JCCC5 Thoughts

Reldan

If anyone else has been following the latest in Royal Caribbean cruise technology, at the end of next year (and a few months before a theoretical JCCC5 would take place) they are launching a new Quantum class of ships with the Quantum of the Seas.  In the event that the name alone doesn't already scream out to the seamonkey parts of your brains, here's a few details they've released on these new ships:

1. 13k gross tons more than the Freedom of the Seas (so a bit bigger than the JCCC3 and JCCC4 ships).
2. All the interior staterooms will feature a floor-to-ceiling 80-inch high-definition TV screen showing live views from the outside of the ship, which Royal Caribbean calls the a "Virtual Balcony".
3. "Two70°", a lounge on decks 5-7 at the stern of the ship, will feature three-story-high 270-degree panoramic ocean views, a café, and an ice bar. At night, the view is replaced by a three-story video wall and Two70° will be used as a performance venue.
4. The "SeaPlex", located at the middle of deck 15, will be a large indoor venue with a full-size basketball court that can be converted into a dance floor, a flying trapeze school, a roller-skating arena, or a bumper cars ride. The "SeaPlex" also features a "food truck" casual dining venue and table tennis, air hockey and foosball tables on a second-level mezzanine.
5. The "Music Hall" will be a 2-story lounge on decks 3 and 4 that also serves as a nightclub and small music performance venue, and will feature the self-leveling pool tables.

So in addition to pool tables and bumper cars, they also will have a complimentary vertical wind tunnel/skydiving simulator and a complimentary observation ball attached to a crane that lifts you 300 feet above the ocean for some amazing 360 views.  I'm just throwing this out there, but I want to go to there.  Let's make this happen monkeys!

BrettGlass

If it were truly the Quantum of the Seas, it would be, simultaneously, in all ports of call at once.

Lissa

While it is very cool - it will also be very new - which means premium pricing. Another thing to consider is that it will be homeported in NJ, so the potential for transportation issues will be increased if the dates stay in the winter.

I would love to see the new Quantum class relax the current premium pricing on the Oasis class ships and perhaps one of those (Oasis of the Seas or Allure of the Seas) would be an option for JCCC5.

autojim

I don't want to go on Oasis or Allure. The Freedom-class ships are pushing the too-many-people limits for some ports (and at tender ports, are debatably over the too-many-people limits), and the Oasis-class are half again as big.

Quantum is sort of in-between as far as size goes.

Note that I am in no way connected with the Home Office, just someone who has a dozen cruises under his belt and who got a good look at some of the behind-the-scenes stuff as a Helper Monkey on JCCC3. I'll try not to speak out of turn here.

It all comes down to facilities. For a JCCC, the largish conference center and the availability of secondary venues that were relatively police-able for group-only access (such as Studio B - which had the additional quality of being large enough to hold us), as opposed to "wide spaces" off a main aisle like on many other ships, are critical to pulling off the cruise-within-a-cruise nature we as a group pretty much require. Of the ships currently afloat, the Freedom-class are as close to ideal from a facility standpoint as you're likely to find.

One other thing to consider: even though our group has grown, on a larger vessel, our percentage of the overall passenger count will likely decrease. This means it will be more difficult to book venues for shadow cruise events and get the kind of priority service such as total takeover of the conference center we're paying a premium for.

Fizzgig

There will be three of these, so why not wait for another departure port? I will be taking Little Miss Fizzgig on a subsequent "Quantum" due to the advertised bumper cars. Evidently, that one feature means I should cancel our booking for NCL's Getaway next year to book Quantum class... Yeah... that wasn't a compelling argument for me...

Gina

Rumor has it that they are hoping to book a smaller ship for JCCC5, one that would be entirely Sea Monkeys...

Angelastic

Dinghy flotilla!

(I just like the sound of it.)

mikesphar

I'd swear I remember someone from Home Office mention that they had actually looked at one or two larger ships, but that the larger ships they looked at actually had smaller conference and extra-venue facilities, which is kind of a big deal-breaker. No idea about the state of the quantum facilities (joke joke collapsed probability wave joke) but it's certainly possible the larger ships may not accommodate our...special requirements. (By which I mean a hilarious morning show running on repeat on ship's TV all day.)

SapphireMind

I love the idea of totally taking over the boat!

mikesphar

From what I've heard of other cruises, such as the Cayamo cruise, taking over a ship basically means nobody can see everything, as no ship's venue can hold the entire ship's population at the same time. Same for the dining room(s), so some people are eating while others are attending shows, etc. You end up with being forced to make choices about what performances you see and which you don't. This isn't necessarily a horrible thing, but it is an order of magnitude more complex for scheduling and organization. I don't envy anyone responsible for managing something like that. Although I guess I don't particularly envy the people managing the cruises as they have been to date either.

BrettGlass

I wonder whether @PaulAndStorm [P] slept at all during JCCC3. He seemed to be everywhere, at all hours.

Grimoire

You end up with being forced to make choices about what performances you see and which you don't. This isn't necessarily a horrible thing...

---

For me, that would be pretty horrible.  I don't mind waiting 20 minutes for a "good" seat for the concert, but if the seating is not sufficient to handle the number of attendees, I could see it turning into 1+ hours of waiting to just get any seat.  If JCCC ever got to that point, that might be enough for me not to attend.

The alternative being having two different concerts, but that has it's own set of problems.

chicazul

For what it's worth, most comparable cruises that take over the whole ship have each act perform multiple times, so it's theoretically *possible* to see every performer at least once. If JCCC gets much bigger I imagine scheduling will follow that model rather than the "tough luck, you can't see Performer Y" imposed by too-small venues.

chetman

Even that sounds kinda less cool than what we have had so far, which is mostly a single shared experience track. If you and I go to different JC performances, we'll see different things. And having multiple paths through the week (more than exist now) would create fewer "everybody go" opportunities, which have been great for mix-and-mingle.

We were a long way from filling up the venues, weren't we? Of course, I did hear we've already out-booked JCCC3, and there's still most of the year to go, so maybe we're growing faster than I realize.

chicazul

@chetman You'll see a lot of veteran Sea Monkeys expressing ambivalence about having a ship to ourselves for exactly that reason—it's a very different dynamic! But we'll deal with that when/if it happens. In my opinion we're already past the point where you could meet every single Sea Monkey even if we attend the same events.

If I recall correctly our attendance numbers last cruise were well over halfway to the capacity of Studio B, but either due to configuration or people not attending those events it never seemed full. I think the ability to seat everyone in the same dinner group is another limitation.

BrettGlass

I did not meet every single Sea Monkey, but I did my darnedest -- ate dinner with a different table of people every night and participated in a wide variety of activities, including the speed meeting. Definitely met a few hundred.

As long as the event is on a boat, it'll have the limitations of, well, a boat.

glenra

@chetman: Our group did fill the *smaller* venues pretty regularly. If you wanted to sit at a table instead of standing in a crowd on the outside rail area of On-Air Club for just about any event (even including my concert with @Blue) you had to get there early. Ditto for getting a seat (or even getting into the room!) to see Molly. It's true Sea Monkeys collectively are not yet bigger than the main stage or Studio B, but we can't always *have* those two spaces - we need to share them with the rest of the ship.

I still don't know how @PaulAndStorm [P] and his magic elves managed so well to Fit All The Things. There was some wizardry in that schedule. 

mikesphar

"For me, that would be pretty horrible.  I don't mind waiting 20 minutes for a "good" seat for the concert, but if the seating is not sufficient to handle the number of attendees, I could see it turning into 1+ hours of waiting to just get any seat."

Again just from how I've heard other such cruises handle it, they usually use some sort of  reservation/ticketing system so that people don't have to wait hours outside a venue and still miss a show.

Something else you may have noticed from previous cruises, the ship's layout is not particularly well-designed for hundreds of people to be lined up outside a venue hours in advance. People end up blocking hallways/stairwells/etc, lines split down alternate paths. It's a madhouse! A madhouse!

It is possible to have performers do multiple shows, so while you might be able to see every performer, you won't be able to see every *performance*, which might be a little sad. I'm sure the illustrious Home Office could handle it with aplomb though--or at least surface aplomb and internal panic which we don't see--should they choose to evolve the event in that direction.

BrettGlass

Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I have always thought that when people are paying you a pretty penny to attend an event it is not professional to keep them waiting in line or force them to compete for scarce resources. This is one of the reasons I do not attend San Diego Comic Con, for example. They force would-be attendees to abandon their jobs on a minute's notice and participate in a frantic, online, surprise "cattle call" registration... or to queue up for hours and miss large portions of the convention to get registered for the following year. And once they do, the waiting isn't over. Attendees then must wait in line for event after event at the convention itself -- in many cases, not knowing if they will actually get in to see it -- even though they've paid a king's ransom for admission, hotel, plane fare, etc. Fan-run conventions tend not to be this way, which is why I favor them over commercial ones (which I attend only occasionally).

MJPM

That's what's happening with PAX now, no matter how many of the things they try to have throughout the year to stem the tide. That's why I've been slowly migrating my nerdy music tastes over to MAGFest (and am officially on staff there now.).

I would hope that there wouldn't need to be any queuing required for a JCCC, but as you noticed I tend to be in the front of the line anyway so that I can get prime video angles. So come what may, I will have to weather the line if I am to feed my video monkey on my back.

BrettGlass

Or get a media pass -- another hallmark of the commercial events, which invite media coverage so that they grow even bigger.

Angelastic

Good thing we're on a boat, so we don't have to worry about it getting that big and trying to get bigger! Seems like however you do it, you either have a queue/mad panic getting to each not-enough-room-for-everyone concert, or a queue/mad panic getting a ticket to the event in the first place. Or, by the sounds of SDCC and PAX, both.

I'm not actually sure I understand the distinction between commercial events and fan-run ones. Isn't JCCC a commercial event, up until the point that JoCo&co leave and it becomes like (from what I've heard, but can find no evidence of online at the moment) the later Frücons?

BrettGlass

Fan-run conventions are conducted for love rather than money. They therefore lack some of the more mercenary practices you'll see at commercial conventions, such as refusing to allow pictures with guests (except by their expensive "official" photographer) or insisting that there be a charge for autographs by, or even talking to, the guests. Fan-run cons are not out to make money, so they opt more for quality than quantity. They're relaxing, and you're not packed in like huddled masses or herded like sheep.

JCCC has some characteristics of commercial media conventions (the price, for one thing; also the greater separation between guests and attendees and the line-ups for some events) and some of a fan-run convention. I've always opted for it to gravitate toward being more like the latter.

villicious

One of the best things about JCCC is that we're all seeing the same shows at the same time. It's an amazing community bond. Molly's description of this was great. So, taking over the whole ship and having people see different shows, even different versions of the same show, sounds like a giant step down to me, a devolution into a much less fantastically community-centered event.

Plus, it seems like it would be hard on performers to have to perform multiple times during a trip when they could, otherwise, have at least some semblance of downtime.

SapphireMind

I want a magic boat which can seat us all for dinner and shows.  :P     Of course, if we took over the whole ship, we could also theoretically use venues that might not traditionally be used for performances, like the ship deck, or main lobby area.  The eating at different times I can more easily cope with.  I agree that performances should be a group activity.

The HAL Statendam holds ~1200 and their theatre could conceivably hold us all!

Though to some extent, we have already outgrown our "britches"  How many people never got to go on stage for Karaoke who signed up multiple nights?  How hard was it to sometimes keep track of stuff because so much at once!  There's a ton of people and activities!

BrettGlass

Yes, there did seem to be more contention for certain resources on JCCC3 than there was the previous year. I signed up for karaoke on multiple nights and got only one shot (Thank you, Paul!) even though I had several things I would have liked to do. Didn't sign up for my own slot at the Open Mic, because when I found the list it was already so long I wasn't sure that everyone on it would get to perform. (Did jump into the ukulele group when it performed, because I can fake nearly anything on uke or guitar.) And I did find myself torn between simultaneous events; for example, I missed the second "speed meeting" due to a conflict.

Chaosdreamer

Off-Topic (except to serve as a warning on becoming too popular)

@BrettGlass Actually, SDCC is an example of what happens with a "fan-run" convention becomes too successful. SDCC is still not-for-profit (the WorldCon badge/pass/membership concept is still used and I always wince when I hear people talk about "buying tickets") and run mostly by volunteers/fans (many of whom have been doing it for a decade or two out of love), there is no "official" photographer/"photo package", and autographs are free (exhibitors/celebrities may charge for an autograph and even then they're forced to technically sell the photo and not the autograph itself, which is exactly how it is at smaller fan-run conventions as well). I don't know if you've ever been to SDCC, but up until 10 or so years ago, you could still buy a day badge by showing up at the convention center in the morning, people didn't "camp out" (unless you couldn't afford a hotel room) and the only people who would wait in line were those desperate to be in the very front of the room for a specific panel.

The problem with SDCC is one of supply and demand and because the fan-run convention model does not work well once the convention gets to a certain size. As more and more TV/movie studios started to show up with their stars, TV stations like G4 started to "report live" (and now "stream live") from SDCC, and attendees announced to the world at large on platforms like Twitter and Facebook about how they bumped into XYZ star or had a drink with ABC celebrity, more and more people who had never heard of Comic-Con decided they absolutely had to go. Badge sales are usually announced at least a month in advance. The badge resales on the other hand, tend to be quick and dirty because it has to happen within a very small window of time (after the badge return/cancellation date but at least a month or so before the Con itself so there's still a chance to straighten out travel & lodging arrangements). As @MJPM pointed out with PAX, everything CCI has tried to do to make things run more smoothly has backfired (some worse than others) due to the (still growing) popularity of the event.

BrettGlass

While SDCC claims to be nonprofit, it has -- like many organizations that start out claiming to be organized for the public good -- become self-interested and greedy. It's now fully engaged in a business which is normally carried on for profit: running big trade shows. (Alas, the IRS has always been lax about yanking businesses' tax exempt status when this occurs.) It's a commercial convention, even if the organization that runs it still clings by a thread to tax exempt status. Due to the hoops one has to jump through -- not to mention the expense and hassle -- I'll probably never go unless I have a compelling business reason to be there.
 
I will, however, continue to go to more friendly fan-run SF and music conventions such as BayCon, Marscon, Consonance, and OVFF. These are all great fun and lack the problems of the large, commercial media conventions. Would love to see JoCo and P&S show up at them.

Angelastic

I guess the solution is, if you like a con, don't tell anyone about it or it'll get too big to fit everyone in the events while simultaneously being too small to fit everyone in the con and (particularly if it's on land, so can get really really big before that happens) possibly lose its community atmosphere. I absolutely agree with @vilicious, but I think she might have pasted the wrong link.

Pssst, I'm going to JoCo Cruise Crazy and hopefully MarsCon and I'd really like to see you there but please don't turn up because then there won't be room for me.

Also, there's a FrüCon in my head and you're invited. Attendees wishing for comfortable accommodation at this exclusive event are advised to provide their own heads.

villicious

Why do I mess up my link every single time I try to post a link here? Why why why?

(I fixed my link now.)

BrettGlass

@angelastic "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." -- Yogi Berra