NEW Atlantis San Diego-Mexico 2026 Cruise

Hello, and welcome to the Gay Cruise and Travel podcast with me Just Joey T brought to you by Just Joey Travels. Also brought to you by our new podcast sponsor Magnet, which is my own skin care company. I own a whole entire fucking skin care company. By the way, you're watching the video version of the podcast follow up on my YouTube channel, Just Joey T. You see, I'm supporting a Magnet T-shirt. This is the brand name and also the brand logo for the skin care company. It's still weird to say I own an entire skin care company. Anyways, I'm actually about to record something for Magnet after I record this podcast, so that's why I'm wearing the Magnet T-shirt. Also because they are our new podcast sponsor, they need some product placement.

Anyways, today we're here to talk about the new Another New Atlantis cruise. It's not been that long ago that we talked about the Southern Caribbean New Atlantis cruise that's coming next year in March slash April in 2027. But right now we're here to talk about a new cruise for this year. In 2026, it's the Atlantis San Diego to Mexico cruise sailing in November 2026. So we first got wind of this over New Year's. So Atlantis did a Tahiti cruise over New Year's. And sometimes on the cruises, Rich, the founder and president of Atlantis, sometimes he'll give like a little heads up to people that, oh, there's going to be like this cruise coming and then we'll get more details out later.

So over New Year's, we got a heads up about this cruise, the San Diego to Mexico cruise. And I've been patiently waiting for them to release the details of this cruise because usually what I would like to see is that an Atlantis cruise goes on sale at least like 9 to 10 months in advance of it actually setting off 9 to 10 months before the departure date because that gives lots of time for people to actually book it. So with this cruise, we're sitting as I'm recording this, it's mid-April. This episode, by the way, is being pre-recorded before the cruise actually goes on public sale because I have this hunch that they are going to—I have this weird hunch, gut feeling that they're going to launch this cruise while I'm away somewhere.

Like I'm recording this in mid-April. I'm about to go on a Atlantis cruise, the LA Mexo cruise. That's like in a few days I'm going to be boarding that one in April. I have a feeling that while on that cruise, they're going to launch this cruise to public sail. And I didn't want to just like be on a cruise and not be able to get a podcast out when they launched the San Diego Mexo cruise for November. So we're talking a lot of Atlantis cruises. I'm so confusing you guys. Anyways, we are here to talk about the San Diego Mexico for November.

Okay, so first of all, before we dig into all the details, I am starting to do Facebook groups for all the upcoming Atlantis cruises. I know that already exists one maybe 2 Facebook groups for every Atlantis cruise already, but the Just Joey Travels Facebook groups—those are the only ones where I'm going to be active and those are the only ones where I'm going to be answering questions from cruisers, your prospective cruisers, those who have been booked, regardless if they are clients of Just Joey Travels or not. Obviously if you book with me, Just Joey Travels, as a new to Atlantis cruiser, as a first-time Atlantis cruiser, you get just that next level of help from Joey. OK, you get like the dedicated one-on-one. You get to like DM me at any time, text me any time, call me any time. You can ask me like 1,000,000 questions.

People that are not clients of Just Joey Travels—they don't get that extra white-glove level of like DM me at any time day or night, seven days a week type of a thing. But they do get the Facebook group where they still get to interact with me. I'm going to use the Facebook group as a way to be able to help people that didn't book through me but are thinking about going on the cruises or have booked themselves onto a cruise in some other way, shape or form. So that is the main, one of the main ways I'm going to be doing that to be able to help people that are going on the Atlantis cruises if for whatever reason they are not a client of Just Joey Travels. So there's already a Facebook group for the San Diego Mexico cruise already created. It's linked down below. It's going to be linked everywhere. I hope this becomes a great resource for everyone that goes onto this cruise.

Let's get into the details of this cruise. So I mentioned it's going to be in November. It's going to be from November 7th to the 14th. So obviously, 7 nights, here is the itinerary. It's going to sail from San Diego as implied by the name of the cruise. Day one, sailing from San Diego. Day 2 is a sea day. Day three, you're going to be in Cabo San Lucas. Day four, you're going to be in Puerto Vallarta, you're going to be in PV. And the current arrival and departure times for PV is 11 AM arrival into PV, 1:00 AM departure. So the way they've listed it on the Atlantis web page for this cruise, you have to look carefully, but the dates in the itinerary section are in this like tiny gray font. It lists Puerto Vallarta twice, which is like a little misleading. When something ends at 1 AM I still consider it to be like the previous day, personally. But day four we're in PV for a good chunk of time. Day 5 you're in Mazatlan, and then day 6 and 7 are sea days before we get back to San Diego. So obviously a San Diego Mexico cruise is going to sail from San Diego. It's going to various places in Mexico.

OK, sales timeline. This went on alumni presale on April the 8th and when this podcast goes out, it's now on public sales. So all of you can now book yourself onto this cruise if you would like. If this podcast goes up on or before April 23rd—I'm pre-recording this like I said, so I don't know exactly when it's gonna like upload—but I just wanted to have all this information ready to upload in case I can't do a recording when they actually hit that trigger. But if this goes up on or before April 23rd, that is the same date that the alumni discounts are good until on the categories of V to VF. So there are multiple categories of rooms. We're going to get into the rooms situation in the moment. But the alumni discount is $200 off the categories V to VF. So that's category VV, VA, VB, VC, VD, VE and VF.

The ship itself, this is where we're going to spend a little more time because this is not on a ship that Atlantis usually sails and it's not on the cruise line that Atlantis usually sails. This is on the Holland America Koningsdam. They have sailed this once before, I think in 2024-25. They have sailed this once recently before, but they don't usually sail Holland America; it’s very rare. So let's just talk about the ship and then we'll talk a little bit about the cruise line because that does have an effect on the vibe of the ship and it actually does have an impact on the sales of the ship and like the passenger experience as well.

This particular ship, the Koningsdam launched in 2016, is quite a new ship actually. One interesting thing I noticed is Holland America themselves, they are a bit more musically inclined and some of the decks are musically themed in the sense that they're named after musicians. So like on this ship, deck 4 is the Beethoven deck, deck 5 is the Gershwin deck and deck 6 is the Mozart deck. I'm not a classical music person, but I obviously do recognize those names. The ship is a relatively small ship, it’s a little bit smaller than the Virgin ships, just a touch. Maximum capacity for passengers is about 2600, and it's about 1000 crew. For reference, the Virgin Voyager ships usually have about 100 more of passengers and crews. So it's just like very slightly more just in terms of the capacity. By the way, whenever you look up the specs of a ship, that capacity number is if you put everybody into a bed that would fit. Most regular rooms are designed for two people, and these numbers assume that if it's a two-person room, you're going to put two people in it. Whereas what happens in reality, especially on the Atlantis charters, there are quite a few people that just book a room all to themselves. So the room might be rated for two people, but if you're staying in the room by yourself, then obviously it's only 1 passenger that's actually travelling there, not 2.

Anyway, let's talk a little bit about Holland America just as a cruise line. How it compares to some of the other common cruise lines that Atlantis also sails with—primarily Royal Caribbean and Virgin Voyages. Royal Caribbean, if you've ever seen any of the advertising, is very high energy. It's also like very family centric. That's not necessarily a bad thing; you get things like water slides, a rock climbing wall, the flow rider (the water surfing thing at the back of the ship). You get an ice rink on some of the ships. They make some of the biggest ships; their thing is to be like "bigger is better." So that's kind of like Royal Caribbean's thing. It's high energy. When you're on an Atlantis cruise, obviously you don't care about the daycare area, but some of the kid-friendly stuff is also fun for the gays, like the water slides.

Virgin Voyages is adults only and they're very like edgy. They're very cool, kind of like tongue-in-cheek. They have like a tattoo parlour on board. They don't have a formal night; Virgin Voyages is not that stuffy. Their ice cream place is called "Lick Me Till Ice Cream." You can't name an ice cream place like that on Royal Caribbean because it's not kid-friendly. But Virgin is an adults-only cruise line. It just freaked me out because it was sunny and now a big cloud has sailed over West Hollywood and it got quite a bit darker. If you're watching the video version, you'll notice everything kind of got darker because my place has a lot of windows. Anyways, yeah, Virgin's vibe is edgy, cool, tongue-in-cheek, adults only.

Holland America is more classical and traditional. Their focus isn't about water slides, ice rinks, or rock climbing. They're not supposed to be edgy; they are very traditional, very classical. Now, when Atlantis charters a ship, they take over the entire ship. Certain things obviously you can't change—like the kind of food that the restaurants serve. If it's an Italian restaurant, they're going to serve Italian food. Usually if it's like a buffet, they have a bit of say into the types of foods that are served. Like, I know that when they do the Royal Caribbean ships for that big cruise at the beginning of the year, Atlantis does work with the food and beverages manager on the ship to be like, "Hey, can you make sure you have some extra chicken tenders and fries because that's what the gays are going to eat at 3:00 AM."

But when Atlantis takes over a ship, they change a lot of things. If the cruise line itself has a theme, like the formal night, that goes away. There's no formal night when Atlantis charters a Royal Caribbean ship. Virgin Voyages usually has a "Scarlet Night" or a red night where you wear red; that goes away. They also have a pajama night on Virgin; that goes away too. Atlantis has all their own themes, their own events, and takes over most of those things. Even the entertainment—not all of it happens from the cruise line. Atlantis brings in so much of their own entertainment. They hire drag queens, singers, and comedians. Those people need venues to perform, and those are sometimes the headline shows. Kicking out some of the cruise ship's own entertainment which honestly isn't always the most suitable or optimized for the Atlantis audience anyways. So what I'm trying to say is even though this cruise is going to be on Holland America, don't get freaked out by that thinking it will be dull and boring. When Atlantis charters a ship, they take over a lot of aspects, override a good amount of the regular stuff, and throw their own dance parties.

All right, let's go to the Just Joey T forecast. This is where I give my forecast on the vibe of the cruise, who it is good for, and who it’s not. I'm also gonna compare it a little bit to the Thanksgiving cruise Atlantis has because it's also in November. It's weird for Atlantis to have two cruises late in the year. Usually they just have the Halloween cruise out of SoCal down to Mexico. This is the closest to that old Halloween cruise we're gonna get. It's from SoCal down to Mexico, that type of itinerary on a smaller ship, but it's not over Halloween—it's like a week or two after. I think this one is good for West Coast cruisers looking for a sailing out of the West Coast. In 2025 we didn't have any West Coast sailings at all. A lot of the cruises were just out of Miami or Europe. This year we have two: the one in April that I'm about to go on, and then this one out of San Diego. Puerto Vallarta is such a great gay destination. The fact that we have two cruises going down to PV this year is awesome.

I think this cruise will be a good one for relaxation and entertainment with some partying. I think this one is going to be leading more towards the peaceful, tranquil side of things, but not at the extreme. It's only really that one big cruise at the beginning of the year on the Royal Caribbean ships where it's at the opposite extreme. But even on what I call the party cruise, there are over 5000 passengers and the party venues can only hold not even half of that. There are a lot of people that don't go to the party or they go just to people watch for a little bit. But overall, if you want hardcore, big parties as much as possible, that's like the one extreme. On this other end, I have been on Atlantis cruises where at the peak of the party there were maybe like 70 or 80 people there. Imagine 70 or 80 people at a nightclub that could hold a few hundred. That's the very opposite extreme. I think this one is leaning towards the quieter side, but it will be better than that. If you like a smaller ship and a more intimate feel, I think this ship is really good for that compared to all the other ships. The Virgin ships are only 5% bigger, but this ship will have a more intimate feel just because of the way it's designed.

Who is it not for? If you want rowdy, super high energy, massive parties, I don't know if the parties on this one are going to be that packed. And it's also maybe not for you if you're looking for more fun amenities on a ship like rock climbing, go-karts, or water slides. Holland America isn't as family-oriented so they don't have as many of those. What's the crowd going to be like? I think it's going to be a pretty typical Atlantis crowd. This being in November and out of the West Coast means the vast majority of the people on it will be American. Sometimes with the East Coast sailings you get a few more folks from Europe. I think it's going to be a pretty standard age range, probably from the 30s up to the 70s. Just as a comparison, I think that Southern Caribbean cruise in 2027 is more going to be from the 40s on up because all the younger party boys are going to go on the Allure cruise which is only two weeks earlier.

Vibe is gonna be a little bit more laid back, more of a community. Is it good for new cruisers? Yeah, I think it's gonna be pretty good for new cruisers. I'm gonna do a quick comparison to the Thanksgiving cruise (November 22nd to the 29th). There’s gonna be a week in between these two cruises. One unique thing about the Thanksgiving cruise is it's going to stop at the Beach Club at Bimini—a private beach resort all to themselves. This cruise from San Diego is on the West Coast, going to Puerto Vallarta. So the offerings are quite different. Obviously, if you have family commitments or a Friendsgiving scheduled, you aren't going to be able to take the Thanksgiving cruise. Then you might be like, "Oh, I have Thanksgiving plans, but I can do this one out of San Diego." Most people are not like me where I would entertain doing 2 cruises in a month.

Do I think this cruise is going to sell? I also like to give the sales forecast. It is helpful to not wait until a cruise is 80 or 90 percent filled to book because the room selection is just so much better. Desirable, quieter rooms go first, and less expensive rooms go first. It's like booking an airplane ticket—you don't want the seat in the back by the toilets. Obviously this cruise just launched so it's nowhere near sold out. But I do have some notes about things to keep in mind.

This is a tricky ship on which to pick a good room location. The way all the decks and venues are laid out makes it quite difficult to find a room in a quiet location versus a noisy one. There are a lot of rooms that are in noisy locations on this ship compared to the Virgin ships or the big Royal Caribbean ships. That's why you go with Just Joey Travels. I research all this shit. If you are interested in this cruise, you actually want to book earlier to have the maximum amount of selection. The pros: it's a smaller ship, so it's easier to fill. I don't think it's going to be only half full.

There's a higher percentage of suites on this ship—12% versus only 7% on Virgin. There are quite a lot more interior rooms—the least expensive type. It's a startling difference. On this ship, there are about 750 interior rooms; on Virgin ships, there's only about 100. That's a 7X increase. Because they have so many, there are multiple different interior room categories. And there are quite a few less balcony rooms as a result—about 750 ocean balcony rooms versus over 1000 on Virgin. Why am I giving you specific numbers? To show you that the pricing on the ship is actually relatively low for a one-week Atlantis sailing. This one is a little cheaper for your seven nights. Lower price point, more interior rooms, less rooms total to fill—all these things mean the ship shouldn't have too much trouble filling up. This is the level of dedication I go into for my clients.

Let me give you the pricing for reference. Double occupancy (per person prices): for an interior room, that is $1313 total including port fees and gratuities. $1413 for an ocean view room and $1513 for an ocean balcony. It's just a $100 per person upgrade between those tiers. These are relatively low prices—getting on a one-week Atlantis sailing for $1300 per person all-in is pretty cheap. For comparison, the Southern Caribbean cruise interior room is just under $1800 and the ocean balcony is just under $2200. That's a big difference for two one-week sailings. This is great if you're a new cruiser hesitant to spend a whole ton of money if you've never sailed before.

Single occupancy prices: there was actually one solo rate for this cruise, but those are all sold out (there were only like 3 rooms). For everyone else who wants their own cabin, you'll be booking the same room as everyone else but paying for it yourself. It's nearly double the price. The solo rate for an interior room starts from $2261 all-in. Ocean view for one person is $2461. Ocean balcony is $2661. This might be one of the best cruises of the year to do your first solo cruise on because you can get an interior room all to yourself for under $2300 total. That’s a pretty good deal compared to most Atlantis cruises.

This is probably going to be the least expensive one you're going to see for a while. I don't think you're getting an inferior product. Is it going to be a second-rate Atlantis cruise? No, I don't think so. I've been on tons of various types of Atlantis cruises all over. I think probably what happened is they were able to negotiate a really good rate on the cruise. Atlantis has to negotiate with different cruise lines to get a ship. Sometimes they get a ship that for whatever reason is offered for a cheaper rate—maybe it was an off-season for the cruise line and they didn't think they could make the numbers make sense that week in November themselves. I don't think it's going to be a worse experience. It's not going to be quite as razzle-dazzle as the big gigantic Royal Caribbean ships, but you still get the full Atlantis experience.

And because I've reached the end of my notes and there's a very loud lawnmower outside, we will wrap it up here. Again, if you are new to Atlantis, please reach out to Just Joey Travels. You can find me at JustJoeyTravels.com or the Just Joey Travels Instagram account. Until next time, bye y'all.