Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph Sinapi, Jr.
Hi Joseph, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I am a 29-year-old gay man living in Fort Lauderdale. I am very happy to be living my dream and working every day to educate people about the industry I am most passionate about. I own a “Cruise News and Media” company and work hand in hand with the cruise lines to bridge the gap between guests and cruise lines to make it easier to understand cruise vacation experiences.
Cruise Ship Crayz began on December 12, 2012, as a small blog on Tumblr.com under the name “Cruise Ship Crazy.” Initially, I just wanted a place to share my knowledge and passion for the cruise industry with others who would appreciate it, and my personal social media wasn’t fulfilling that goal.
After a co-worker, at the time, said to me, “Why do you always post-cruise ship stuff? It’s annoying.” So, I decided to post every day and post it in more than one place, then “Cruise Ship Crazy” was born. In my sophomore year of college at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, when we first began, I just continued posting on Tumblr until the day I turned on google analytics.
I realized that over 2 million people had viewed my posts. From that moment, I thought, ” well, why not roll with this and see what happens,” and I did just that. Fast forward to July 3, 2014, the day I began interning for Celebrity Cruises in Boston, MA. That experience turned out to be, not only, the best learning experience in my life but lit a fire in me that I didn’t know I had.
Late 2015, rolled around and I decide to turn Cruise Ship Crazy into a website but the cruiseshipcrazy.com URL was taken so we underwent our first major rebrand to “Cruise Ship Crayz” and on October 16, 2015, cruiseshipcrayz.com went live and I have never looked back.
The website turned into, Instagram, Facebook page and group, Google+ (when it was a thing), youtube, TikTok, thousands of articles and blogs, nearly 120,000 email subscribes, a partner travel agency, 700 members to our private member portal, and an app in the works.
The best part of this is the people I have met along the way and the partners that have welcomed my company with open arms to work with them. That is just the beginning!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
First, I will be the first to say that I had a privileged life growing up. As a white male from an upper-middle-class family, I had access to opportunities others, unfortunately, do not, that my parents worked tirelessly to ensure my sisters and I had. However, creating and operating a business has obstacles, and honestly, if I wrote a book on my life pertaining to Cruise Ship Crayz, at least half of the chapters would discuss barriers. My location was the first major obstacle I faced for nearly a decade with Cruise Ship Crayz. I was born and raised in Rhode Island and remained there for 27 years. I will always be proud to call Rhode Island my home state, but with the cruise industry near non-existent, I knew relocating was the only way to expand.
Whenever I had meetings, partnership pitches, sailings, events, etc., I traveled to Florida. That was a significant financial strain in itself, and that put a lot of pressure on me. I could not expand Cruise Ship Crayz to reach its true potential, so that was my longest-lasting challenge that changed in November 2020 when I moved to Fort Lauderdale. Shortly after, I officially announced the relocation of Cruise Ship Crayz as well.
Throughout the years, I faced the challenge of separating Cruise Ship Crayz from “Influencers” and “content creators” which is difficult to do today. Breaking through the initial wall that most businesses put up due to the influx of influencers was tricky, but I had a lot of help working in the industry and those connections I made.
Then there are the typical challenges small businesses face; financial both business and personal, long hours, unfinished projects, near to no personal life, etc.
2020 was the most significant challenge I have faced in my career thus far. Due to how my company is positioned, I learned very early on that the initial shutdown would be much longer than 30 days, but I never expected the near two years we faced. Being fortunate to know this information, I hit the pause button very early in the pandemic. The strategic moves I made at the beginning of the pandemic are the only thing that kept Cruise Ship Crayz functioning. As a result, Cruise Ship Crayz did not produce a single dollar of revenue for roughly 20 months, even after ships began returning to service. To this day we still are fighting to return to the level we were at prior to COVID-19.
I can say with confidence that if we can get through that I am ready for what the future will throw at me,
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Cruise Ship Crayz is a “Cruise News and Media” company. We not only keep consumers up to date on industry happenings, but we also provide bias-free resources to make a booking, planning, and sailing completely stress-free.
Are we a travel agency? Not exactly, but we help thousands of registered agents around the country in generating new business and answering questions for their clients. Additionally, we work hand in hand with many cruise lines to bring their marketing efforts to completely different markets than usual.
Cruise Ship Crayz is different because we have our hands in all aspects of the cruise industry, from sales and marketing to distribution companies. Our knowledge is so broad, and our network is so extensive that we can bring trustworthy resources.
I have talked about how we are not influences, but we assist influences in cross-referencing and helping them with how they can expand their presence in the cruise industry!
I have a background in Marketing in hospitality. I have done marketing for Cruise lines, hotels, restaurants, restaurant groups, Destination Marketing Organizations, and almost everything in the hospitality sector except for Airlines. I specialize in Cruise Lines because that is what I have wanted to do my whole life.
I strived to work in the cruise industry from a young age. So much so that I curated my concentration in college, where I studied the science of the cruise industry while studying marketing. I am most proud of how much I have influenced people worldwide about the cruise industry and the positive impacts it does have on the world, and how much they strive to make themselves better.
I am a huge proponent of the industry needing to do everything possible to become the world’s most environmentally friendly travel experience, which we are well on our way to becoming. Being part of the push for no plastic straws onboard to the generation that is ensuring the industry completely becomes Carbon-Neutral no later than 2050, a date that is demanded by the global community.
The industry needs to ensure all employees, especially crew, are treated fairly and COMPENSATED for their work- money does not drive me; passion does, so I firmly believe that every crew member will be adequately compensated for their work, regardless of the country they hail from. I will do everything in my power to make that a reality. Even though I know, that means I might make enemies in the industry. I will go as high up as I need to make sure this becomes a reality.
So I guess you can say my work is very broad, but that is exactly what I always had planned so I can learn everything about this industry and have a positive influence and impact on the global cruise industry.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Luck has definitely worked its magic a few times for me. First, I have the most supportive family I could ever ask for, especially my parents. As much as my entire family have greatly supported me on this journey, my parents are the key to my success, and I know how lucky I am to have them. With never-ending support, reality checks, and the occasional financial assistance, my parents are the reason Cruise Ship Crayz and I are where I am; their life lessons have shaped the way I handle business.
I have had luck when It comes to my education as well. Being able to attend a private college, Johnson and Wales University, I met professors who actively worked in different industries. Due to these connections, my career began with Celebrity Cruises, then led me to the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau, where I worked for some incredible people and one woman imparticular, who had an extensive network.
At the time, the CEO of the PWCVB, Martha Sheridan, was part of the board of the U.S. Travel Association, where she was connected with Christine Duffy, The President of Carnival Cruise Line, and the rest is history! So I can associate my mentorship of professors and former employers’ luck.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cruiseshipcrayz.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cruiseshipcrayz/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cruiseshipcrayz/
