Your No-Nonsense Tropic Like It's Hot New Year's Eve Rulebook

We’re not sure if it’s become cool to hate on New Year’s Eve - or whether us humans just need to work on our earnestness - but we’re getting pretty bored of people closing out the year by saying, “New Year’s Eve is so overrated”. New Year’s Eve is not overrated. At least, not when you do it The BucketLust way.

That’s because our New Year’s Eve’s are different. Oh-so-different. F**king different. There’s no hating yourself for paying Uber surge prices, trekking it to the other side of your cold and crowded city, and then drinking knock-off champagne in a confined space with hundreds of strangers knowing you’ll probably have to go pee at 11:37pm or else you’ll welcome in the next epoch of your life parting the sea of midnight kissers with awkwardly wet pants.

This is why the world’s most life-loving unicorns have begun avoiding New York, London, Paris, Sydney, Hong Kong, and every other world-famous New Year’s party to come kick it with us, and our flotilla of yachts, on a voyage of hedonistic exploration that would make Christopher Columbus quake in his sandals - and this New Year’s Eve it’s our St Martin Route that’s getting the FULL F**KING SEND. 

It’s gonna be huuuge. No. It’s gonna be hot. So hot you’ll need to wear a welder’s mask to look at it and teflon gloves to touch it. But it will be so worth it because this route is gonna make your mind fizz, your soul shake, your fists punch the air, and the good-time memories sear themselves into your smile, replete with all those gorgeously bad habits you think you’re going to give up as part of your ”I can be a saint” resolutions. Yeah. It’s as big as New Year’s gets. It’s three islands in seven days. It’s a cocktail of French grandeur, Dutch flair, Caribbean-cool beach vibes, and our TBL special sauce.  

New Year’s Eve is dead. Long live New Year’s Eve.

Long live The BucketLust.

Rule No.1: No One Forgets Fort Louis

We only know one way when it comes to kicking off a BucketLust week, and that’s telling our crews to hang on for dear life as we raise the sails and leave your world behind in a jumbo jet take-off - and there’s nowhere more epic for this kinda launch than the Fort Louis Yacht Club. It’s got more prestige than most princes, more stories to tell than most novelists, views for days, and an epic AF perch above Marigot Bay. It’s a place that proves our two favourite things:

1. You can never have too much of a good thing.

2. Feeling smug about your NYE plans is totally groovy.  

Rule No.2: Circles Have More Fun

We don’t care if you’ve danced down the streets of Rio in sparkly underwear, gambled and skied your way around Lake Tahoe, done the two fireworks finales at Niagara Falls, or got blisters doing Berlin’s Party Mile, you’ve never partied The Bucketlust way. Never. But that’s because you’ve never been floating around the far-flung islands of paradise in a flotilla of yachts led by our motley crew of misfit skippers who love nothing more than rafting our yachts together in a giant circle and giving our resident DJs the thumbs up to throw a mid-ocean pop-up party for our close-knit tribe of pirates. It’s epic. Inflatables fill the ring of yachts, lasers cut through the sky, skinny-dippers leave their trunks on deck, fists pump like there’s no tomorrow, bikini-clad beauties dance like they’re in an MTV music video (or a Bravo TV show), and so much champagne is sprayed the sea-level rises faster than a honeymooner’s bubble bath. And because it’s New Year’s Eve, we’re gonna send it like we’ve never sent it before. Yeeeehaw.  

Rule No.3: We Always Find Utopia

All-dayers down the boozer are grand, but all-dayers on the shores of a secret paradise are way better, and we’re not just talking about a pretty beach with a hammock hung between curved palm trees. We’re talking about ringing in your last days of 2018 in-style with a jaw-hits-floor day-trip to Ile Tintamarre. Totally uninhabited, pulling up here is a cinematic dream; smiles filling faces as we idle towards the drug-white shoreline, sails loosely flapping in the wind as the North Curve comes into focus. It’s f**king paradise, dudes. We won’t ruin the surprise, but there’s a cove full of with sea turtles and rays and pristine beach perfect for digging holes, filling with speakers and making the sands shake. Whoever your next-of-kin is, you’re probably going to send them an involuntary text the moment you arrive that reads: I’ll be back never.

Rule No. 4: We’ll Prove The King Is Alive And Kicking

Elvis may have died in Graceland in 1977, but his spirit made its way to the sliver of paradise known as Anguilla and the Elvis Beach Bar. It’s the place for late nights and live music. It’s a toes-in-the-sand beach bar on Sandy Ground that caters for good-times of every kind. Midday cocktails, sundowner shots, and parties that wave farewell to dusk and raise a glass of champagne to dawn. And, yeah, like we said, it’s on Anguilla; the Caribbean place that isn’t for everyone - and that’s exactly what we goddamn love about it. It leaves the egotism to St. Barts, the swimming pigs to The Bahamas, and the volcano hikes to Nevis, and just focuses on what it does better than anywhere else - giving you the chillest Caribbean vacay.

Rule No.5: You’ll See Bays And Meet Bae

There are bays, and then there are bays, the kind that will make you bite your bottom-lip, break the ‘gram with a #nofilter snap of a jumbo’s wheels teasing the beach sands of paradise, and then grab the waist of whoever you’ve been crushing on and give ‘em that trip-changing first sign as you dance your way towards the warm waters. And we’re giving you two of these bays. Friars and Simpson. With our resident DJ’s kickstarting another pop-up party, bikini-clad hotties dancing on the decks with boardie-adorned hardbodies, and the sun turning the ocean pink with each tick-tock of the 2018 clock, there’s nowhere you’d rather fall in love with life and fall in lust with whichever unicorn you haven’t been able to take your eyes off. Yeah. We make “meet cutes” sexy.

Rule No.6: No One Does It Like The Dutch

What’s an epiphany trip to St-Martin without dropping in on the Dutch side of the party and the capital city of this hatter-mad island - Philipsburg. It’s the wild west of the south that doesn’t know how to do quaint, meaning it’s debauched in all the best ways possible. It’s the perfect pitstop for those wanting to see their heart thud through their swimsuits and hear their flip-flops tip-tap down the cobbled streets of seventh heaven. It’s a mishmash of old buildings meets new, outdoor shopping malls, red light districts, and boardwalks jamming with boisterous beach bars and tables made for dancing. It’s the perfect place to take our floating amphitheatre of epicness and let our motley crew of life-lovers and yay-sayers crank it up to eleven. 

Rule No.7: Seafaring And Smile-Celebrating Guaranteed

Of all the Hallmark days that clog up our calendars, none is more life-affirming than New Year’s Eve, and there’s no better way to look back at the year you’ve just conquered and forward to another year of dream-touching than to stand on the bow of a yacht, surrounded by your BFFs, clinking jars of Cap’n Jack’s Notorious Punch as you stare out at the open seas and stern-split waves full of love and life, hopes and hope-nots, and then feeling your out-of-this-world crush take you by the hand and kiss you under a sky of flickering stars and crackling fireworks - sparklers, spinners, poppers, fountains, roman candles and firecrackers - all of them lighting up paradise with a bang. Yeah. Sailing f**king rocks, man. That feeling of exploring a small pocket of paradise with the sails up and the elixir of sun, salt and warm winds licking your skin. It f••king rocks. But sailing The Bucketlust way is even more badass. It’s like Sailing 2.0. No. It’s like Living Your Best Life 2.0.

Rule No.8: The Best Things Happen Unexpectedly

It wouldn’t be a BucketLust Route without us throwing a few madass surprises into the mixer and shaking them over our shoulder. It’s what we do best. It’s what keeps you mad bunch of misfits coming back, again and again, to explore the world through our kaleidoscope of house music and hard-stuff hooch, ocean breezes and strip teases, pop-up parties, dance-offs, beach landings and more. So much more. And this New Year’s Eve we’re gonna send it with so much force our parties will be written into the scrolls NYE folklore with permanent ink, a winky face emoji, and a reference from the good-time gods that reads: you ain’t lived until you’ve lived this week.

NYE is dead. Long live NYE. Long Live TBL.

Thanks for reading! For more BucketLust madness and crazy adventure ideas, follow us on Instagram and Facebook. It’s the first step in joining our global community of unicorns, and who doesn’t want to be a badass, Bucketlust unicorn?

10 Reasons Bravo's new TV show 'Unanchored' Is Gonna Be Epic AF

If you’ve ever found yourselves on the deck of a BucketLust yacht, you’ll know just how epic we can make a week of seafaring. They’re epic AF. If, however, you haven’t yet found yourself aboard one of our flotillas, you’re FOMO is out to go into mega-meltdown mode because you’re missing out big.

Bikini-clad women shake their hips to “Paper Stars” on the bow. Fist pumps become irresistible. Flailing swan divers lose their Budgie Smugglers on impact. Alpha males rip their patriotic swim trunks showing off on Subwings (underwater flight), while champagne-sipping spectators lounge on flamingo tubes, rejoicing with raised glasses. Armadas of BucketLust yachts sail in Flying Vs from party-rich docks to palm-lined beaches. Warm waters are lapped up, morning coffees are replaced by skinny dips, tans sparkle, hair gets licked by the elixir of sun n’ salt, sunsets are cheers’d, adventures are had, pop-up dance parties are encouraged by tequila, tribes are discovered, memories are made, and hedonism is celebrated from dusk until dawn and then some more. In a clamshell, that’s what a BucketLust event feels like - and the new Bravo TV show ‘Unanchored’ is about to bring it all to your 55” screen.

So, set a reminder on your phone, grab a six pack or two and get ready to ride the bumpy waters because this one promises to be a rowdy, epic AF, good-time show, and here’s 10 reasons why:

1. Hookups On The High Seas

Pretty much everything that’s considered sexy gets bundled into a BucketLust event and then rolled into one insane on-the-water smorgasbord of temptation. Dripping wet tans, sexy-ass swimwear, rippling bodies, booze on tap, paradise landings, beach bashes, sexy AF sunsets, hidden nooks and secrets crannies, 24/7 togetherness, and the trip of a lifetime. Like everyone else, our shipmates can pretty much resist everything but temptation, and you’re gonna love it.

2. Ain’t No Fun Like Flotilla-Fun

If you thought tailgating in the stadium car park of your favourite team was a raucous day party, ya’ll ain’t seen nothing yet because if there’s one thing you can expect on Unanchored, it’s a whole bunch of wild, on-the-water tailgating action where our motley crew of legendary skippers raft their yachts to one another and turn it up to eleven. Yup. This means one thing and one thing only: you’ve got a floating amphitheatre of an epic party, wave-making music and expensive booze, located just off the shore of yet another palm-lined paradise. Ipso facto, they’re the most insane parties ever thrown.

3. Below Deck Drama

Nothing is more life-affirming than standing on the bow of a yacht and turning around to see all your favorite faces in front of the world’s most electrifying places. Period. But if you think it’s all smooth sailing, you’re about to have your brain blown and loyalties tested ‘cos this crew of BFFs aren’t just there to chase the horizon, soak up the sun, fill their Insta-stories with stunning sunsets or lead the charge on every eye-fizzing adventure - they’re there to make each week run smoother than a marble dance floor without falling out as friends and, trust us, that’s basically the impossible. With so much to do, nowhere to run and all of life’s sexy little dramas there to be juggled, friendships are put the test like you’d never believe - and heck is it fun to watch (#epicaricacy).

4. Not All Vacays Are Created Equal

Imagine stumbling across a party oasis in The Bahamas, full of boat-based bonanzas, floating fiestas and an exciting subculture of elaborate costumes, eccentric rules and hallowed traditions. Well, that’s exactly what you’re about to get a hefty dose of because this series of Unanchored snags a rare glimpse into the secret (second) life of young, elite, life-hungry professionals on the epiphany-trip of a lifetime. It’s gonna prove the one thing we’ve been raising our glasses to since we first dreamed up the first BucketLust event: not all vacations are created equal. That’s what Unanchored captures.

5. The One & Only, Captain Jack

If you’re popping the cork on a bottle of rum aboard a f**k-off big sailboat, you want someone called Cap’n Jack to pull on his hat and lead you astray, and that’s our Cap’n Jack Royds because this larger-than-life lad knows how to do it better than anyone. He’s wild, raucous, shrewd, eccentric, handsome AF, impossibly charming, heroic and a loose-cannon if there ever was one. He’s Sparrow reincarnated and plonked behind the wheel of our very own Black Pearl, and f**k does he want to write another adventure into the scrolls of floating folklore.

6. The Bahamas Through A New Telescope

On a typical Bahamian adventure, you tend to enjoy all those totally mainstream locations you’ve seen a trillion times on the ‘gram... but not with The BucketLust. Na-ah. We prefer taking our party-loving sailors to those secret Edens off the beaten-track; to islands as far off the grid as possible; to those places where our inhibitions can be cast off and washed out to see. And you’ll see it all through the periscope of Unanchored. It’s first footsteps in the sand, lost lagoons where you can absolutely send it, commandeering tavernas with bars made for dancing on, setting up speakers around life-affirming bonfires on deserted beaches, celebrating pop-up parties in crazy coves, taking glow sticks where no glow stick has ever been before, and strolling off the hangovers on islands where the only inhabitants are pigs that can f**king swim. This is travel through a whole new telescope, which, when you think about it, kinda makes us goddamn trailblazers.

7. Time To Find Your Tribe

If there’s one underlying story that Unanchored celebrates, it’s the story of finding your tribe; your bunch of misfits made up of like-minded adventurers, party-lovers, brave souls, unicorns and trendsetters, all while you revel in all the modicums of a week well-lived. All the laughter and heartbreak, the friendships and fall outs. The wow-factor experiences and jaw-hits-floor moments. It’s about finding a tribe of people that are hunting for more than just another vacation. It’s about building a tribe of people who know a lifestyle is a terrible thing to waste. That’s what Unanchored grabs on the lens and sends into the universe like a New Year’s Eve fireworks finale, which is golden, ‘cos if there’s one thing The BucketLust does better than anything or anyone else, it’s building a close-knit tribe of offbeat dissenters who’ve been bitten hard by the wanderlust bug - yeehaw.

8. You’re Gonna See A Bunch Forever-Squads

If you think Unanchored is just gonna be a bunch of gorgeous, hard-bodies sipping on private stock, partying like it’s the last day on earth, saluting at each paradise they pass, and lounging about on inflatable unicorns in the middle of a flotilla ring, you’re almost absolutely right. But there’s something else totally badass that will bounce about your screen, and that’s the birth of a forever-squad. Don’t ask us what’s in the tequila, but there’s something about sharing a BucketLust that etches itself deep into the friendships of every pirate that steps aboard. The people you’ll meet, the place you’ll see, the parties you’ll only remember through the next days Insta-posts, using yachts as your only mode of travel, the ocean as your road as guided by the winds, and dancing at parties so loud they’ll make the sands shudder on beaches so white your sunnies will become essential - they’re the kind of memories you can’t escape and they build bonds you cannot break. Ever. That’s what Unanchored dives into - the forever-squad.

9. YOLO

That phrase has become pretty f**king clichéd - we know that. But we have a feeling it’s going to be granted a rebirth after Unanchored has aired because there’s nothing more YOLO than stepping aboard a massive yacht with your besties and partying on the most “Holy S**t!” beaches paradise has to offer for what’s guaranteed to be the best week of your life. The madcap friendships, the pinch-yourself sights, and epic AF adventures. The bottomless boozing, dawn-welcoming nights, outrageous flirting, endless sunbathing, and an Insta profile that will make your buddies laugh and rage in equal doses. Yeah, it’s clichéd, but it’s also mega-true: you really do only live once, and it would be a crime against euphoria if your life were to lack a BucketLust week.

10. The Party Never Stops

We’re not sure we’re meant to advertise this, but f**k it: we’re known for our parties. We do it bigger and better than anyone else, and push the boundaries like they’re on wheels. Basically, we want to redefine what mind-blowing means so that the next time you Google it, you’re tickled by a photo of us in a hazardous amount of dayglow, a 30-strong flotilla of yachts docked in the middle of the ocean, lasers cutting through the stars, and an army of fists punching the sky as our resident DJ makes the high-heavens bounce, shake and goddamn quake. And that’s what you’ll see on Unanchored. You’ll see the party really doesn’t stop. Not for a day. Some are planned down to the T and some celebrate the privilege of spontaneity by springing out of nowhere. But all of them are epic AF, so turn up the TV and let the Unanchored soundtrack do what it was born to do: make you dance, baby.

And with all that said and high-fived, what are you waiting for: pull your phone out of your pocket, open the calendar app, and set your alarm for December 3rd because this is one party you don’t wanna miss.

Thanks for reading! For more BucketLust madness and crazy adventure ideas, follow us on Instagram and Facebook. It’s the first step in joining our global community of unicorns, and who doesn’t want to be a unicorn?