Having heard much about the wild parties that Groove Cruise was throwing, I was pleasantly surprised to find what a humble and passionate ship they were running a couple years back when I met the team. Not to talk smack about other companies or anything, but it is rare to see a team with such a unified culture of serving and being at such a reachable and personable level with all its supporters. Having had the chance to meet Jason on multiple occasions, I could tell that he was the source of why that culture trickled down from its leader to the rest of the company.
I was first introduced to Groove Cruise by Kim when she told me what a party it was and how she was going to be a lifer. However, I began to pay attention once I found out about The Whet Foundation, an awesome non-profit Jason started to support different charities. If you want to read more about the awesome adventures they take us cruisers on to give back, you can check out out other feature highlighting that here.
The vision of chartering his own cruise ship came about during a boring family cruise many years back. Although it took him 7 years to charter his own full cruise ship, the journey was nothing less of an interesting one. Whet Travel has chartered about 20 cruise ships up to date and has won the charter partner of the year for both Carnival as well as and Norwegian Cruise Lines.
Jason shared his humble beginnings of having built his company on credit card debt and having only one end of the ship for Groove Cruise. Yes, imagine a bunch of weird dressed up people on one end of the ship while the regular folks occupied the rest of the cruise. As successful as the Groove Cruise and Whet Foundation brand is today, there were many challenges that came along the way for Jason, including having no money and needing to work another job during this journey of building his empire.
From pre-med to network marketing to selling timeshares, Jason has literally done it all. He had always dreamt of never working for somebody else, and although that didn’t always work out, Jason had his vision set and his work cut out for him. Being a big believer of fun being about not where you are at, but who you are with, he has managed to build a business and brand based on creating once in a lifetime experiences for people all over the world!
We also got a chance to chat about the community service and social giving aspect that many of you may not know about. Even when Jason was dead broke, he always believed in giving back. From working with a charity in Africa that helped kids who lost their parents to AIDS, to running the current Community Captains program and Destination Donation, you can always catch Jason knee deep in the trenches for his projects. I have been on 2 Groove Cruises now and was lucky enough to experience both programs from help kids in orphanages to empowering young kids in becoming leaders.
Neon Owl started because we believed in bringing people together through the universal language of music and creating a worldwide movement to give back. It truly excites me when I learn about other companies sharing a similar vision, leading with purpose and not just profits. Jason is definitely a curator and leader in the industry creating experiences of a lifetime.
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Check out the full interview below where Jason took Kim and I down memory lane of how he built his empire on just a vision and credit card debt. There are plenty of exciting things coming up for Whet Travel including new ports, new locations, new partners, and new activities coming for all you cruisers! If Jason has one mission it is to always bring the WOW factor into the attendees’ experience, whether you are on cruise number one or number ten.
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