Join Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks and more as Stargate sets sail on its first-ever cruise!
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Timecodes
0:00 – Splash Screen
1:03 – Opening Credits
1:32 – Welcome
1:40 – Guest Introduction
1:54 – A Stargate Cruise
2:18 – RDA Will Be Attending
3:06 – A Fan of the Show
5:15 – Other Guests Attending
6:50 – How Long in Planning?
8:07 – Smallville Cruise
9:12 – Spaces Still Available
10:28 – More About Vacationeer
13:12 – More Attendees, More Guests
14:56 – The Ship
17:30 – Towel Animals
18:30 – The Itinerary
22:29 – Stargate Activities Onboard
26:06 – More About Booking
28:30 – A European Cruise?
28:51 – Port Excursions
29:26 – Why Royal Caribbean?
30:36 – Cast Excursions
32:29 – Pricing
37:33 – Ways to Get in Touch
39:20 – Facilities Onboard
44:03 – Will There Be Stargate Vendors?
44:45 – Disability Access
45:25 – Difficulties With a European Cruise
46:29 – Onboard Stargate
47:20 – Good Things Are Coming for Stargate Fans
49:05 – Lurking in the Facebook Group!
49:50 – Why Go Cruising?
52:49 – Seasickness
53:53 – Travel Insurance Is a Must!
55:23 – Staterooms
56:08 – More Guests Coming and Clarifications
58:21 – Thank You, Jonathan
58:50 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:00:23 – End Credits
***
“Stargate,” “Stargate SG-1,” “Stargate Atlantis,” “Stargate Universe,” and all related materials are owned by Amazon MGM Studios.
#Stargate
#DialtheGate
#turtletimeline
#wxtremists
TRANSCRIPT
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David Read:
Welcome everyone to Episode 417 of Dial the Gate. My name is David Read. I appreciate you being with me here as we get ready to set sail for a Stargate cruise. Jonathan de Araujo, the Vacationeer. How are you, sir?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Doing well. Exciting day today.
David Read:
Dude, I have heard for years about Star Trek cruises and everything else, and I never thought in a million years that Stargate could get one. So, the fact that you are pioneering this, I am thrilled. This is awesome. And the fact that you’ve got who you’ve got– What should we start off with?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Let’s start with who’s on it.
David Read:
Let’s get the big stuff out of the way. Let’s pull up your website here. And this is at gatecruise.com, yes?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yes.
David Read:
This is the cruise website here, and we’ve got the link in the description below, folks, already. So, we’re gonna take it to the cast, and the Grand Poobah himself, Richard Dean Anderson.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Richard Dean Anderson.
David Read:
Now that the main cast member is out of the bag here — let me set this up real quick — you are a Stargate fan, yes?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Long time. Many, many decades, yes.
David Read:
You are not just someone coming in and saying, “Oh, hey, a Stargate cruise. Let’s go ahead and do this. I’ve heard about this property.”
Jonathan de Araujo:
My gosh, no. I gotta be honest. I’m also a Star Trek fan, and I own a travel agency. And I’ve seen the Stargate [sic] cruise year after year and all the guests and all the cast of–
David Read:
The Star Trek cruise?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Sorry, the Star Trek cruise. Every year. And I sit there and I think, “Why can’t we have that for Stargate? Why hasn’t someone done this?” And it’s been quite a few years in the making, but it’s finally here, and I’m…
David Read:
Really?
Jonathan de Araujo:
…so excited.
David Read:
Awesome. I’m gonna throw a curve ball at you. What’s your favorite episode? Come on.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It’s gotta be “Rising,” Atlantis’ “Rising.”
David Read:
Really?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yeah.
David Read:
You’re a fan of the water.
Jonathan de Araujo:
I knew I’d have to justify this answer, so here’s the thing. When you’re a fan and there’s a new series coming out, you have the opportunity to not only meet the new characters, but also the thing about “Rising” is you’re meeting an entirely new technology and city and ship. And it’s all getting thrown at you at the same time. And you’ve got Rodney McKay there, and they’re losing power, and they’re afraid that the shield’s gonna collapse.
David Read:
Using power too.
Jonathan de Araujo:
And he’s, “Losing power, losing power, losing power!” It’s so exciting to see them, to imagine yourself in this new place that is beyond your imagination. And also, you might be dead in five minutes. It’s so exciting.
David Read:
No, they were…
Jonathan de Araujo:
I love it.
David Read:
… on the frontier. That’s absolutely good. We’re gonna get back to more Stargate here, but people are like, “OK, more guests, but what is next?”
Jonathan de Araujo:
Right, but wait, we have more.
David Read:
They’re already asking.
Jonathan de Araujo:
We have more.
David Read:
We have more. OK.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Scroll down. Amanda Tapping.
David Read:
Scrolling. Wow, OK. Very good.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Everybody knows who Amanda Tapping is? Yes, OK.
David Read:
I would sincerely hope so, as Daniel would say.
Jonathan de Araujo:
I would hope so.
David Read:
I would hope so. This is a great get, absolutely. Do we have any more of SG-1?
Jonathan de Araujo:
We do. Michael Shanks.
David Read:
My favorite character. This is awesome. Now I can text him and say…
Jonathan de Araujo:
Understandable.
David Read:
…”I know. I know that you know.” This is so cool, man. This is great. So, any…
Jonathan de Araujo:
We didn’t mess around when it came to SG-1. We went right to the top.
David Read:
Right to the top, absolutely. Is it just SG-1, though, or do we have some other–
Jonathan de Araujo:
Oh, no.
David Read:
Do we have Atlanteans by any chance?
Jonathan de Araujo:
This is not an SG-1 cruise. This is the Stargate cruise. I’m sorry. This is Gate Cruise.
David Read:
Gate Cruise.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Rachel Luttrell. Do I pronounce that right? I’ve heard it pronounced a couple different ways.
David Read:
It’s Luttrell.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Luttrell. Thank you.
David Read:
There you go. Got it. She won’t correct you too, so it’s one of those things: “If you know, you know.”
Jonathan de Araujo:
I appreciate you correcting me.
David Read:
Absolutely. Dr. Carson Beckett. Awesome.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Paul McGillion.
David Read:
Paulie McGillion. And evidently, more cast announcement coming very soon.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yes.
David Read:
Is this something that’s going to be updated pretty quickly?
Jonathan de Araujo:
This is not the full cast. We expect to have some announcements, I would say, in the next two weeks.
David Read:
How long have you been wanting to pull this off? You say a long time. How long have you been wanting to make this happen?
Jonathan de Araujo:
It’s been years. We’ve talked to a lot of people in the industry, and it’s getting the right combination of people together and the right cast members motivated to want to do something like this. Honestly, it really came down to Rick wanting to do this, I think, in a lot of ways.
David Read:
There you go. In some ways, this is perfect for him, because he has such a romance with the water, so it all blends in together for him. This is gonna be something that if you don’t like the water, you’re in trouble. If you get seasick, they have those little things now that they can put behind your ear, and you can pull it off, and I’ve done over a dozen of these things at this point, and everyone, when I was walking around the last time I was on a boat, had these behind their ear, and apparently they do the job. This is pretty cool. What other properties have you done? I want to talk a little bit about Vacationeer, your travel agency. What other properties are already under your belt?
Jonathan de Araujo:
I think the thing that your audience may be most familiar with is Smallville. So, we have a cruise called Cruiseville, and it is with the cast of Smallville. Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, Erica Durance. That is this July on a Celebrity cruise line ship, and that’s the second year for us with that cast.
David Read:
This is not a one-off?
Jonathan de Araujo:
This is not, no. We did it last year for the first time. Everyone had a great time. We re-upped. We were ready to go, and we had a second year prepped, and we’ve sold, I want to say, something like 50% or 60% more people are coming the second year.
David Read:
This is awesome.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It’s great.
David Read:
You’re not blocking out a whole cruise ship? This is–
Jonathan de Araujo:
No.
David Read:
OK. This is a section of the capacity?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yeah. So, the cruise lines, they call these affinity groups, because it’s a group of people with the same affinity or same fandom. And if we bring enough people, they’ll give us space onboard. So, they’ll give us use of the theater space. They’ll give us use of the conference center onboard. They’ll give us use of certain nightclubs and different things at different times, so that we can have our exclusive events onboard. Nobody else on the ship is allowed into our events, and we have some really great spaces onboard. So, all of the big spaces that you’re familiar with onboard. Typically, we’ll have one or two events in all of those bigger venue spaces for events: evening events, afternoon events.
David Read:
Do we wear wristbands? How do they determine who’s who in terms of letting you into spaces?
Jonathan de Araujo:
I’m looking for a lanyard. We have lanyards that indicate that you’re with our group, and you just wear your lanyard, and you get right in.
David Read:
That’s awesome. This is not hyperbole. Royal Caribbean is my favorite cruise line, and I’ve done six or seven of them at this point, almost all of the major ones. The food is outstanding, their customer service is great, and you don’t feel like cattle. The situation with everything in the room and– I’m very pleased. I enjoyed Celebrity as well, but Royal Caribbean, it was my first and my favorite, so this is ideal for me as far as I’m concerned. How long have you been in this industry? And tell me a little bit more about you and your day job and your gig.
Jonathan de Araujo:
The Vacationeer is my company, and we’ve been around since about 2017. We actually specialize in family vacations — Disney, Universal — cruises. We got our start really selling mostly people’s Disney vacations. We are now one of the top sellers of Disney vacations in the country. Same with Universal. But one of the things that we’ve grown in the last few years is our group cruise department, and I have the luxury of being able to say, “Hey, what are the things that I really enjoy, that I would want to build a cruise around?” And to go out and create a cruise for my particular interests. We talked about Cruiseville. We just got off, about two weeks ago, our NRB cruise, the No Rolls Barred cruise, which is a board gaming YouTube channel. They came over from the UK with 167 of their fans onboard, and people played board games all week, and they did live shows. It was a blast. I try to put together things that I think will be a great experience, and that way it’s easy to put the time and the energy into making sure that we offer really great products. The goal is always to make sure that when people come on our cruise, they want to come back the next year. That’s really the lens through which I look at this opportunity as we’re building out our schedule and our offerings and pricing and whatnot. We want people to feel like, “This was awesome. I had a great time. I want to do this every year.”
David Read:
That’s legit. Now, I’d like to get into the destination next. Before I get into that, is this something that if more people get on board, the puns are gonna keep on coming, Jonathan, so you’re gonna have to forgive me. If more people get on board this thing, will you have the ability to invite more guests? Will that unlock greater access?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yeah, we do start with a core number, and like I mentioned earlier, it’s not five. It’s more than five, but five is all we have to announce during this call. But we’ll get up to a certain number and then we’ll probably hold there and see how sales go, and if it goes super well, happy to add people. I have a number of people I would love to add, and at this point, it’s just priorities in terms of what we think the fans will want the most.
David Read:
Absolutely. Folks, you can submit questions to Jonathan or myself just by putting a question mark at the beginning of the YouTube feed if you are in the YouTube chat right now, and the rest of it will come over to me. I have duplicates enabled, so if you send me the same question more than once, you’re just gonna irritate me. Also, Swanderlake, pets are not allowed onboard ships, but …
Jonathan de Araujo:
Pets are not allowed.
David Read:
… they’re wanting to bring their replicator on board because it’s harmless. No ships have ever been harmed by replicators, so I’m sure that’s cool with Royal Caribbean. Let’s go and have a look at where this is going to be. You know what? Before we do that, can you tell us about the ship that we’re on?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yeah, Independence of the Seas. It’s one of Royal Caribbean’s, I would say not their largest ships, not the largest ships in the world kind of category, but the next size down from there. So, it’s bigger than most of their ships, but not as big as the Icon class, the ones you’ve heard of very recently being released in the last year or two. It’s a big ship. It has a lot to offer. It has water slides. It has the FlowRider, which is the surfing simulator. It has all the dining options and the pizzeria, and the world-class Broadway-style shows and entertainment in a really beautiful large theater. It’s a floating city. And as you can imagine, we spend a lot of time on cruises. And it’s a great time. You didn’t ask this, but I’m just going off riffing. The thing about cruising that personally I love the most is that you just do what you want. You eat when you want. You eat what you want. Your room gets cleaned for you. Maybe put away your dirty laundry, but somebody’s gonna come make your bed and put things away for you. It’s just, the level of service you mentioned earlier, and I want to reiterate that there’s no question. If you need something, you step outside, you look for your room steward and you just ask, “Hey, could I have this thing?” And it’s more than likely it’ll be there. You know the dining staff. You go to dinner every night, you have the same dining staff. They get to know what you like to drink and they bring your drink for you before …
David Read:
They have your name …
Jonathan de Araujo:
… you order.
David Read:
… by the second visit.
Jonathan de Araujo:
They know your name. The service, if you’re not used to it — I guess I’m used to it at this point — but if you’re not used to that level of service, it’s like, “Whoa, I could get used to this.”
David Read:
That’s exactly right. I must say, personally — if I can get my buttons working here properly — my highlight, and this is very, very low… I expect this now every time I go. My highlight is the …
Jonathan de Araujo:
The towel animals.
David Read:
… the towel animals. I’m sorry, but that is extremely important to me, and they do everything.
Jonathan de Araujo:
So, for those that don’t know, when the room steward cleans your room every day and makes your bed, they usually create a towel animal for you and leave it on your bed. So, every day you come back to a room with cute little… a different animal every day. I’m not a towel-animal guy. I take the towel animal and I put the towel back up on my…
David Read:
You know, agree to disagree.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Fair enough.
David Read:
So, what about the destination? Where are we heading?
Jonathan de Araujo:
We’re setting sail from Miami, and we are headed to Nassau in the Bahamas. Nassau is the first stop, and Royal Caribbean has their new beach club at Nassau in the Bahamas. I don’t know why you’re–
David Read:
This is like a resort in some respects.
Jonathan de Araujo:
They just opened their beach club two months ago. It’s beautiful. There will be opportunities to do some things with the cast there probably but that’s not part of this announcement. There’s a lot. Atlantis is in Nassau and …
David Read:
Not our Atlantis, but yes.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Baha Mar and– Sorry. The Resort Atlantis. What the Tau’ri call Atlantis, perhaps.
David Read:
That’s true.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It’s a cool island. There will be great opportunities for– You’ll see a lot of ships there, first of all. A lot of cruise lines go to Atlantis. I go to–
David Read:
The Bahamas.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Sorry, Nassau. A lot of ships will be docked bang, bang, bang, right next to each other. There’ll be a lot of excursions. The Royal Beach Club is only accessible to the Royal Caribbean guests, so it’s not like your Princesses and your Carnivals and all those people will be flooding into the beach club. The beach club, there is an upcharge for it, but if you reserve it before the cruise, they have sales and it’s fairly inexpensive and includes drinks and food and everything. So, that’s day one. Sorry, that’s day two technically. We have a cruising day followed by San Juan, Puerto Rico. San Juan’s great. It’s a historic town in Puerto Rico. And again, lots of excursion opportunities. We will have opportunities with the cast there as well. Not announced yet, but to come. We’ll have San Juan, and then the next day, Saint Thomas, followed by two sea days and back to Miami. Great locations, great ports of call, but also, we’ve got those sea days, and the sea days are key because we don’t like to interrupt people’s time in the ports. So, we don’t schedule a lot of activities during port time. We try to schedule virtually nothing during port time, except for those excursions that I alluded to earlier. Those sea days are when we’re gonna really pack in all the activity, the Stargate-related activities. That’s key to finding the balance between making sure that you get your full cruise experience and you get your Stargate.
David Read:
That’s the nice way to go about it, because generally speaking, I find — This is just me personally, having done this a fair bit — I find the at-sea days to be … I get my laptop out and I work, I catch up on work. Don’t get me wrong, I eat well, but it’s gonna be nice to have that replaced with the actual Stargate activities. So, for something like this, there’s gonna be a really good weight, counterweight to the vacation portion of it, and for those who want to do excursions with the special folks, they can. But then I can also get a break from the convention experience, which can be wall-to-wall insanity. What you’re doing here is essentially a convention on the ocean. This is cool.
Jonathan de Araujo:
So, the great thing about these events, though, is if you’ve been to a con, it can be, like you said, wall-to-wall people. I mean bonkers, crazy. This is a smaller group. First of all, and we’ll talk about this, the types of activities we do are just more … you just have more time with the cast. It’s not like a convention where it’s just wall-to-wall people and you’ve got your photo-op opportunity and you’re in and out in a few seconds and you’ve got your autograph opportunity. We do all that, but we also do parties with the cast. There’ll be a welcome party and the cast will be just hanging out. You’re at a party with the cast from Stargate. We’ll have a welcome party. We’ll have a farewell party. We’ll have a game show where you’re in the theater, or a comparable venue, and they’ll be on stage and they’ll be playing a game. And I don’t wanna give away too much, but it’s an experience that you will not have had at cons, that you will not have had before. We’ll do the Q&A panels that people are familiar with and give you that experience that you’re used to from the cons. We’ll have episode viewing parties where we all get together in a room and watch Rick and Amanda’s favorite episode with Rick and Amanda talking about it. Answer questions–
David Read:
That’s what I’m really looking forward to. I really wanna see them do commentaries on certain episodes, for sure.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Each will have different groups of cast that will pair up and they’ll pick their favorite episode, and we’ll watch it with them. I know I’m gonna forget some of our activities that we do, but–
David Read:
It’s all right. Like photographs with the cast and autographs. Those are big ones.
Jonathan de Araujo:
All your typical photo-op opportunities, autographs, selfies. All of that is gonna be there. Typically, we take it up a notch, and we may offer some specialty photo ops and things like that that we haven’t quite worked out yet. We have a little bit of time. But we’ll have some really cool stuff that will make this experience memorable, as compared to the standard con photo-op, et cetera.
David Read:
All right. Awesome. I’ve got some questions for you.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Shoot.
David Read:
Are you ready for the deluge?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Absolutely.
David Read:
So, a lot of these are gonna be specific. I’ve already gotten several, “Has such and such been invited? Will such-and-such be invited?” Can you give a blanket answer …
Jonathan de Araujo:
That I can’t really get into.
David Read:
… as to how you’re approaching people?
Jonathan de Araujo:
By the way, if you can compile that and send it to me, I’m more than happy to …
David Read:
Absolutely, I will.
Jonathan de Araujo:
… entertain any– We have invited others. We are confident we will have more announcements coming soon, but I can’t get into any particular names on this call. So, I apologize. I understand completely. We all wanna know. I get it.
David Read:
BradL2101, “How many spots are available, Jonathan? How quickly do we need to book here?” And do you have to pay everything up front?
Jonathan de Araujo:
You don’t have to pay everything up front. There’s a $500 deposit up front, which is fully refundable. So, what I always recommend to people, and check our FAQ and see when the deadline is for when the final payment is due and when it’s not fully refundable anymore, ’cause it’s not fully refundable forever. But we’re almost a year out. We’re like 11 months out or 10 months out, so there’s quite a bit of run room at this point. So, you can make a deposit, grab a room, make sure you’ve got it. And then the beautiful thing is, you can set up a payment plan with one of our agents. Royal Caribbean has a system that has an automated payment plan that we can work out for you. We like to give people a lot of time to save up and pay for these, ’cause we know vacations are expensive, and people don’t just …
David Read:
Yeah, you can’t just click your fingers
Jonathan de Araujo:
… write a check when they want, right? Sorry, I think I lost the main question there.
David Read:
How many spots were available?
Jonathan de Araujo:
How many spots, OK. So, we are basically limited by the venue space on board. Typically, what we’ll try to do is keep it under the main theater capacity, which is about a thousand or so on this ship. We’re gonna make sure that everyone has an opportunity to do the events that are included, and if we can’t fit you in the theater, we can’t do two of that event. So, it’s gonna cap at maximum of about a thousand, and we’ll see where we get. If we get half that, we’ll be perfectly happy.
David Read:
That’s awesome. 500 people versus 1,000 people, there might be wiggle room again if you get more attendees for a couple more guests.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Absolutely. Yes.
David Read:
More people unlocks the potential for more types of …
Jonathan de Araujo:
Absolutely, yes.
David Read:
… more guests.
Jonathan de Araujo:
More than happy to add as we go. Yes.
David Read:
Awesome. Judith_Remkes, “There seems to be a demand for a European tour. Is that a future option, or do you only work in the United States?”
Jonathan de Araujo:
It is an option. It’s been discussed. It’s not something that is currently in the works, and it’s not something that I would promise, but it is something that is on the table, for sure.
David Read:
Mamanox[erika6268] also asked that one. Thank you, Mama Knox. Hello, hello. GateWorldDotNet — some website — “When will the…
Jonathan de Araujo:
Anytime.
David Read:
… port excursion options be announced, Jonathan?”
Jonathan de Araujo:
I don’t have that information yet. I will say this. If you take, for example, our Smallville cruise, which sails in July, we just launched excursions, so March, April, May, June, July. So, probably somewhere in that four months-ish…
David Read:
September.
Jonathan de Araujo:
… range before the cruise. Could be a little more.
David Read:
Very good. DanZimmerli, “Are these limited to one cruise line, or would potentially a Norwegian cruise be possible in the future?” How does that work with you guys, because you’re obviously–
Jonathan de Araujo:
Never say never, but the benefit of Royal Caribbean is they have these great conference centers on board, and other cruise lines don’t, for the most part. Celebrity does as well. Also owned by Royal Caribbean. So, we tend to steer towards Royal Caribbean because space is a lot easier for us. We can take over the conference center for the week and set stuff up in there and host different events in there. And that way, we’re less restricted on, for example, the theater. The theater, they’re gonna have shows every night in the theater for the entire cruise. So, they’re not gonna give us the theater at night. So, if we want space at night, we’re more limited in where we can put our events. So, when we have these extra spaces, it just makes it easier for us to schedule more activities for the guests. So, we lean towards the cruise lines that allow us to offer more.
David Read:
That makes a lot of sense. All right. Very good. Hannnahh-k, “Can you indicate any kind of opportunities there will be to interact with some of the guests off port?” Are we talking, in the vein of excursions that you might find on a cruise, or would these be completely [different]?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yeah. So, think of it, some of the ones we recently announced for the other cruise that I mentioned. Swimming with the sharks, with insert two or three cast member names. So, it’s basically the same excursion, it’s just a private group just for us.
David Read:
All right. So, a certain level of access that would be provided there in an exotic situation that would otherwise not be. I swam with porpoises when I went to Royal Caribbean. It was awesome.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Very cool.
David Read:
The thing that I love about Royal Caribbean is their 24-hour pizza kitchen in the main thoroughfare. You go down there and put in a napkin, and the pizza keeps on coming out, and you can keep on eating it.
Jonathan de Araujo:
I don’t think it’s technically 24-hour, though.
David Read:
It’s not?
Jonathan de Araujo:
But it’s open very, very late.
David Read:
It was when I did it 14 years ago.
Jonathan de Araujo:
I know that because I would always walk by it on the way to my first morning events. Every morning, I would walk down the promenade. It was always closed. But that’s 8:00 in the morning.
David Read:
Maybe it’s not 24 hours anymore. But hey, I’ll take it.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It’s open late. It’s open till 3:00 in the morning or something.
David Read:
OK, there we go. Awesome. There’s a number of different people asking for different guests here, so there seems to be some interest, Jonathan. Very good.
Jonathan de Araujo:
I had no doubt about that.
David Read:
Is there any other information that you wanna share before I start to–
Jonathan de Araujo:
Should we look at pricing?
David Read:
That’s not a bad idea. Let’s go ahead and have that conversation. All right. Stateroom Pricing. There we go.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It starts at $3,264.
David Read:
US.
Jonathan de Araujo:
That’s for an interior cabin — US — for two people. All of our pricing is for two people. It includes port fees, gratuities. It includes, obviously, all of our included gate cruise events. There will be some things that are an additional charge. But we, like I said earlier, really focus on making sure that if you say, “All I can afford is the base price,” we wanna make sure that you get a lot for that money. So, we do a lot more than a standard convention does. We start at $3,264. My phone is going crazy for some reason.
David Read:
It’s all right.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It jumps up to–
David Read:
Maybe they crashed your website. I can only hope.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Could be. It jumps up to $3,564, so another $300 gets you a window. On ships like this, you have either an inside cabin, where you don’t have a window, you’d have the big mirror, or you have, on the outside of the ship, the ocean view or the ocean view balcony. $3,564 for just the window, and then $3,948 gets you the whole balcony, so you can walk out and you’ve got chairs and you’ve got your own open-air balcony. Those are the standard rooms. Again, those are for two people, and that’s gonna include your food, and that’s gonna include all of the entertainment on the ship. That’s gonna include our included Gate Cruise events. The only thing most people would add to that would be excursions, maybe a Wi-Fi package. Those types of things.
David Read:
Alcohol.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Alcohol, if you wanted a drink package. I’m not the guy to remember that because I don’t drink and I never buy the drink packages, but–
David Read:
Neither do I. I’ve never touched it. So, it’s like, “Oh that’s a thing.” And I think there’s a soda package as well, if I’m not mistaken.
Jonathan de Araujo:
There’s a soda package there.
David Read:
I usually go on board and get lemonade.
Jonathan de Araujo:
There are different levels of the drink packages. Those can be good options as well. We’ve got a few people that really love the Starbucks card. They buy a Starbucks card at the beginning of the cruise and then use that every day.
David Read:
Caffeinated.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It depends on priorities. Junior suites, we’re getting into the suite categories, $5,264. Again, all these are for two people. A grand suite at $7,719, and then an owner’s suite at $9,339. So, you can get into some pretty high-end accommodations here still under $10,000. I know for a lot of people, that’s crazy money, and we totally understand that. And for other people it’s, “If I’m gonna go on a cruise, I wanna be in a suite.” So, we try to make sure that we have a little bit for everyone. I will say this, on a cruise like this, typically, you’re gonna spend fairly little time in your room in most cases. Now, everyone’s different. Some people are like, “Hey, if I’m around a lot of people, I need my own space to decompress, and I like to nap or whatever.” Totally cool. But I look at it from the standpoint of when I’m on these cruises, I’m typically very, very busy. So, the type of stateroom is less of a thing for me. Some people might say, “I wanna go and bring friends or meet friends and invite people back to my room and have Stargate get-togethers or whatever.” Maybe you want a bigger room for that. But even the basic rooms are plenty. I stay in an ocean view balcony almost always, or an ocean view, and it’s fine.
David Read:
Friends can get together, and one of the suites, there’s obviously a cap on the number of spaces to sleep on there. But the junior suite, the couch converts into a bed, for instance. Friends can get together and get themselves a suite if they want to.
Jonathan de Araujo:
You can get four people into a room in most cases. Not all rooms. We have to pull the right room out of inventory that has that convertible sofa. They don’t all have that. But we can get you a room for four. And then the third and fourth guest, we don’t have that pricing here. Check with one of our agents for that pricing. By the way, to contact one of our agents, you can click and fill out the form on the website, or you can call the 800 number, which is — might as well give the 800 number — 844-777-7740. Seven, seven, four, zero. So, you can call in, you’ll talk to one of our team. We have a team of eight agents that specialize in these cruises, and they answer the phones and they answer the emails and, I should also say, we have a Facebook group. Join us on the Facebook group. It costs zero dollars to join our Facebook group. That’s a great place to get information. As we make announcements, we’re gonna make them there. As well as to anyone who’s reached out and filled out a form or reached out to one of our agents, we’ll add you to our list so you get our emails as well, and you get our announcements. As we have cast announcements, we’ll put them in there. And we’ll obviously let you know so that you can let people know as well.
David Read:
All right. That’s sweet. I already spoke with my parents and they said, “When you’re off the call, contact us and set us up.” So, they’re going. My dad likes to sit in the room or sit on the balcony. He doesn’t leave. Except to eat. He’s in full vacation mode. You definitely got them interested.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Sounds awesome.
David Read:
Awesome, man. Anything else?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Join the Facebook group. One of the things is, we wanna make sure that we’re able to get you more information as it comes out, because new cast announcements and when excursions are gonna be available and that type of thing. We wanna make sure we can let you know. If you’re interested and you have any questions about how payment plans work or what types of rooms are available, or how do I pick where my room is? Because when you book with us, you get to pick your room. So, that’s a process. Where do I wanna be? What deck do I wanna be on? Forward, aft, center section? Do I wanna be near the buffet? Am I gonna eat there a lot? Do I wanna be near the Sorrento’s, the pizza place? You should probably be near Sorrento’s apparently.
David Read:
And those are all in the interior. Does this one have an interior promenade?
Jonathan de Araujo:
There is an interior promenade. You’ll find a lot of– There’ll be some shopping and Sorrento’s will be there. And a bar will be there and guest services and next cruise office. Different things will be right in that main area. And then they’ll do different events in the main promenade. It’s pretty cool the way they lay these ships out. Let’s see. What else? We talked about destinations. We talked about the ship. The cool thing with dining on these cruise ships is that there’s a lot that’s free and included. And by the way, I almost never go outside of the free and included stuff myself. So, there’s no need to. But if you’re a foodie and you’re really excited about, “I want to try this really fancy restaurant. I’m really into sushi,” or, “I’m really into…” there are some specialty dining restaurants that you can add on, and “Oh, for one night I’m gonna go get sushi.” So, they have those types of options as well. But most of the stuff is included, including the FlowRider, the surfing simulator, on board the ship.
David Read:
That’s right, I’ve seen this thing. I don’t want to fall on my ass. That’s not happening. But the little ones can.
Jonathan de Araujo:
I have done that and it is embarrassing. But they start you on a boogie board. So, you’re laying down on the boogie board. You’re not–
David Read:
So, you get used to it.
Jonathan de Araujo:
If you fall on a boogie board, you’re not falling very far. You get on, you start on the boogie board on your chest, and then you push up and then you can get up on your knees. And then eventually if you get really good, and you can go every day, you can get up on the regular surfboard. It’s a small surfboard. And you can go… my roommate who I went with last time, he was at the FlowRider every day. And he would come back and he’d be like, “Oh, I got upgraded to the blue band and now I can do the stand…” And it’s fun. It’s a good time. There are people that bring their own boards, because they go on multiple cruises and they get really good at it. And they just love it.
David Read:
Surfing simulator. I’m trying to pull this thing up here. The FlowRider, is that what it’s called?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yeah.
David Read:
OK. This is–
Jonathan de Araujo:
And it’s expensive to do it elsewhere. So, to get it free all the time on the cruises.
David Read:
That’s really–
Jonathan de Araujo:
But that’s OK.
David Read:
That’s really wild. I think I’m in. I’m totally in.
Jonathan de Araujo:
There you go. That’s probably me wiping out right there.
David Read:
Exactly. That’s happened. OK. That’s fine, I’m doing it. Someone can have a laugh at my expense. Absolutely. This is really cool. Awesome. And I saw the pizzeria. Where did I have that here? This is it right here. OK. So, the pizzeria’s really cool. I love the specialty restaurants, too.
Jonathan de Araujo:
And it’s literally–
David Read:
For one night, doing something special, treating yourself. Go to a steakhouse, or trying different kinds of meats. You were saying?
Jonathan de Araujo:
The pizza place is literally just walk up, get in line, usually not a long line. Although late at night, it gets kinda long.
David Read:
You get the munchies, but there’s tables in the neighborhood there.
Jonathan de Araujo:
And it’s like, “I’ll have two slices of that, one of that, one of that, thank you very much,” and eat your pizza. I mean, it’s like this. And it’s good pizza.
David Read:
Yes, absolutely. Let me double check the Q&A here. “Will there be vendors selling SG merch?” Good question, Hannah K, thank you. Are there any vendors or options for that?
Jonathan de Araujo:
No. It won’t be that kind of event. One of the things with the cruise lines is they don’t want us setting up shop on board.
David Read:
They’ve got their own shops.
Jonathan de Araujo:
There may be some things that might come with a VIP package or something that might be announced in the future, or some giveaways that people could win or things like that. But there won’t be vendors that are selling replica stuff from the show. That won’t be part of this.
David Read:
OK. Sweet. MarciaMiddleton, “Will the cruise be ADA accessible?”
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yes. They have ADA rooms on board, and all of our spaces will be ADA accessible. The only things that there would be a question mark about would be excursions. So, if you do book and that’s an issue when excursions are released, then reach out to us and we can check with the providers of certain excursions and see what might be ADA accessible and what might not. But the ship itself is.
David Read:
There’s a lot of Europeans here bemoaning the fact that they’re European, geographically speaking, not because they’re sad to be Europeans, but it’s having a hard time getting over. I have a friend–
Jonathan de Araujo:
Believe me, I wish I was European.
David Read:
… I have a friend in this group, who’s live right now, he can’t fly.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It’s tricky. I would say, if you can swing it, come to Florida and join us. I would love, love, love to do one in Europe. There are a lot of complications. We’re located in Florida. We’re gonna bring a lot of stuff with us. Big, bulky, heavy stuff with us for this cruise, and that becomes very difficult to do that far for us. The other thing is laws around this type of offering. We’re a US travel agency, so it becomes complicated. I don’t wanna say never. I would like to do it, but it’s not a soon thing.
David Read:
Very good. That’s sweet. People are asking for a Stargate. Seriously. “Will it have a big Stargate in the middle?” I actually floated that idea, but you know what? Then I found out that we don’t have the whole ship, and it’s like, “People are gonna be like, ‘What is that thing?'”
Jonathan de Araujo:
David wanted me to strap the full-sized Stargate to the top deck. That’s not happening.
David Read:
I did?
Jonathan de Araujo:
We’re gonna see what we can bring on board. I don’t think a full-sized Stargate is in the offing for year one, just based on the space that we have on board. But we’ll see what we can bring.
David Read:
A boy can dream.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Let me tell you, I’m looking at a lot of different options. This is the kind of stuff that gets me excited. So, I wanna make it memorable for people.
David Read:
Jonathan, thank you. This is cool. I honestly never thought that we would have an offering like this for Stargate. I am sorry I didn’t know about the Smallville one. I’m glad to hear that it’s doing well, because if Smallville is doing well, Stargate will do well. And not to say that Smallville doesn’t have an enormous fan base. It certainly does. But good things are coming for Stargate fans. When you told me this a couple of days ago, I was like, “Oh, I am all over this.” And it’s not just because I love Stargate. I love this particular form of vacationing. So, thank you for letting me be a part of announcing this.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really hope that people are excited for it and it becomes something that they look forward to every year.
David Read:
Awesome. These are one of those things where if you have the opportunity to do it, even if you can only do it once, do it. I have a guy on here who just put, TheOriDoci, “What if I’m scared of boats?” I mean, look, you’ve got seven or eight months to gradually work yourself up to approaching boats, and then eventually getting on one and setting sail with one. There are options. It’s one of those things where, and I’m working on something similar for around the time the new show launches, but there are certain things that you can only do every once in a while, that come your way. And if you don’t do them, it’s like, “I really wish I had been brave and just done it.” It’s one thing if you don’t have the money. Not everyone’s gonna be able to afford to go, and the fact of the matter is there’s a couple of people in here who are asking, “I just don’t think I’m gonna be able to afford the money, but can I at least get on the Facebook group and lurk and …”
Jonathan de Araujo:
100%.
David Read:
“… root for the projects?”
Jonathan de Araujo:
Absolutely. Get on the Facebook group, give us your opinions. Let us know what– We’ll do surveys, we’ll ask questions. We want your opinion too. We understand. Look, believe me, I’ve been in travel for quite a while now, and obviously, especially with economic things going on, people–
David Read:
Inflation.
Jonathan de Araujo:
I get it. I totally get it. But you never know when things might change. So, be aware of it, contribute, be a part of the community. The one thing I’ll say for people that are concerned about, “Oh, I don’t know how I feel about cruises,” you might hate it. I don’t know, but in my experience, my wife was one of those people that was like, “Why would you cruise when you can fly to different amazing cities around the world and experience that?”
David Read:
That’s my dad too.
Jonathan de Araujo:
And I said, “Just try it.” And not to say that flying to amazing places that you can’t access from a cruise ship is not a wonderful way to travel, but there’s something about the service, about the accessibility, about the food options, about the entertainment onboard. You wake up. You go where you want, you eat what you want, you get the entertainment that you want on your schedule. You’re waited on by– Everybody is there to help you and to clean up after you, and you’re not grocery shopping. You’re not cooking. You’re not cleaning your dishes. You’re not cleaning …
David Read:
They take care of you.
Jonathan de Araujo:
… pots and pans. You’re not thinking. You just show up. You’re not paying a bill. You’re not looking at the menu and thinking, “Oh, I don’t wanna get that ’cause that’s the most expensive thing, and I don’t know if I…” This is actually a big thing for me. Maybe I’m strange, but I always look at the menu and, “Do I really wanna pay that for that steak or whatever?” You get there, you pick up the menu, and you order what you want. You order the thing that you think would be the most expensive thing, ’cause it’s already paid. It’s included. And by the way, if you’re not sure if you want that entree or that entree, just get both.
David Read:
You can get both of them.
Jonathan de Araujo:
And if you’re not sure if you want that dessert or that dessert or that dessert, get all three. And guess what? They’ll tell you to do that. They won’t look at you like, “Oh, how could you order all that?” They’ll say …
David Read:
No, everything’s on a plate already. They just dish them out, pardon the pun.
Jonathan de Araujo:
… “No problem,” because they’re there to serve. They want you to give them a good review at the end of the day.
David Read:
And the thing that I really wanna point out about a lot of the onboard entertainment is it’s not two hours long.
Jonathan de Araujo:
No.
David Read:
They have mini events. For instance, here, let me show this one off. This is on the ice rink, and these last half-an-hour. And they give you an idea of what it is that’s going to be available to you in terms of the other things that are happening. The thing that I loved about the dining experience was, it was pure magic. I had never been in such an enormous space onboard a cruise ship before. This goes up levels, and this is in the back end of the boat. There, see? I got used to the rocking. It’s very subtle. It actually helped me get to sleep.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It doesn’t bother me, and I am a person who has certain types of motion sickness, but I can’t say that if somebody’s concerned about that, it’s not gonna affect them. That’s a case-by-case basis, but I would say that it’s good to know. It’s good to try it once to know how it impacts you so that you’re at least opening yourself up to something that you could really enjoy in the future. Typically, if there are people that have motion sickness issues, they will take the Dramamine patch, or they’ll wear the …
David Read:
That’s what it is.
Jonathan de Araujo:
… sea bands around their wrists or that kind of thing.
David Read:
And those oddly help. I don’t know the science behind it, but–
Jonathan de Araujo:
It’s acupressure. It’s …
David Read:
I see.
Jonathan de Araujo:
… Eastern medicine. Pretty cool.
David Read:
What about insurance? Do you include insurance for …
Jonathan de Araujo:
We can add it.
David Read:
… travel insurance?
Jonathan de Araujo:
It will be offered, so anyone who books we will offer it to you. We do recommend it. Every time we do one of these events, we have five or six people that don’t show up, and it’s for whatever reason. Their flight was canceled…
David Read:
Things happen.
Jonathan de Araujo:
…or they got sick or God knows. Who knows? Get the travel insurance. You just never know what’s gonna happen. It covers a lot of stuff, medical stuff, medical evacuation, that kind of stuff that’s exorbitantly expensive, so we really recommend that, because if that kind of stuff happens, we’re like, “Our hands are tied. There’s not much we can do to help you if you didn’t get the travel insurance,” so we do recommend it.
David Read:
I cannot recommend that one enough. Quick personal story, I was with my folks on Santorini in Greece, and my dad was coming down the donkey steps and was staring at the horizon line and didn’t watch his footing. Compound fractured his ankle on the donkey steps, had to be flown to Athens, $25,000 surgery. They paid every single cent. We hadn’t always bought insurance and it was like, “Man, no way ever again will we not,” ’cause that was worth its weight in gold.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It only takes one of those stories.
David Read:
And they took care of us, too. That’s it. And then I was like, “Oh, well, I’m glad I learned my lesson there.” GateWorldDotNet, “Less motion in midship rooms.” That is very, very true. So, if you want that, I would get a midship room… Do they have the ability to pick the location of–
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yes. And the price varies depending on …
David Read:
You kinda already answered that.
Jonathan de Araujo:
… where they wanna be on the ship. So, the more popular places, central, higher up, those tend to be a little bit more expensive. The lower you are on the ship, which actually you’re probably gonna experience less motion lower in the ship, but obviously you’re not gonna have as high a view out your room and that kinda thing. Those tend to be a little cheaper. But yes, you will get to choose your specific room, and that is your room. It’s locked in, done.
David Read:
That’s it. Awesome. Thank you, sir. This has been fantastic.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Thank you.
David Read:
OK, so potentially more guests could be announced fairly quickly here?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yeah, I would say within the next two weeks.
David Read:
OK. Fantastic. All right, and gatecruise.com is the address?
Jonathan de Araujo:
That’s it.
David Read:
OK. Thank you for taking some time with us and telling us how this process works. It looks like we just fill in the form and the process gets started.
Jonathan de Araujo:
If they just fill in the form, one of our agents will get right back to them, either call them, email them, or text them.
David Read:
It can be done over just email, then? They don’t have to make the phone call?
Jonathan de Araujo:
Yeah, if you prefer to email, you can say right in the form, “Please contact me via email. I prefer email.” The only issue is occasionally stuff goes to spam or that kinda thing.
David Read:
Exactly. I can relate.
Jonathan de Araujo:
So, it’s best if you can at least text. But I always find it easier to jump on the phone and ask my questions. That’s me. I’m old school. I’m not a big texter.
David Read:
Same. Yeah, I’m the same.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Whatever you like, we’re happy to work with you on that.
David Read:
OK. Awesome. I am definitely signing up and looking forward to doing this. The Caribbean is really the best spot for this, especially for people who have never done sailing before, because you’re not going to Europe. You’re not crossing the Atlantic and the waves are big on the Atlantic. This is like, to borrow from Seinfeld, “An old man sliding into a warm bath.” So, this is a great spot to do it, ’cause it’s not intense on the ocean.
Jonathan de Araujo:
It’s gonna be great. We’re excited.
David Read:
Thank you, Jonathan. Gatecruise.com is where we can keep an eye on the guest announcements and the Facebook group, and those details are all in the description below, folks. Thank you, sir.
Jonathan de Araujo:
All right. Thanks, David. I appreciate it, and looking forward to seeing you on board.
David Read:
I’m looking forward to seeing you on board. Absolutely. Maybe I’ll get involved somehow, if I’m lucky enough. Appreciate your time, man.
Jonathan de Araujo:
All right. Same here.
David Read:
Thank you.
Jonathan de Araujo:
Thank you.
David Read:
Jonathan de Araujo of Vacationeers, he is helming the first ever cruise with the Stargate cast, so this is pretty awesome. My name is David Read. You’re watching the Stargate Oral History Project. If you enjoy the show, the franchise, and Dial the Gate, and you wanna see more content like this available on YouTube, do me a favor and click that Like button. It does make a difference with the show and will continue to help us grow our audience. Please consider sharing the video with a Stargate friend, and if you wanna get notified about future episodes, click Subscribe. And giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops, and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. And clips from this episode will be released over the next few days, possibly today or tomorrow actually, on the Dial the Gate YouTube channel. We have a number of episodes coming up. They are all available for viewing on dialthegate.com in terms of the sequence of the folks that we have, and we will see how things go with this event as well. We’ll be keeping you in the loop because this is one where, if my parents are going, I guess I better go also. We hope you enjoyed the O’Neill-class Asgard mothership flying in at the beginning of the episode. Thanks to Matt Wilson, EagleSG, for pulling that one off. I’ve been really looking forward to that one for a long time. And thanks so much to my crackerjack moderating team for pulling my cojones out of the fire with this one, Antony and Marsha. This one was a last minute one and I had to pivot, so here we are. Thank you to my mods and everyone involved in making this episode possible. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I appreciate you tuning in and I will see you on the other side.