1. Tim and Amy Ford put a lot of hard work into making this event run. They do a great job. Everyone learns, shares, has fun, relaxes, and did I mention learns?

  2. Jason Hall from SQL Sentry taught his class Tempdb Parasites, and I learned about temp table caching. This is amazing! SQL Sentry also gave cruisers some amazing, to-be-jealous-of swag. If you were there, you would have gotten it!

  3. Zip lining through the canopy on Tortola is amazing.

SQLCruiseTortola

The view from the zip lining platform.

  1. Grant Fritchey from Red Gate brought his A game to talk about Query Store, a new feature in SQL Server 2016…but already available in Azure SQL Database. Red Gate continues to be an awesome sponsor of the cruise, and I’m thrilled they sent Grant to speak.
Listening to Grant talk.

Listening to Grant talk.

  1. Patrick Flynn is an Ironman!

  2. During Office Hours, one cruiser asked, “How do you do *it* – keeping up with the community/speaking/blogging, while having a family and a job?” That turned into one of the most honest discussions I’ve been part of on that topic. It’s not easy – for any of us. It requires balance. Those conversations are what Office Hours is all about.

  3. Running a 5K in Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, is a lot of work. Those hills! Those 99 Stairs! But having two fellow cruisers along makes it a lot more fun. (Thanks Jared and Drew!)

We ran up to that view. RAN. UP!

We ran up to that view. RAN. UP!

  1. The rum at John Watling’s Distillery in Nassau is amazing. Belly up to the bar for a tasting and one of their house cocktails.
A class in how rum is distilled, stored, and bottled at John Watling's.

A class in how rum is distilled, stored, and bottled at John Watling's.

  1. David Klee of Heraflux Technologies is an amazing resource for anything infrastructure related, and has great resources on his website.

  2. Not that we didn’t know, but Argenis Fernandez reminded us, “Security is not easy”…as he hacked SQL Server data from packets and read through dlls for dangerous data.

  3. The 2017 itineraries are going to be amazing. Keep an eye on http://sqlcruise.com/ for the details!