Splashdot 2026 - Day 1
What's a Splashdot
In the bygone years before the great Digitization, JoCo Cruisers waited for the delivery of a physical newsletter (cruiseletter) in their cabins, to keep them informed about shipboard events, amuse them with puzzles, games, and banter, and enjoy the comics.
While HAL staff will still deliver a Daily Flyer with the event schedule to each cabin, we at Cruise Media have moved the cruise letter to “Splashdot”, a Twit-arr digital news service, hosted in a special Twit-arr forum. Turn to Splashdot for updates on Cruise Events, interviews with JoCo guests, photos, art, and fun articles featuring our unique blend of hard-charging nautical journalism and whimsy.
Also for the first time ever, we now welcome article submissions by cruisers. If you have thoughts on cruise doings, we want to hear them! Articles, art, poetry: it’s all in the mix. Send us a DM at @splashdot on Twit-arr or drop your article at the Info Desk in the Atrium. Articles must be previously unpublished and written by a human traveling on this year’s JoCo Cruise. We won’t necessarily publish all submissions.
Contribute to Splashdot
Write for Splashdot!
Splashdot is the official digital-first cruise newsletter (cruiseletter?) of JoCo Cruise. Published daily on Twit-arr, Splashdot aims to shine a spotlight on the whos, whats, and wheres that make the cruise tick. To delve deeper into each nautical nook and coastal cranny, we need your help.
This year, for the first time, Splashdot invites guest submissions!
Splashdot articles must be original - previously unpublished - content, written by a human passenger onboard JoCo Cruise, and may feature a combination of rich text and images. In general, we're looking for articles with a unique perspective that focus on the people, places and events that make up JoCo Cruise. Content may be fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose. We will not publish every submission.
You can submit content for Splashdot in two ways:
- By dropping it in the labeled bin at the JoCo Cruise Info Desk in the Atrium (with one of the available form slips to help identify you to us)
- By DM-ing @splashdot on Twit-arr
Caption Contest - Day 1
Winner: "Another night alone after a critical miss."
Look for The Helpers
“When I first came on the cruise, seeing all the fun decorations made me feel like I was in an entirely different world. Everywhere I looked it was like the ship was telling me ‘You belong here,’ and I wanted to be a part of building that magic for others!”
Jace, like several dozen of his JoCo Cruise peers, signed up to volunteer some of his time this week as a helper. You’ve probably seen them around. Some of them greeted you in the terminal earlier today, or helped you get your lanyard and badge at the Lido Deck. Jace is volunteering with the Decor team this week, helping to set up some of the theming and decorations that transform the Nieuw Amsterdam into Nerd Boat. On Friday, he’ll also help take them down and pack them up.
I have a burning question: why? What drives someone on a paid, week-long vacation to donate their most precious commodity - free time - for assigned tasks?
“Last year I got to help set up the inflatable petting zoo in the observation deck. It was so much fun thinking about how to make the best and silliest scene for cruisers to see. I go up there pretty much every morning to get coffee, and I would overhear other cruisers notice the zoo and smile at it. Knowing I helped make their cruise even 0.1% better made my cruise that much more fun!”
The Home Office (or “THO”, the year-round staff that organize JoCo Cruise) issue a sign-up form each year listing perhaps a dozen distinct volunteer helping opportunities. Often, there is more demand to help than jobs needing helping with. In addition to the aforementioned greeting, setup and clean-up roles, other helper assignments this year include Twit-arr moderators, crafting room volunteers, and the Peer Reporting Organization Worker (or PROW) team.
Amy has been coming on the cruise since 2018 and volunteered as a Helper in a variety of roles since her second year: “I had such an amazing experience overall [my first year] I want to help bring this joy to everybody… especially new cruisers.”
Among various other helper roles, Amy was one of the inaugural PROW team members on JoCo Cruise 2024. JoCo Cruise has long had a Code of Conduct and a process for reporting and handling violations. But, as Amy explains, sometimes things can happen that don’t rise to that level. She describes the PROW role as “A fellow cruiser, perhaps in a similar demographic to you, who you can talk to about some problem you might have had [onboard]; an ear to listen to people’s concerns and make sure they are heard.” She described the work as some of the most gratifying she’s done, though sometimes it was “hard emotional labor.”
JB is returning for his 6th JoCo Cruise this year, and his 5th time as a Helper (first time cruisers aren’t allowed to sign up as helpers). Asked to describe some of his favorite cruise moments, JB thought for a few moments and replied, “the whole thing. It’s a thing of bigness with many people and parts - a week on a boat with 2000 of my closest friends (who I knew about 25 of before I started coming).”
For JB, and others I talked to, volunteering helps create an island of structure amidst the vast ocean of events and experiences. “There are so many things to do,” he explained, “having a particular assignment makes life a bit easier.” JB described himself as a “shy extrovert.” Volunteering often serves as “a good excuse to meet more people and have a reason to say hi.” Beyond all that, “I like helping. I like being involved. I like knowing that I helped.”
JB and Amy spoke fondly of serving as Dinner Hosts in past years. Experienced cruisers would sit at the large round tables in the main dining room at dinner and “encourage new cruisers to join, spark conversation, and make new friends,” according to Amy. JB added, “I still basically do the same thing even though the Dinner Hosts aren’t [an official helper role] anymore,” signalling his intention by grabbing one of the “Join Us” table signs from the game library.
Another perennial helper, Andy, shared similar perspectives. Andy is one of roughly two dozen “all-timers” who have attended every JoCo Cruise since the beginning. After stumbling onto a video of Molly Lewis covering Nickel Creek covering Toxic by Britney Spears, he attended the first JoCo Cruise in part to see Molly Lewis perform live. “I came expecting to enjoy the entertainment.” But it was the overall vibe and fellow cruisers that got him hooked. “I hadn’t even thought about the community aspect. It was amazing.” He’d never been part of a community with “so much intentional thinking about how we care for each other and feel safe and welcome… JoCo Cruise has informed my sense of what a community is - or what it can be.”
Fred Rogers (of children’s television fame) famously shared an anecdote about living in difficult times: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
If I had to guess, I’d say that our Boat has an unusually high share of helpers.
Welcome New Cruisers (John Scalzi)
Awwww, just look at you, you new JoCo Cruiser, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready for a life of excitement and adventure and high-octane nerdery on the high seas! For an entire week you’ll be singing and dancing and gaming and crafting and wearing fancy pants along with 2000 other of your soon-to-be best friends. Welcome. We’re glad you’re here.
Things have changed since the very first JoCo Cruise, back in the before times of 2011. Back then there were just a couple hundred of us, tucked into a corner of a large ship filled with other cruisegoers who were often confused by our lanyards and sarcastic t-shirts. Now we have a whole ship to ourselves! Sarcastic t-shirts are celebrated!
It’s a lot! And sometimes as a new JoCo Cruiser you might think “what on earth did I get myself into? Will I ever catch up on all the inside jokes? Will I be able to see everything I want to see? Do I really need sleep?” First, yes, you need sleep. Don’t forget to sleep and eat and take showers. All very important. But equally important: Don’t worry! The JoCo Cruise is a lot, but the community is here to clue you in and catch you up and bring you in on the jokes.
This is really what makes the JoCo Cruise unique among all cruises. For a decade and a half, folks have been coming on this cruise - and coming back year after year - building a diverse, welcoming community that celebrates uniqueness, together and as individuals. This community and its friendships aren’t limited to the ship, but they start here. And now you’re a part of it, too. Whether you try to see and do everything, or just hang on the Lido Deck with a book and a themed drink, it’s your cruise.
It’s fun! The JoCo Cruise is meant to be fun. And we know that in this moment, with everything going on (waves at the world), it might feel like taking a week for yourself for fun is... misplaced, or even selfish. But here’s the thing about that: Rest matters. Enjoying life matters, even now and especially now. There are forces out there who would be happy to have you worn down and exhausted and overwhelmed, all the time, forever. It suits their purposes. It’s okay to confound their strategy by finding joy. And if you find it here, with 2000 of your soon-to-be best friends, occasionally in cosplay or jammies, so much the better.
So: Hello! Welcome! We’re really happy you’re with us for this version of the JoCo Cruise. It wouldn’t be the same without you.
Enjoy it! Enjoy yourself! Enjoy everything!
-- JS
A Poorly-Researched Chronology of JoCo Cruise 2017
The State Archives of JoCo consist of the official communications, internal memoranda, and other text fragments, from loose manuscript leaves to archaic Slack chats and email threads produced by both the Cruise and its guests. Having looked at some of that exhaustively perused the available evidence, the ship’s Historian offers this rough account of JoCo Cruise 2017, in honor of our return to the waters of the Sea of Cortez.
And it came to pass in the Year 2017 of the Common Era, that JoCo, being great with cruisers, spake, saying “let us take unto ourselves an ENTIRE ship, that we may sail upon the face of the deep. And let’s leave from San Diego this time.” And so the Westerdam, of the Holland America Line, was indeed chartered. And on the 4th day of March, it did sail from San Diego. And there was much rejoicing.
From San Diego, the ship came even unto Cabo San Lucas in Baja California, where there was a glass-blowing museum.
On March 7 of that year, the Westerdamm stood in the roads of Loreto, which are not the same as the Streets of Laredo (Roud 23650) in case you were wondering. And the JoCo Cruisers did enter the town and partook of its food and drink and merriment. And there was on that day a Great Land Concert, the first of its kind in JoCo’s history. It was originally named JoCoachella, but subsequent legal inquiries found out that there is apparently some other, worse concert in (Alta) California with that name, so the name was eventually changed to “The Land Concert”.
The next day, the Westerdammm was at Bahia Magdalena, and there were shore excursions. But the Ship’s Historian was still hungover from Loreto and did not partake in any of them. He has heard that they were great fun. On March 9, Ukelele Melele reached critical concentration of
Ukes per meter (upm) and became self aware.
Also on March 9, Nature Magazine published evidence that researchers had succeeded in producing time crystals, first hypothesized in 2012. THO refuses to deny responsibility for this breakthrough.
Finally, the Westerdammm returned to San Diego, where JoCo learned that the ship was being requisitioned for service in the Spice Trade. The next year, JoCo would sail on the Westerdammmmm’s bitter rival, the Oosterdam. And so we bid a fond farewell.
Any corrections by veterans of this cruise will be gratefully but grudgingly accepted in the Forum.
When Soon Becomes Now (Rebecca Butler)
[Community Submission]
Through inbox gloom and meeting doom,
All year I hum the same old tune,
Waiting to meet in cabin rooms,
For JoCo Cruise is coming soon.
I dream of trading stickers and stories
As dice roll across game boards.
We'll sing sea shanty tales of glory,
Past dozens of decorated doors.
They say the cruise is soon^TM,
Though it feels so far away.
I sit and wait, I haw and hem,
Until Coulton's namesake day.
Then suddenly the dock, and wow -
We're sipping champagne on the bow!
The moment time finally allows:
When **soon** at last has become **now**.