-to-back interviews. It's not really something that we like to do on the show. But two things, when this comes out, I'm going to be knee-deep in snow in France. So to be honest, I really We wanted to be snowboarding and not recording episodes with Daryl. But the second part is when you get an interview that's too good to pass up and someone that you've been wanting to talk to for a while, you just roll with it. Do me a favor, listen to this episode, enjoy it, and follow along as I talk to Russell Stevens from Bliss Cruise. So Bliss Cruise is the biggest and most influential lifestyle cruise brand, to be honest, in the world. It entered a whole new era in 2025 when the company was acquired by New Ownership Group. Russell Stevens, the new CEO and part owner of Bliss Cruise and the man leading that transformation. Russell, welcome to the show. Thank you, Kate. It's great to be on your show and thank you for your support. So today we're going to be talking about the acquisition, the vision for Bliss, what's changing, what's not. We're going to dive headfirst into some real conversations that the community has been asking Bliss. Don't worry, we're not going to let Russell slide by. We're going to be asking him the hard questions and what it takes to turn this vanilla cruise ship into a floating city. Before we get into that, though, I do want to mention that in the lifestyle industry in particular, it's incredibly rare to get access to the actual decision makers, whether that is dating app owners, event owners, giant cruise ship owners. And so that is absolutely amazing to have Russell join us and help us find out how he actually steers the ship. So let's talk about you first, Russell. Tell us about your journey. Are you in the lifestyle? Are you a swinger? Are you non-monogamous? What's the crack with you in sex positivity? My wife and I have been in the community for about 25 years, giving away our age a little bit, I guess. We discovered the lifestyle in our 20s back in South Africa, as you may have gathered my accent, like yours, Kate. We were only together for about six months when we discovered this fantasy, and it was pretty secretive back then. We've been in the lifestyle for 25 years. We're very familiar with it. We understand it, and we love it. I think, like most of us, our participation is sort of very depending on our life challenges, kids, business, work, etc. we love the people and we really consider the lifestyle our tribe these are our people so you started in south africa i've actually been trying to interview a club in south africa now i think it's called z nights and i've been trying to interview them russell i swear for about five years because i'm just so interested in the lifestyle over there and how everything's running maybe you can put in a good word for your countrymen and get them on the show for me so lifestyle for 25 years i mean that is incredible not many people can say that right how has your perspective changed now that you have part of the industry and part of, to be honest, one of the biggest businesses in the lifestyle. So it's changed significantly. I think 25 years ago, gosh, we were going to a skanky little club in a dingy part in Johannesburg in South Africa. And that was our experience. Whereas now you've got beautiful cruise ships, you can go on beautiful resorts and just lots of different options that you have. So I think it's grown significantly. I think grown from being a sort of a small industry to something that's bigger and growing up now. We have a fair amount of perspective being in it for that long as you can imagine. And with that perspective, were you actually a Bliss customer? Had you been on the cruise ships before you decided to acquire the company? I mean, I'm assuming you kind of saw how the sausage was, you ate the sausage before you found out how it was made. So what's the go there? Yes, actually many times. Vicky and I have been on 12 Bliss cruises before we bought the company. We actually really loved the product and the experience. I'm going to throw it out there then, Russ, and I'm going to say that some of our listeners If you see me naked, that's part of being in the lifestyle and part of being who we are. So absolutely. Yeah. For people who might not know what Bliss Cruise is or what Bliss is, give me a soundbite. Give me a 45 second. You and I are in an elevator somewhere in, I don't know what country. Let's think Paris. You and I are in an elevator in Paris. Actually, we're on our way to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Give me a pitch. What is Bliss Cruise? Jeez. Okay. If I had 45 seconds to pitch Bliss to someone in an elevator, I think I would focus on the people and the community. And it probably goes something along the lines of, if you're in the lifestyle, it's all about people and connections. And the Bliss Cruise is that on steroids. You'll have between 3,000 and 6,500 swingers, arguably one of the biggest concentrations of swingers in the world at any point in time, all looking to make connections, having unadulterated fun, and create friendships that last a lifetime. Also, being on a cruise in the middle of the ocean puts people, particularly swingers, into a different mindset of freedom, playfulness, and fantasy. If I can have a little bit more than 45 seconds, we're still getting to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Okay, fine. You got it. Yeah. And I'd say the cruise is also a great value for money. You get excellent service, food, beverage, what you'd normally get on a cruise ship. But you layer that with adult entertainment, amazing playrooms, huge amounts of music. music, variety, for whatever you're into. And you see different locations with nude and lifestyle options. There's also tons of seminars, workshops, meet and greets. Whatever you're into, you'll find on a Bliss cruise. Finally, I would say that 70% of our guests come back for more. I think you'll have an awesome time. That would be my 45 seconds. Thank you very much. We are now at the top of the Eiffel Tower. You touched on something there very interesting, which is the service that you would expect from a cruise ship, plus plus. I want to know how the sausage is made. So later, we are actually going to talk about how it is we changed the vanilla cruise ship. But before we get to that, people may know Bliss, maybe they don't. An acquisition of this size, especially in the lifestyle business, it's pretty rare. I've got to be honest. Club owners that have been maybe owning something for 10, 20 years or event producers, they're pretty unlikely to want to sell their business. So it is something super unique. So of course, I'm interested because I want to know what's going on. I know the community would be interested. You led an equity group, so Navano Equities, formed in February of 2025, acquired I had Bliss shortly after. You're the CEO. You're part of the ownership and not the sole owner. Why Bliss? What sparked the interest in Bliss? I know you said you went on it, but how did you convince this equity group to purchase Bliss? Great question. As I mentioned before, we've been on 12 Bliss Cruises as guests, and we've also been to many other lifestyle events. But Bliss Cruise was really our favorite. We love the product and we love the community. The previous partners who did a great job of building the community and the guest experience, were kind of aging out a little. And the opportunity arose. It presented itself to us. I had a small group of investors, a handful of investors. There was only five of us who are also all in the lifestyle and are all swingers. No way. Yeah, every single one of them is swingers and they've all been on Bliss Cruises. So it's a... It was an easy sell. It was an easy sell to raise the money to do this. And you're right. It is an unusual event, but we really believed in the product and we believed in what it was and the brand. And really our intention was to take this great product and make it really better. But all the investors that have come along for this ride with me are all swingers and they've all been on bliss cruises. That's good too, because I guess when you are making some decisions as the CEO, it's great to have people that you're making these decisions for also know about the lifestyle rather than doing it in a vacuum. I realized that the whole way you've got this set up is so that you can, as a CEO, make quick decisions and implement changes very quickly without needing to talk about it. to too many people. You're steering the ship, pun intended. I truly didn't think that was going to be the case. So you kind of blew my mind a little bit there. Yeah, as I said, it wasn't tough to convince investors to do this. They saw the opportunity and were very excited to walk the road with me. Yeah, yeah. I have to ask, and I know as we're going through this podcast, there's going to be some things that you're probably not going to be able to tell me. They're either going to be business secrets or you're just going to say, hey, you nosy Aussie, get out of my business. So I realize there's probably going to be a few things that you're going to be saying, like, you're ever step in the line there. But I'm curious, can you tell me, are there any other plans to acquire any other lifestyle businesses, resorts, takeover, other cruise liners? Sure. Every opportunity you have to look at in its merits. And we're obviously looking to grow the company and create a better guest experience and just provide better services to our customers. But you kind of look at how you're going to grow the business and where you're going to expand the business to. And a lot of the times these things are organic. They happen and they're not planned or they're not intentional. Sometimes if they are planned, they don't work out. It all depends on the appetite for sellers to want to give up their business or move on or they're aging out or whatever the case might be. So the short answer is yes, we may acquire other lifestyle assets or build other lifestyle assets with this ownership structure or maybe a slightly different ownership structure depending on the appetite of the investors or other investors. we'd want to make sure we can add value to that asset and improve the guest experience if not we'd likely not invest in it yeah that's fair enough and i mean at the end of the day it has to be a business as well right i mean i think one of the things that this community can get a little hung up on at times is that some of these clubs and organizations and event producers they still have to be fundamentally producing revenue and profitability right correct this the ship will sink so to so to speak and yeah i'm just bringing out all the puns As much as you love the community, and I'm hearing there's five of you that are all in the community, which is great. But at the end of the day, it has to be profitable or turn profitable. So Bliss is 10 years old now, just over 10 years. What made you look at Bliss as it sat and say, you know what, we can add value and we can change the customer experience? So another great question. This was one of the core reasons we bought the company. The brand was great and the product was great. could take this to the next level. We have two cruisers under our belts as new owners and we really have tried to improve the overall experience in the product. Almost all parts of the guest experience we've tried to improve from the entertainment, the playrooms, the music, the technology, the decor, workshops, seminars, adult excursions. We felt that the brand was really good and it was stable and it had inertia and it had a very strong way forward, but we felt we could actually improve it. And there were sort of complications as to the ownership structure before. And it's just more nimble and it's easier to manage the business and to improve the guest experience going forward. The stewardship of a legacy brand is difficult. It's important. You do want to modernize things. You do want to make things better, smoother, better guest experience. But at the end of the day, you've also got an existing client base that you now also need to keep happy, right? Because you need those 70% to continue coming back or you're starting a friend. So with the new structure, how has that changed? There's a management structure within the company itself. So there's six of us that sort of discuss what decisions we're going to make, how we're going to improve things, what ships we're going to charter, et cetera, et cetera. Ultimately, as the CEO of the company, I have to make the final decision. And I think that's very normal in any normal business. There has to be someone that has to live and die by the decisions made. And there is really one captain to a ship. And to, again, use some puns. When we did our due diligence on the business, I immediately picked up that it was difficult for everyone to make decisions. Not because they didn't want the best for the business. They just were pulling in different directions or they had different ways or ideas on how to grow the business. I take guidance and input from all of my management team and even outsiders and people that I know in the industry and just people that I can share ideas with. But in the end, I have ultimately got to make a decision. I wanted to create a culture of creativity. Whoever was in the business and is part of the business, constantly think creative. How can we make that experience just better? Or let's think about this differently. And obviously, as I say, I've got to live and die by those decisions. And sometimes I make the wrong decision. A hundred percent. Sometimes I make decisions and like, ah, that was a fuck up. I shouldn't have done that. That was stupid. And in hindsight, you're like, ah, okay, let's not do that again. And that's part of being human. Now I do have some questions from some of your clients. I'm actually going to sprinkle these in as you're answering me and something pops up that I think is relevant. And you just mentioned that you're the ultimate decider when it comes to which ship, which route, et cetera. So I've got careless muscle here said for all us West Coast lifestyle cuppers, are we ever going to see a bliss cruise out of LA? What are the issues around it from your point of view? And three people said, yeah, what's going on? Are we going to get a West Coast bliss cruise? Yeah. What's that all about? Why don't we go out of the West Coast? Of course. So the answer is yes, Potentially. In fact, probably likely. It's likely to be cruises that are not done year on year. Every year we're doing a cruise out of the West Coast, but I think we could sprinkle in a West Coast cruise at some point in the future. There has been a few West Coast lifestyle cruises that have taken place in the past. They haven't been great. Their attendance has not been great. I don't know the actual details. It wasn't a Bliss cruise. It was another company. And I don't know the full details of that. just sort of going into the minutia of this. And I don't want to bore your guests, but it gets really complicated sometimes because you've got to fit into a cruise line schedule, what ships have been assigned to a particular port, where they're going to. Some ships are just not suitable for us. There's certain ships that just do not work for our kind of product and what we're wanting to do. You've got to work within the constraints and confinements of a particular cruise line and what they're doing. Remember, these ships are not designed for us. They design for vanilla cruisers and their ports and where they go to is a way bigger business for them. So we're sort of tagging onto that and trying to fit into that and try and create the best product we can with what they've got. We'd go down to Cabo. It would be potentially a five-day cruise. But yes, it is a consideration of ours, absolutely. I know from an inventory perspective, it's not like you can call the cruise ship company and say, hey, in three months' time, we're going to take a cruise ship. I mean, the lead time on these would be tremendous because as you say, they themselves themselves are booking their crews and their schedules so far in advance so you've got inventory management you've got route management on top of that you've then got the fact that their business model is purely about them first as it should be correct the other thing i do want to talk about though maybe just mention and we'll move on i want to get on a soapbox for a second you mentioned there about west coast maybe they didn't really turn up and support other business avenues and therefore people might not go back same thing happened to me i actually had a lot of west coasters tell me bring libertine events and we went out to Palm Springs and it was the most difficult hotel takeover to sell out. So I do want to say that the West Coast is asking that question. If Bliss go there, you better turn up. And listen, I mean, I want to respect everyone, including all our West Coast guests, for sure. I mean, they're as important to us as any other guest. And we want to bring the product to the West Coast. A lot of planets have to line up. And that's, I guess, what I'm trying to say is that we have to have the right time. It has to be priced correctly. It has to be the it has to be slotted in at a certain time and we would consider summer as a sort of the ideal time remember big part of our decision making is weather and sure and and people want to be naked on a on a cruise deck that was a good answer and we've got a couple of other questions that i'll be sprinkling through the podcast still talking about the legacy brand but moving it into the future modernizing bliss it's 2026 so of course technology is changing people are adapting ai is becoming a big thing people are changing the way that that we live, that we travel, that we interact with each other, social media, etc. How are you kind of honoring that legacy, but trying to bring Bliss Cruise into 2026 and beyond and continue to be a market leader? How much time do you have? The elevator is going back down from the Eiffel Town. Give me more than 45 seconds on this one. So first of all, we absolutely respect that there is legacy guests and there is a legacy product and we don't want to fundamentally change that product. It is a extremely important part of the legacy of the business. And people go on Bliss Cruises because they are expecting a certain guest experience. And I think we are going to try and honor that all the time. However, we've got to grow the brand and we've got to make the brand exciting. We must obviously avoid monotony. I mean, we went on 12 Bliss Cruises and eventually you say, oh, geez, you know, it's starting to become very much the same. So a big part of what we're trying to do is make it considerably more exciting and bring change into almost every Bliss Cruise experience. What is the stuff that we're doing? For every cruise, we'll have at least four playrooms. We put decor in there. And honestly, having been to so many lifestyle events in my life, I can truly say that our couples-only playrooms are just beautifully designed. We have dungeons, and then we're sort of expanding on how we're going to do outdoor playrooms. We get a lot of suggestions in our surveys, and people want 24-7 playrooms. Now, we can't do completely 24-7, but we're expanding our playrooms to be at least 22-7, if you like. So people can literally play any time. We're introducing dance and play events. We're trying to bring foam into that. For our February charter, we'll have foam in our dance and play events. We're also increasing the adult entertainment and making considerably sort of spicier. So we're putting a lot of effort into the entertainment that we're putting on. We've also got a lot of new DJs that we're bringing on and we're bringing a lot more music variety to the cruise with multiple venues. And we actually read every single server that we have. And actually, it's very insightful, to be honest, that we read the There's just really good information. And we really appreciate our guests pulling out the survey and spending the time to do that. One of the biggest complaints we got was music. So we have quite a broad age range of people that come on the ship with a bulk curve around 45 to 55. It is getting younger. Actually, on February, we've got the 35 to 45 is more than the 45 to 55. Now with that, you've just got a lot of music tastes and interests. So what we've done is introduce considerably more variety of music. in multiple venues. And we've actually taken parts of the ship and we've made them what would normally not be a music venue. So every night we'll have popular hits, country and EDM. And we also have a Latin band every night. We have karaoke and we have like dueling pianos that people are into sort of guitars, dueling pianos, that kind of stuff. So rock, 80s, 90s, 2000s, hip hop, disco. We're really trying to focus a lot on what we're doing with the themes and what we're doing with our cruises. Well, we started this in 26, but it's going to go beyond that. We're actually going to be steaming the entire ship. For example, the theme for Wander 26 is Wander down the rabbit hole. So we've got themes that support that overarching theme. So it's just adding a little bit more fun and excitement to that. We're also introducing a variety of new meet and greets. And a big part of what we do as a company, a big important part of what we do as a company is connecting people. So when we built the app, a big main priority of why we built the app was to try and allow people to connect on the ship. We create these meet and greets and we're expanding those. But in addition to that, we're also sort of creating playtime straight after the meet and greet. So if you're into... You've got somewhere to go, right? If you make that connection, it's one part of it. Exactly. So why are you meeting and greeting? Well, you suppose you want to play afterwards. The cart follows the horse there. This last year, I've worked really hard and my team has worked really hard on trying to expand just the variety that we have with the ports that we go to and creating a more adult excursion. for everyone. For our April cruise, we actually got two clothing optional full beach takeovers. The one is even going to have a playroom and a foam pit and a dungeon. So that's super exciting. We convinced the venue owners to do that. And they're like, well, all right, cool. Let's give it a go. And we built the first iteration of the app then. And the sort of fundamental core value that we wanted in the app was, as I said earlier, to connect people, allow people to communicate and connect with each other off the ship and on the ship. And another core value was making sure that the app works without paid internet. So we whitelist the app. And again, that was negotiation with the ship to make sure we could do that. And it took a lot of convincing for the ship to allow us to do that, but we got it over the line. And they're not comfortable with that. So these are things that we are doing to make the product and the whole experience just more exciting. And I will be on that April cruise. So I'll be there at beach parties. I'm very excited about beach parties. I love a good beach party. I actually said to my girlfriend who's coming with me, I said, I have to pre-warn you. I do go a little bit feral at beach parties. I don't know what it is about that environment, but I really start to come into my own. So I don't know how good your insurance is, Russell, but maybe just up it a little bit just for the wildness that you're about to unleash. Yeah. So the first one is in Jamaica and we're calling it Jamaica Playfest. And we've got multiple tents. It's all-inclusive of food and beverages, a reggae band. And then we've got DJs after that. So we've got a foam pit, which leads into this playroom. And we're theming the playroom. It's clothing optional. So you can be naked if you want or not, as you please. The other one, which is in Cozumel, I was actually there a week ago and I met the owners and we did our first production meetings at the beach club. The sort of design motif was to make it almost like a Tulum beach club. So it's very rustic. It's just got such a beautiful feel about it. It's really cool because our guests can just relax and enjoy nudity. It's a more chilled environment. We want people to chill and have fun. And there's this very cool banners. We're excited about it. So these are the two excursions that we're doing on the April cruise, which we're super excited about. But we've got more of these types of excursions coming. Yeah. And to have a point of difference, I think, to your earlier point, if you're on 12, 13 cruises, having all these different types of things that people can do, it's like not the same thing every day, every night. Exactly. Now, Russell, you're not going to get away with things too easy on this podcast. We have a thing here on Wanderlust where we like to put people on the hot seat and ask some sassy questions, some things that might be a little bit uncomfortable and get down to the nitty gritty. So with your consent, I am going to now put you on the hot seat and we're going to get into some of those awkward questions or maybe things that you might feel like, oh, why is she asking me this on a podcast? No, it's all right. It's okay. Every cruise, I do have a question and answer session. And sometimes it goes on for like, two and a half hours. The last cruise, we had 400 people in the venue just randomly asking me questions about whatever they wanted to. So I will try and answer them as honestly and truthfully. And sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes we do things great. So yeah, I'm used to being asked tough questions. So don't stress about it. Perfect, perfect. The first thing that I want to talk about, and this actually was a question that I did receive from one of your customers. So it ties in really nicely. I had the question, but one of your customers had the question. So this one comes from Mike. It is about the videographer. and media controversy from the November sailing, right? So Mike said, what the fuck is with all the cameras and the videos being taken on the ship? How are you supposed to relax when the crew and the sponsors are running around shooting everywhere? Now, I know that there was a kerfuffle about that. We saw it a lot on the forums and I know that Bliss themselves did put out some information after the cruise ship. But run me through what happened from your side? Why was the decision made? What lessons were learned? And I guess for people concerned about privacy in the future on Bliss, what's going to be handled differently moving forward? We completely understand your guest question and the concern around this. So first off, we absolutely know how sensitive this issue is. And we went into this with a complete understanding of protecting guest privacy. That sounds like a soundbite, but it truly is. Having been on 12 cruises, Vicky and I, we're very sensitive about the fact that Camera Crew is going to give concerns to our guests. But with that said, we were never going to expose any guest publicly that did not consent to it. And everything that we produced, we have painstakingly gone through every single picture and video frame to blur any faces and make sure not a single person is publicly exposed that did not consent to this. I know it sounds in hindsight that this is something that I'm just saying. When we went into this, we had absolutely zero intention of exposing anyone that had no consent to doing this. I can assure everyone that there's not a single image or a video frame that has exposed a single person that did not consent to that. Why did I make this decision? In the 10-year history of the company, it's never had any professional videography or photography that could capture the essence of what Bliss is. No matter how much verbiage we can say about something, a photograph doesn't capture that. So that was the reason we're doing it. What are lessons learned? I think the lessons learned is, first of all, this was a one-off. We're not doing it again. It's not like every cruise. So it is a one-off. What lessons can we learn from this? There's absolutely lessons that I and my team can take away from this. And the first is maybe just be more vocal about exactly what our intentions were and how we're going to execute them. Because when we went into this, we were never, ever going to expose anyone that did not consent to it. I am a swinger. I've been in that space. I know how people feel. I will never want to expose anyone that didn't consent to that. So I know the sensitivity about that. What we should have done, and this is hindsight, and we can apologize for it, is what we should have done We informed everyone very clearly of our intentions and how we are going to respect their privacy. Yep. Thank you. Thank you very much for your candor there. And I think one of the things that you touched on there is that a lot of the lifestyle and rightly so is shrouded in mystery. You take my events, you take the bliss cruise, you take resorts, et cetera. And in today, in today's social media life and how people make decisions where to spend their money and where to spend their time, which are finite resources. you really have to keep up with other companies and what to do on social media. You really kind of have to showcase your event. And it becomes extremely hard for us as an industry or as a lifestyle community where we have been shrouded in mystery where many people, and rightly so, cannot show themselves out for fear of losing their jobs, their children, etc. But it is a very difficult balance. That's one thing I do want to say. I empathize with it. It is very difficult for me also to be able to show people the ins and outs of the event whilst maintaining for my clients. But the second thing, I do want to touch on this because it is relevant to this concept of privacy. And look, I'm a content creator and you can also see a lot on social media or forums where at different events, not just Bliss, not isolated to Bliss, where people will get frustrated at maybe the DJ is trying to take some video footage. Maybe there's an Instagram person, a social media person, a podcaster on the ship, and they're trying to also capture for their own personal reasons content. And that does make people uncomfortable. That is a known issue. And so in most of these companies as well, and I'm sure you guys are the same, there's always a code of conduct for the actual guests, right? And this doesn't, the guests have to adhere to this as well. So what I would say to somebody, if you're there and you think the DJ, another podcaster's on the ship, me, other content creators, OnlyFans models, whoever it is, if you think that they are filming on the ship and capturing you in the background, regardless if it's a DJ, whoever it is, I would recommend to people to come and seek out Bliss staff. Absolutely. 100%. That would be one of the things I would recommend. If you're feeling uncomfortable, I would say don't wait. Do something about it. Don't necessarily go and confront the people themselves. I mean, you might be able to have a healthy adult conversation, but if you are legitimately feeling like your privacy and your safety is at stake, please go and see somebody. Regardless if you're a Desire or Hedo or on the Bliss cruise, wherever you are, go and see somebody. You got it. We do have a code of conduct for our guests. And actually, our guests sign that code of contact before they go onto the ship. It's part of our conditions of chartering the ship with the cruise line. And I know it's a bit of a pain for people to sign it when they're boarding the ship, but it also is there to protect everyone and the guests. If you are wanting to take a video, do it with no one in your background. Or if someone is in your background, make sure that they consent to that. Take a picture, but take a picture with no one in the background. In fact, we've created photo booths on the ship so people can actually take pictures. Thank you so much. Now, another interesting hot seat question. You know how you talk to friends and you say things we don't discuss at the dinner table is religion, finances and politics. Well, Russell, it's time to talk finances with you. It's the hot seat. It's no holds barred here. I actually already had this question lined up, but then miserable shock asked this question as well. So I'm going to kind of tie it all into one beautiful present for you because I feel that you're going to be delighted. about this. Finances. One person, miserable shock, said, why is the drink package half the cost of the cruise? Now, my questions were actually going to be about alcohol and sneaking alcohol on board. And why would people try to do that is because they're trying to maybe save money. They don't want to buy the alcohol package. Drink packages are generally expensive. It's a twofold question. Why is the drink package at the price that it is at? How are you able to then negotiate? Maybe with the cruise liner and say, hey, let's not put a lifestyle tax on this. You know, we don't want to price gouge anybody. And then the flip side of that as well, I want to talk about sneaking booze onto the cruise. And I have a funny story to share with you after you answer those questions. We're by no means suggesting that we're the cheapest cruise charter in the industry. We don't want to assume that we're the best, but we'd like to provide the best product at the best possible price. But we've made a decision that we're going to try and charter the best possible ships in the industry that we can charter that is suitable for our charters. These are not the cheapest ships. In fact, to be honest, they're actually some of the most expensive ships. And what comes with that is these added conditions that the cruise charter company imposes on us when we charter the ship. So with the same cruise line, we had an option of chartering Oasis of the Seas or Wonder of the Seas. And for many reasons, we could have chartered Oasis of the Seas and actually made more profit. And the price of the cruise might actually have been cheaper for the guest itself. But we chose Wonder of the Seas because it's actually one of the best ships in the industry. We felt that it was just going to be a much better guest experience, but it came at a cost. And what comes with that cost is the cost of booze. And those are conditions that the cruise charter company imposes on us. We don't have a choice. We can't say, don't charge us for booze. It's part of the conditions of the sale. Now, can we charter other ships that are cheaper and that the booze is included? Absolutely. However, we've taken a decision as a company that we want to offer the best possible ships with the best possible experience. So to answer your question specifically about the booze package, The cruise line dictates essentially the boost package to us. There's a little bit of variability there. They do say you can run pre-cruise specials. In other words, before you board the ship, there's a special. And a lot of the times we do that. So for example, on our February cruise and our April cruise this year, we've done pre-cruise specials for our guests. You can buy the boost package, I don't know, 15, 20% less than its normal price. But ultimately the boost package is set by the cruise line and we do the best we can in trying to negotiate the best deal that we can. for our guests. I actually, just before this meeting, Vicky showed me some of the Reddit comments that were being thrown around. And I welcome everyone's comments and questions. And price was actually one of the considerations in these comments that people were making. And what I'd like to say is that the cruise industry itself, the prices have gone up nearly 30% since COVID. It's just the supply and demand factor. People love cruising. The industry's growing at exponential rates. So why would we charge this charter company, less than what we would ideally like to make if we just chartered the ship ourselves. So it's really tough for us because that's a tough argument or it's hard to go into that negotiation and say, but give us the prices that you gave us four years ago. It's really hard to go into negotiations with that as a backdrop. So I would say that our margins are actually less now. We've got more volume. We've actually got more inventory. So we're maintaining profitability, but our margins are less per charter than they were before. because we are actually trying to soften the blow of the 30%. And it's just a fact of life. It's business. Cruise lines charter the ship and they're kind of the boss and they're going to say, listen, if you want the ship, that's what it's going to cost. And if you don't want the ship, don't charter it. Then we have to make a decision. Has our prices gone up? Absolutely. That was an inevitability. And there was almost no avoiding it. It's just unless we decided to go with a different cruise line. Yep. Now I do want to talk about sneaking alcohol. And here's my funny story. We don't know each other really from Adam Russell. Two years ago, well, first of all, actually, let me backtrack. I'm very, very interested in the fact that Vicky knew about that thread because I didn't tell you I was posting a thread on Reddit and capturing some questions. So the fact that Vicky is that on the ball, knowing that that was happening in 24 hours, amazing. So kudos to Vicky for the finger on the pulse there. I absolutely love that. She says, listen, just so you're aware of what you're getting yourself into, just read some of these posts. So what's going down? All right, cool. And truthfully, all the questions are perfectly legitimate. There's no posts on there which I look at and say, oh, well, that's unreasonable. 100%. So two years ago, before we had even ever spoke, before I really ever touched base with Bliss or started to talk to Bliss, I want to share this with you because I think you'll probably get a bit of a chuckle about it. Somebody said, November Bliss Cruise 2024. And they said, hey, my wife and I are attending a Bliss Cruise in November. My question is, what's the best way to smuggle booze onto the ship discreetly? And two years ago, and I was not pulling any punches here, I shot straight from the hip, I said, I hate to be that person, but seriously do better. I said, bliss. Yes, is a pretty large organization, but it's still a business and you should budget accordingly. And then I kind of said, look, at the end of the day, if business owners can't keep their doors open, then we don't have a business. We don't have a place to go. And I basically, I said, this is selfish behavior. So I really gave that person. There's much more to that post in my response. Like I said, I wasn't pulling punches there, but some people have tried to suggest, Hey, here's how you smuggle alcohol. on board. And I know that not just with Bliss, but I know that the cruise line is in particular, like there's a whole host of things that they find as people are boarding the ship. And there's a contraband area, which extends past alcohol. I think there's like garment steamers that aren't allowed and all sorts of things that they take off people. Yeah, irons and candles and all sorts of stuff. All sorts of things that you kind of contraband. But this in particular, how do you, Russell, feel when you hear people or you see this post on Reddit saying, how can I do it? or you see people in your community as well, because you're part of lifestyle kind of coming and smuggling alcohol, not just in your community, but now in your business or when you see content creators trying to share, here's how you should smuggle alcohol on board. How do you react to that? How do you not just come out swinging, Russell? Well, first of all, people can really do whatever they want and I suppose suffer the consequences to that. You know, whatever they're trying to smuggle on the ship, we're not necessarily going to stop that. Our immediate reaction is we absolutely don't and condone this behavior at all. So we have a very, very good relationship with Royal Caribbean Group. They're our partners and we've never chartered a ship outside of the Royal Caribbean Group. We support them. They support us. We obviously have a very risky type of charter for them. They can get some exposure that they may not want. We have to behave in a very respectful and professional way with our charter partners. And they really give us the right to enjoy their ships as an adult lifestyle event. So we have obviously got to be extremely respectful to the that we have created and forged with Royal Caribbean groups. So they have a rule not to bring booze on the ship. We respect that rule and we support them. And we can't condone that kind of behavior at all. If podcasters are sort of touting that publicly, yeah, I mean, potentially shame on you. We're enjoying this beautiful vessel and this occasion with Royal Caribbean giving us the rights to do that. Absolutely. No, it's the same. It's the same for our events. I always say, look, at the end of the day, if we didn't have these venues allowing us to, be ourselves if we disrespect them and they remove that opportunity from us then we don't have the venue it's just pure and simple so yeah it's really that's i do have one more hot seat question but then i really want to know before we close out i want to know a little bit about how the sausage is made turning the vanilla ship into swingers ship well i want to make sure we get that across the line for the listeners because i personally think it'll be fascinating now this might be a little bit controversial and it's about sponsorship of bliss cruise and obviously when you do partner with people you make a decision about with certain organizations or products. Same with the cruise line. Same with even you being on this podcast. At the end of the day, if I perhaps edited you in a poor light or I made you sound foolish, you're putting a lot of faith even in Wanderlust Swingers as a podcast to represent you. All that being said, there was a lot of talk on forums about a recent partnership that you had with a porn organization in particular. And in these questions that I had overnight, one said, hey, what's the deal with a partnership, with a sponsorship, with a porn producer? It's a couple's focused cruise. And I think this also bled a little bit into the videographer message. Some people were kind of saying they were everywhere on the ship as well. But run us through that and maybe answer the question, why? So it was Vixen Group. And Vixen has got multiple brands in their stable, one of which is Wifey. It's a new product that they have, which is essentially Hot Wife, which has tangential connection to this cruise. So they approached us. And at the time, we felt that there was enough similarity between what they're doing. and what we are as a product and as a brand. And we felt that they were offering certain things that they provided a porn channel for us, which we didn't have before. And we thought, okay, that was kind of cute. People could, if they wanted to watch porn on the TV, then it was there to watch, I guess. In hindsight, would we do that again? Probably not. We wanted to try it out. And as I said at the beginning of this interview, Kate, there's decisions we make and some of them are good and some of them are bad. And in hindsight, I'd look at that decision and say, yeah, give our guests not being overly excited about this. That was probably not a great decision. Would we do partnerships with other brands? Absolutely. We've got adult toy brands, for example, that are interested in partnering with Lube, all sorts of companies that associate themselves with our industry and our brand. And I think that would be less offensive to some of our guests. But if the truth be told, and if I had to be honest, in hindsight, looking at it and just guests not really being that excited about it, I would probably not have done that we're not trying to be a porn brand we're not trying to create adult content that is absolutely the furthest thing from our sort of mission if you like yeah that's just not the type of thing that we have any interest in so there is mixed views about this you know some people liked it but i think more people didn't like it than did like it and for that reason we wouldn't do it again first of all thank you very much for answering all of my questions thank you for sitting on the hot seat feel free to jump off now jump on an ice cube or something But I really appreciate you, Candy, your transparency, sticking with me as I kind of got very awkward at the dinner table and talked to you about finances. Before we close out, I would like to know how you change a 3,000-person, 4,000, 6,000-person cruise ship into a lifestyle cruise ship. How does the cruise ship company, how does Royal Caribbean actually feel about the fact that one week it's a couple's adults family cruise and the next week it's a swingers cruise and then the week after that it's how do they feel about it so the crew and i'm talking management of the ship from the hotel manager to the staff captain to the captain mostly right down to bartenders and staff and janitorial staff they actually love it if the truth be told they really loved just the excitement of it and just the energy and the and just the naughtiness i would imagine well and also our guests our guests are just so happy they're just the happiest folks that you can imagine. I'm going off topic a little bit, but one of my favorite things since owning this company is actually just walking around the ship on the pool deck or on the promenade or wherever and just seeing so many happy people and just smiles. And that just reminds me of when Vicky and I went on our first cruises and the experience that we had to the core of your stomach laughter and people just being naughty with each other and just having a lot of fun. So that permeates through the entire cruise. So that kind of goes into how our guests the bartenders and the staff and they absolutely love it. I guess really are generous and they tip the staff and we appreciate that and they appreciate that because these guys live off those tips and they really appreciate that. But they also really engage with the crew and they have fun with them and the crew reciprocate and they love it. I'll give you a little anecdotal story. For obvious reasons, the ship goes to all the staff and say, if for whatever reason, for moral, religious or any other reasons, you wish not to be on this cruise, you are absolutely entitled to go and to another cruise or take leave or whatever. There's actually a waiting list of a crew that want to get on a bliss cruise. It's so funny. They just love the whole... That's wild. Yeah, I know. It's really cool. I obviously talk to the crew a lot and they're like, oh my God, this is so much fun. And they're like, we've got to go back to the regular world next week. The truth is they love it. They absolutely love it. And I know I'm generalizing. I'm sure there are some that probably turn their eye up or whatever, but for the most part, they absolutely love it. They have a great time. And thinking about, I said, and then the next week they've got families on board. Has the Cruise Liner or Bliss ever received any kind of hate mail from families coming in up? Like, oh, we've got to hose the deck down from all the cum that's on the deck? No, nothing. We've actually never received a single sort of hate mail for guests that are on the cruise after our cruise. Nothing. No. So the last night of the cruise is really hectic for us. We have to go through and make sure that all the doors, because there's obviously people sticking things on doors, the housekeeping staff, make sure that they go through the entire, every room, very thoroughly, God forbid, sort of use condoms and all this type of stuff. And obviously guests sometimes leave stuff in the room that they shouldn't have left in the room. And so that has to be discarded. But there's a very big cleanup process. So from midnight on the last night of the cruise is when our crew are working really hard. So are you turning it over in one day, like as you board the ship, are you turning that entire cruise ship over on that boarding day? And then are you turning it back on the disembarking? You're flipping it in like a half a day or a day? Yes. And so on that note, and you wanted to sort of pull back the curtain, a little bit of what goes on in the cruise in the background, and I'll just give you some insight. So when I bought the company, I actually didn't realize how much actually went into it. It's actually quite a big operation, more than most people understand. So for one of our biggest cruisers, or we have an Oasis-class ship, we'll have 12 semi-trucks that deliver stuff to the ship. It's actually quite remarkable. We'll have everything from playroom equipment and beds to the equipment, decor. digital signage. It's intense. The first day and the last day is hectic for us. For a large charter like Wanda, we'll have up to 350 people working for us. These are our employees, volunteers, entertainers, DJs, presenters, security. It's a lot. It's a big production. And we also spend months planning and curating the overall experience. For example, Reflection, which was our cruise in November, we had over 500 events on that charter. So it takes a lot of planning and coordination and organization in order to to get that to run smoothly. You know, you've got multiple things happening all simultaneously at the same time. You've got a pool party happening. You've got this meet and greet. You've got that seminar happening. You've got another show happening in this venue. And all of these things are happening simultaneously. And you've got presenters and you've got entertainers and DJs. And sometimes people get sick. And now you have to have a backup for that. It is a logistical and production. Challenge, we'll say. Challenge, endeavor, yes. And obviously, the bigger the ship. So Wanda is a massive undertaking. for us. And we're even starting to plan for Wonder even as far out as this. So we're looking at what entertainment we're going to curate on that and the type of stuff that we're going to do. Wonder, that's going to be our flagship. And we are going to pull all stops out on that cruise. It looks like a beautiful ship. It's a spectacular, magnificent ship. I was on the ship for a site inspection just a day. I'd never seen the ship prior to this. My production team, myself, Vicky, we landed on the ship just for a day. I think it was two weeks ago. And it is absolutely magnificent ship. But for Wonder, it's a completely enclosed room. It's actually 35,000 square feet of playroom space. So it'll be, in my opinion, I think it'll be the biggest playroom ever in history. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. For all the events around the world that we've been to, Cup Dog, Hedo, Desire, and Canaria, we've done it all. So I would agree with that. If we're allowed to, I think we should do a Guinness World Record there, right? Biggest fuckfest on the whole planet. Here it is. Well, you know what? I was actually going to ask you what the most complex thing behind the scene was, but I think you answered it there. Russell, I'm a project manager. I don't know if you knew that. And I have worked for half a billion dollar scope management contracts. I love data. I love software. And I would absolutely love to see the behind the scenes of how you're tracking everything that's going on with all those stuff. I mean, people think that they walk in and like I said before, there's like a photo opportunity wall or area. Those things don't just spring up, right? Somebody has to be allocated to bring the equipment onto the ship to then set it up simultaneously. you've got your AV guy setting up probably four or five different locations because of all the different. I would absolutely salivate at being able to see that because that is my jam. I think I would probably masturbate to that if I'm being absolutely blatantly honest. Yeah, I mean, whatever gets you off. I mean, we might have a behind the scenes production meet and greet for so everyone can kind of get like a sense not to go into the minutiae here, but there's obviously a master sort of production schedule and that's broken down into into days and venues. and there's sort of venue managers. And from a managerial point of view, you have to break it down into those sort of components. And then obviously there's got to be an overall production manager. There's a lot of operations logistics. On any sort of given ship, there's between 20 and 25 departments that we have to deal with on a regular basis. So that's from the staff captain, hotel management, housekeeping, food, beverage, the entertainment. It just, it goes on. And then you have to coordinate that with what we're bringing onto the ship and the experience that we're providing. the events that we are providing on the ships. But you sort of eat that elephant one bite at a time, so to speak. So I'll give you an example on reflection. We just had a huge amount of power problems. Just for whatever reason, the ship, it just had power problems. There's nothing we can do about it. It's just a, it's just part of how you have to handle the business. And this affected our audio and video was working and it disrupted a few of these events and you just got to deal with it. And you've got to solve the problem and you've got to work with the ship and the, and their technical team and sometimes there's hot heads and you've got to sort of calm that down. And hopefully the guests don't notice too much of that. You were talking about behind the scenes stuff. These are the types of things that are constantly thrown at us. And then there's other issues. Sometimes guests get annoyed with each other or there's domestic kind of issues. There's three and a half thousand people on a ship, Russell. I would expect nothing less. Emotions are running hot. Maybe you've had a couple or two cocktails or push the boundary. Exactly. So there's drink involved. and maybe there's a newbie on the ship and they start to get annoyed with each other. I'd expect nothing less. I would be shocked, Russell, if you said to me that three and a half thousand humans boarded a vessel and everybody walked away friends with each other. I would be absolutely shocked, to be honest. Statistically, it's not possible. Actually, it's remarkably less prevalent than you would think. So I think we had three or four issues of sort of irritation between guests on the last cruise, which I think there'd be more of that. And we actually have a peace officer, not a police officer, So it's actually Dr. Val, one of our presenters, and she's really good at just calming a situation down. So if people get frustrated or annoyed with each other, it's like, okay, guys, let's take a deep breath. Let's relax. Let's go chill. Let's be nice to each other. Yeah, well, you got a hold of people to the same code of conduct and the high standard that you've set, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah, we don't want we don't want to guess running around the ship because they're angry with their spouse and making it miserable for other guests. So we manage the entire thing. But yeah, there's some sort of Feel the curtain back and give you some insight as to what happens behind the scenes on one of these cruises. I'm looking forward to seeing it in action because I will be joining you guys in April for the beach party. I'm very excited. I will be there. If you want to join me, check out the show notes, head to wanderlustswingers.com. We have a dedicated page for that. Wanderlustswingers, I'm actually offering something very special. I'm offering some cash back. So if you want to join me internationally, if you want to join me domestically from within the US, head over to our website, check it out. But Russell, you have been fabulous. Again, as I said before, it's not often you get to talk to somebody who is making decisions in lifestyle businesses. It can also sometimes be shrouded in mystery for a lot of people. I don't know who owns Desire and I've never spoke to the owner of Hedo, so it's pretty rare. So again, I want to thank you for coming on the show. And more importantly, really, thank you for your humility and just being so open. I really appreciate it. Oh, it's an absolute pleasure, Kate. And thank you for your support for our business, for our community. Fundamentally, we love our community. This is our tribe. And it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and your listeners. And we can do this again, if you would like, in the future. And we've got lots of fun stuff happening that I can't, a lot of it I can't disclose now, but it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Absolutely. Well, how about we catch up again after I spend April with you? Because of my project management eyes, I'm probably going to be looking around and I might have some little fun stories about like, oh, I saw this happening and this was going on. And now it's time for you to show me the project management sheet so I can go and masturbate. All right. If you want to masturbate, I'm cool with that. It's all part of the fun. That's cool. Perfect. No judgment here. So thank you very much, everybody, for listening, for hanging around for this long, for listening to another interview on the Wanderlust Swingers. We're coming in hot right now. Actually, quite cold from the snow in France, but we'll catch you on the next one. Thank you again, Russell.