Rich and Jazzy duo build a community with Melanin at Sea

Travel Weekly

8 hours ago

Jasmine and Richard Ramnarine were enjoying a meal on a cruise ship when, after finishing the first course, they decided it was time to pull out their camera.
"I tore that crab cake up, y'all," Jasmine says on a vlog, later posted to YouTube. "If I could order another one, I would."
That YouTube channel -- A Rich and Jazzy Life -- was what started it all for the couple. And "all" now includes a 116,000-member Facebook community for cruise enthusiasts of color, called Melanin at Sea, and group cruise experiences of the same name.
Along the way, the Ramnarines built a travel agency that has enabled them to quickly become top sellers for Virgin Voyages.
At the heart of it all is an undeniably authentic perspective on the industry, a desire to bring people together and a knack for social media.
The Atlanta-based couple said they created the Melanin at Sea Facebook group during the pandemic as a space for those missing the cruise life to share updates and chat about cruise memories with like-minded people.
"Richard, with an Indo-Caribbean background, me as an African American woman, we decided that we are so underrepresented in the cruise industry that we wanted to create a space where people of color can come together and say, 'Oh my gosh, there's other people like me who like to cruise,'" Jasmine said.
What they didn't plan on was that the community would come to feel so tight-knit that members would begin wanting to cruise as a group.
"The people wanted it, and we gave it to them," Jasmine said.
They have since hosted six Melanin at Sea group cruises and have five more scheduled, with the next one in July on the Carnival Celebration.
Certain traditions have emerged during the cruises, including an onboard cocktail party where those remotely observing from the Facebook group crown the group's Mr. and Ms. Melanin at Sea.
The Ramnarines also encourage group cruise participants to refer to each other as "cousin," and their T-shirts are now spotted not only on their group cruises but on other sailings, enabling past participants to identify each other outside of Melanin at Sea experiences, Jasmine said.
"It's really community building," Richard said, "And the vibe is definitely straight-up family reunion kind of vibes."
Melanin at Sea groups provide a more inclusive space than cruise guests of color might otherwise experience, Richard said.
"Sometimes in cruising, you get every and anyone that comes there, right?" he said. "You're going to have a lot of people that will make you feel invisible, as bad as that sounds, but that's just the reality of it. And when you come on a Melanin at Sea group cruise, even if it's 100 of us and the ship holds 5,000, you do not feel invisible at any point during that cruise."
The couple hasn't shied away from calling attention to a lack of diversity in cruise line promotional materials if they spot it, or from giving honest reviews on their YouTube channel if they are disappointed by an experience on a ship.
Their social media presence -- be it the community they've built on Facebook or their YouTube videos -- is what they believe has given them success as travel advisors in just a few years. They were among Virgin Voyages' top 100 sellers in both 2023 and 2024, and in the top 150 producers of their host agency, Outside Agents.
"We're in the same categories with people who have been travel agents for 20 and 30 years," Richard said. "And we believe our success is because of social media, so that's why we say it is so important to have social media business."
At the same time, the Melanin at Sea community has become a group that has developed organically and far beyond their personal brand. That was epitomized in conversation at a recent industry event, Jasmine said, when she was chatting about how she and Richard attract their clients.
"I said, 'Oh, I own this group called Melanin At Sea,'" she recalled. "'They said, 'Oh, I know about that group! That's your group?' So a lot of people don't know who we are. And I always say, this is bigger than us. It's a whole movement without Rich and Jazzy."