I had fun of course - And I think it's definitely moving in the right direction with a pre-published schedule - though it could probably use more work from both the shadow cruise and official events side. I think at some point there will need to be a decision on whether people would rather have a much smaller cruise (< 300-500 people) in order to maintain the spontaneity and laissez-faire-ness that some people really like, or whether to keep the 800-900 people and really work on getting it organized and truly treating it like a fan con. There are benefits and drawbacks to both and either will likely alienate someone because they want it the other way. People who like to plan on the fly will butt heads with people who don't want to plan on vacation and want it to be done ahead of time. Neither is right or wrong, just opposing views.
I did feel that the swag this year was a lot more generic - The lanyards were just basic blue without anything on them, the bags had the "JoCo Cruise" on them, but it was so dark it was difficult to see. It felt like something I might have gotten at one of my medical conferences as swag. The helper monkey lanyards were great, though. Helper monkey tshirts were nice enough, but maybe I didn't get the joke with "Cruise" on the front. The badges weren't good either - very generic looking and no great place to put your name in big enough to see it letters. Not to mention the disintegrating in water aspect. Along with the removal of "crazy" from the cruise title, it just feels like we're trying to assimilate more (too much?) and becoming more bland as a consequence. But I don't personally want to be bland.
I think live band karaoke should have at least 3 people per song called up. It serves multiple purposes: 1) more people get to do it, which I think is a good goal to be including as many people as possible, instead of just ~8 people per year. It also takes some of the pressures/nerves off the people up there, because they're up there with friends. It also helps people with words/melody/etc because there are other people to keep things going if they forget something.
Those are the biggest things that jump immediately to mind.
"Cruise" shirts are, I think, a reference to John Belushi's "Animal House" attire...
My main two complaints were things that nobody could possibly control: the extra-rough seas vs last year, and the con crud. Took a bit of the fun out of the first two and last two days for me. If I'd known the con crud was more widespread I would have panicked about it a lot less (zomgohnoesquarantine?) -- it definitely re-introverted me until the last night.
Arecibo Observatory was by far the highlight of the year for me. (Except the slow and spartan gift shop, but hey, we did warn them!)
The swag bags were a massive step up from last year. (My JCCC4 bag disintegrated in the wash.) Some of the swag in them was a minor step down -- I miss the sunglasses and sunscreen; I still use my JCCC4 glasses. Minor points off for badges where name writing wiped off easily.
Some of this stuff is really feedback for the ship staff? maybe? But we're not sure.
It was weird that we had events going in some places that had bars but no (or not enough) bartenders. I mean... they know we drink... so when we had stuff in the Labyrinth, why no bartenders?
The LED flow/spin session ended up really awesome even despite space/scheduling problems. We counted 32 people in the tiny side gaming room at one point. It would be great to create sort of a "physical talent" jam in contrast to open mic night and encourage dancers, spinners, jugglers, et cetera to play in a big space. Not to mention maybe a shadow cruise track with people who want to teach those skills to others...
Would it be helpful to those delivering SeaMonkey flyers if everybody got a JoCo magnet or repositional sticker for their door?
You know who we need on a cruise? John Kovalic. Cartoonist, game artist, and all around fun guy.
We really, really appreciated the SeaMonkey newsletter. They kept us from having to scurry around the boat to find things. But I suggest that things just be listed by time slot and not split out by Main, Featured, and Shadow events. You could mark that some other way (like bold type). It made it hard to figure out what was happening at a particular time. But THANK YOU for them, anyway!
That's true about the t-shirts - it was even explained to us *sheepish* I guess, like the JoCo server jokes on the official merch this year, I'm just not quite hip enough to get it and have it stick.
The dropping of 'crazy' from the name was well explained, I thought, in the management Q&A. Previously, I'd thought it was some sort of politically correct thing, and it seemed an unnecessary, bland choice, but the actual reasoning, apparently, is that in trying to explain the cruise to potential new attendees, and in particular to potential new entertainers, if one didn't already know that JoCo does the song Tom Cruise Crazy, having the word crazy in the name was mostly off-putting.
Really enjoyed getting to go to two new destinations
The gaming track and writing track were fun additions.
Enjoyed getting to try out the geek chic tables.
I enjoyed being a Helper Monkey. Helper Monkey lanyards were spot on.
Much of what has worked in the past continued to be great for me -- Open seating dinner, mix of new/old performers, shadow events/performances, 24-hour game room, not scheduling during shore excursions, etc. Without going on endlessly, let this be a catchall that virtually everything seemed to work well.
Changes I'd make:
Get a test-run of Cruise Monkey and Twit-arr during Paul & Storm's test cruise. I'm not saying this would be easy to achieve.
Perhaps emphasize tipping wait staff at each dinner one attends to make up for the fact that we do open seating.
Surely there is a clever monkey that can sound-proof the ice machines so drinks can be made nearby w/out causing a disturbance.
Is there a way to take notes in the Cruise Monkey App -- some way to keep track of who one's met? Maybe something like those 3DS games that allow you to pick up the avatar of other people nearby, but actually linked to real pictures/names. Opt-in, of course, for privacy.
And maybe it would be cool to have something like Foursquare to check in where one is and let your friends know that. I can just imagine sitting in my room, checking the app and seeing that there are 20 people I know at the pub, so maybe I'd like to go there.
Also RCI needs to do something for people with food allergies. It's absurd how they were treated. At bare minimum, there needs to be an ingredient list for the menu since the staff cannot be educated on the ingredients of all menu items.
That said, those are my main complaints. Otherwise it was lovely. I was going to suggest trying to secure some other space than Labyrinth for some of the shows because the visibility is awful, but it looks like RCI took care of that issue in their remodel of the Freedon
@physicistlisa, I think there are few places on board that are ideal for the mingling parties. I know that I (and some others that I spoke with) dislike Studio B for meet and mingles because the music/crowd/accoustics are so loud it's impossible to hear anyone (especially at the first party where I swear they turned the music up half way through). I think it's always going to be a make do and try to make it work situation. That being said, I agree with you wholeheartedly that it would be nice if they could stack up at least some of the deck chairs so that you could move around, that did make mingling a challenge.
@physicistlisa, have to agree on the pool deck. I was wearing a dress and felt like the wind was trying to borrow it from me. Trying to deal with both that and keeping the fez on was pretty challenging.
Organization: From seeing the initial full-color "Sea Monkey" and having that air of manic professionalism continue throughout the week, I was impressed.
Alcohol: The additions of the special beers and whiskeys was great! The whiskey tastings were a lot of fun.
Our cabin steward: As much as we joked about Olga hiding our stuff, she was hands-down the best we've ever had.
Indian food: Wonderful! It was so much easier to get than in years past and it seemed to be better spiced this year as well. As a vegetarian (and Indian food lover), it made me happy. The Indian lunch was also a nice touch.
Interns: all my dealings with them were extremely pleasant, and they sing very well, too!
Queuing: except for a couple of delayed events, this appeared to go a lot better than in past years.
Swag: loved the bag and getting the Looney bits!
Performers were very generous with their time, with many more office hours or non-performing events than I remember previously.
I preferred not having the "warm bread" entrance.
Switching from Jonathan to John as host of Live Band Karaoke was a hit.
Cruise Monkey and Twitt-arr were much wider used and available than in past years.
The RCI Artemis crew was amazeballs!
Helper monkeys: You couldn't pay for that kind of service!
Sea Monkeys: 'nuff said!
Shake It Off
Nays (also in no particular order):
Alcohol: it was hard to keep track of which facility would stock which beverage at what time
Loud music at mixers: The music at the opening party made it very difficult to talk. I came out hoarse from trying.
Badges need a larger space for writing name and other info, possible a casing to keep from smudging
Menu consistency: A number of vegetarian meals at dinner weren't marked vegetarian (salads, etc.). A few fruit soups weren't marked vegetarian, but I couldn't get a good answer if they were or not (they could have had gelatin in them or used stock, but there's no reason to make a non-vegetarian fruit soup! The Windjammer didn't seem to mark anything (unless I missed some markings). I'd have to find someone knowledgeable fairly frequently about questionable dishes.
Card scanning consistency: We had the ultimate package. Depending on location, server, time of day, or coin flip, we'd sometimes get our card scanned for different items (almost always for alcohol, sometimes for coffee, less frequently for soda, infrequently for water bottles). At locations that serve soda from cans, it makes little sense that they can't open the can and give it to you instead of having to pour it into a glass without charging you for it (not included in the plan).
Main dining room service: We had much more trouble ordering drinks than previously. Sometimes we got the drinks from our server's assistant, sometimes from a bar steward, sometimes not at all.
It felt like we took over more of the ship than in years past; not sure if the other passengers felt put out (only a nay if the other passengers complained more).
No Hodgman (Not a dig; I completely understand and agree with his reasons for not being with us, not that it matters)
I dunno - stick 800+ people *anywhere* and hearing is hard, unfortunately. I never enjoy the full group gathering stuff (aside from concerts) as much as smaller format stuff.
On a somewhat related note, whoever brought ear plugs to sit in the game room is a god and I am very grateful.
JCC-specific stuff:
Gaming and Writing track stuff is awesome. Super awesome, even.
Increased availability of table tents proclaiming open seating were excellent.
Open Mic Night went so, so smoothly this year. Whole event took a reasonable amount of time, people were super respectful, generally stayed through the whole thing, and performers were great, as were sound folks. Big thank yous to everyone who helped make that so super.
Having a day without concerts scheduled (particularly since it was near the end of the cruise) turns out weirdly to be a really good idea. I very much appreciated the chance to catch up on shadow cruise things I wanted, as well as other silly things like sleep.
I love the pants off of Twit-arrr and Seamail, and the new forums idea was amazing.
RCI-specific stuff:
Decreased number of announcements on the ship this year was also great. (Could do with fewer still, to be honest, but at least my "what the hell just happened and did I need to know it?" quotient was less than one per day this time!)
At no point in the main dining room did I witness those weird, forced performances by the staff, which I was so, so grateful for. (Don't know if they happened and I didn't see them, but I suspect they just didn't happen?)
I'm not sure I can think of any negatives this year. Except, I suppose, my perpetual wish that at midnight when you realize you ought to have eaten something sensible earlier, that there were choices other than terrible pizza (or non-vegetarian things that I think most folks were reasonably happy with, but which I can't partake of. Oh well.)
Oh, and clearly whoever is in charge of staving off appendicitis from performers was slacking. :P
In terms of taking over more of the ship, when we were concentrated in an area (Studio B, Alhambra, game room) we were freeing up valuable pool and bar space for snorks. I'd think they'd be happy to have us around.
I was referring more to Cloud 9, the room next to Cloud 9, and office hour locations in bars and other locations. We felt more spread out than I remember in the past, partially because we had more shadow time than previously.
We were New Monkeys this year, and one of us was new to cruising entirely, so these impressions are based on that perspective.
Excursions: We went on three Monkey-exclusive excursions, the Yoda Museum and Beach Break, Rum Tasting on St. Kitts, and ARECIBO! Arecibo was amazing--I wish I had had more time to explore San Juan after the excursion, but that's a factor of the time spent in port, which I imagine is an RCI decision that we can't impact. Rum Tasting also amazing--going with a bunch of Sea Monkeys was the right call, as I imagine that excursion would have been much less fun without all the piratical references (ARR!) and singing Code Monkey to our tour guide. Yoda Museum was a bit of a letdown--the museum itself was great but really didn't require an excursion, and we felt a little trapped by the three hour mandatory "beach break." (with forced lunch that was subpar even by cruise standards).
New Monkey acclimation: This was tough - we both felt kind of meh about things until 2-3 days in, after we'd finally met some people. Opening with a cocktail party/mixer was particularly awkward, as it starts new monkeys off immediately with the impression of an impenetrable clique as everyone else greets each other like old friends. It's not that, and we eventually got much more comfortable, but it took a while. It would have been helpful to have some more structured socializing straight off - I think the speed meeting events were perhaps supposed to be that, but we didn't realize that that was what those had been for until after the cruise! I think this is a big area that could be improved. I get the impression from other forum threads that this isn't a new problem - and yet many of the issues I saw cited as JCCC4 issues seemed to be the same ones we experienced for JCCC5, especially the issues with social anxiety and freeform socializing. Perhaps some way of splitting the initial meet party, with part of it being more structured (not just for new monkeys, but for any of us who huddle at the back of large parties afraid to talk to new people...) Another suggestion we thought of was to have a "Meet a Monkey Mentor" event at the first MDR dinner. Veteran Monkeys could save seats at their tables explicitly for New Monkeys, so everyone has someone to sit with and ask questions of. Opt-in on both sides of course.
Coffee: Oh gods, the coffee was awful. Especially SpellWindjammer, but the cafe was no great shakes. I know we got some better Scotch and beer on the boat - could we do this with coffee too? There are a billion roasters that would be improvements over what was available on ship. Off the top of my head: Blue Bottle, Intelligentsia, Stumptown, Toby's Estate, and Counter Culture are widely distributed roasters that would make morning far nicer. We'll probably make some arrangements to bring our own supply next year, but given Monkey demographics we can't be the only ones who were left craving higher quality caffeination.
However! So so much was amazing and we have already pre-booked for next year. The entertainment was amazing all around, both the performers we knew and the new acts we're now aggressively following (BOGGIA!). We loved the Gaming and Writers Tracks, and while we had to make some hard decisions about what to see and what to skip, we appreciated the diversity of options. In particular we were thrilled to be able to playtest so many great games--the opportunity to meet and talk to designers in a personal way (as opposed to giant panels at gaming conventions) was extraordinary.
I cruised this year with a new perspective: I was temporarily in a wheelchair, so I got to experience the cruise in a different way. (I use a walker at home, but that's exhausting over the distances we cover on the ship every day, so a chair is a much better idea.)
That said, I was SHOCKED by how little that impacted me. The ship is almost absurdly accessible vs. the real world. I could go nearly anywhere, which is an improvement over the last couple months at home.
But there's one real issue, and that's Studio B. If you can't do stairs, you can't get to the floor. If you can't get to the floor, you can't really hang out where the people are hanging out. From this angle, poolside is WAY better for a cocktail party, because otherwise you spend your evening hoping the people you want to talk to will come up the stairs.
I wasn't totally bound to the chair -- I just can't put weight on one leg and am otherwise fine -- but there's no way I could get up and down the stairs in B without help, so I only ventured to the floor a couple of times. Still, it's something I never would have thought of before. And now it's something I'll be way more likely to notice.
(Less of an issue but still sucky was the fact that the audio mix in the theater really sucked under the balcony where the back rows are, and where there's space for chairs. It's MUCH better down in the first tier of seats. not much to be done about that, but worth a comment anyway.)
Anyway, that's my bit. Compared to JCCC4, I think this was better in almost every way (except for Hodgman), though 4 suffers in memory because of the compressed and too-hectic schedule. 8 days feels MUCH better to me. 7 is fine, too, but I hope we get to do 8 again soon.
First time Seamonkey, although not first time cruiser.
Biggest issue - I got sick 2 days in, and that ate a lot of my time up. Bummer, but not really anyone's fault except my own. Only lesson is to recommend bringing a wide spectrum of OTC meds next time, and report ASAP to the doctor (RCI will comp you for days of official quarantine, and you get free minibar and movies during that time).
Speed meeting - I did this, and while I did meet some nice people, I never hung out with them. Who I ended up hanging out with was an *extremely* friendly couple we met at the hotel, and the various people that went on the excursion my wife arranged. So, apparently planning an event is the best way to make friends.
I would love something like a "friends" list on Twit-arr, maybe just as little as letting me save someone's tag and the notes I remember about them (this is my Michigan-people list, these are the Zelda fans, I played these games with this couple). I had my 3DS and actually tracked down a guy and wished him happy birthday based off his Mii.
That said, having good non-Twitarr sources of info would be good. My device didn't work on the network so I was stranded - I ended up having to ask a lot of people about what the word on Twitarr was.
I also concur that having a single calendar with all events would be good - easier to plan so that you can see where the Gaming track event is butting up against the Shadow event and you will have to book it to make it to the 2nd one. Cruise Monkey does this well - but it's not available outside the app (no web interface).
Twitarr web is not friendly with the 3DS browser. I may take a stab at fixing that, since I doubt it's high on anyone's priority list.
Man, I sound kind of negative. I had a lot of fun with the gaming room while I was up. The card tables worked great. Having water and coffee and tea handy was great. The little side rooms were great. Concerts in the Alhambra were great - plenty of room down below all together, and room above if you wanted to not feel surrounded by people. While I was healthy, this is the least downtime I've ever spent on a cruise, which is great. All my fellow monkeys made me feel welcome. I plan on being back next year - to get the full experience, and spend my RCI credits!
Alright, here's my notepad for today, in order of how it happened to cross my mind after I started writing it.
Home Office - Thera always seem to be doing a lot, and since she is the first point in the escalation path, I can't say I'm surprised. I found myself asking her "Everything good?" just about any time we crossed paths. She usually had things under control, but I was able to pull a little weight off her shoulders a few times throughout the week. I eventually learned that Sara Scrimshaw was also a good person to ask that. I'm wondering if there is something we can do to mitigate the load for people like Thera and Sara. I'm not sure what, but I think it's worth a discussion.
Booking - After the very generous onboard credit perk this year, the change to the tiered system is kind of a bummer, especially for someone who has been viciously loyal to the Promenade rooms for our lifetime with RCI.
Misc - The badges were a cool design this year, but they left much to be desired for the creative expression that Sea Monkeys typically require. Or, like, even an adequate place to write names. Also, sharpie resistance should always be a factor in badges. The bags, on the other hand, were excellent this year, although I would have liked the JoCo Cruise logo to be more visible.
Performers - The final concert did pretty well with this, but I'd like to see some more variety in the JoCo sets. We all love the classics, but we've also all heard them before. A lot. JoCo has, what, 200ish song in his library? I promise, we know them all, and the biggest smiles I get always come from the more obscure selections. I think the band set has played the Code Monkey/Sticking It To Myself/Big Bad World One sequence for three years in a row now, and we always hear Future Soon, Ikea, and I Crush Everything during the acoustic set. And I don't believe (although I'm not certain) that the Live Band list was updated this year either. To be clear, I didn't think any of the sets were bad by any means. I just see room for improvement. In conclusion, this is really just a passive aggressive way of complaining that My Beige Bear still has yet to be performed live.
Performers - I felt better about recording policies this year. In addition to listing off expected recording bans ahead of time, explaining the reasoning behind them helped a great deal. Last year, it was the "We disagree with how you want to experience this show" comment that sat most uncomfortably with me, and it was very clear this time around that there was none of that nonsense. In my perfect ideological insanity, there would still be no recording restrictions at all, but barring that, I think the way it went down this year is about as good as we can do.
Venues - The audio was a small clusterfuck for The Both show. They couldn't seem to hit a balance for the bass in the crowd and in their monitors. I think this was especially unfortunate since their recording policy was riding on the quality of the show, and things like the sound needed to be at their best. That show also started late and ran long, which was unfortunate in the middle of an exceptionally packed schedule day.
Events - Aside from the above, door openings were vastly improved this year. That has bothered me tremendously on previous cruises but very much did not this year. Props!
Misc - It is great having Atom and Bat Steve as photographers. I'm never worried about things not getting photographed. Videos, on the other hand, are a bit of a gamble. We have some great crowdsourced videographers among us, but they can only be so many places at once, and it's not their job to sacrifice enjoying the show in order to get a good shot. Have we considered an official videographer to film all the main and at least some of the featured events? I would pay extra for that! I think the idea becomes more and more relevant as the schedule becomes more and more dense.
Misc - I have loved all of my monarchs over the years, but my god, Queen Kristina was phenomenal! If there is any way we could model future monarchy around her, I would severely encourage it!
Venues - With Freedom's goth club venue shutting down, I'm secretly hoping we can commandeer the Egyptian venue. We make The Labyrinth work for our needs, but I feel like Pharaoh's Lounge could be utilized much more effectively for Shadow Cruise events.
Performers - I rather miss Roderick doing a concert and David Rees being an official moderator for a variety of events.
Events - I also miss the Performer Q&A. I enjoy the Management Q&A a lot, but a number of the cruise's best moments in the past have come from the Performer Q&A, and I really wish that was back. In a perfect world, both Performer and Management Q&As would be on the schedule. But if there can only be one, I would prefer that one to be Performer.
Events - I don't have a particular opinion one way or the other on the matter, but the topic of Shadow Cruise performers doing more of their same performances at Open Mic Night came up on Twit-arr. If, for example, a Shadow Cruise singer is going to sing another one of their songs at Open Mic Night, should we discourage that in favor of giving that time slot to someone else? It's another discussion that I think is worth having.
Events - I personally think intermissions during shared main stage shows should be the rule, not the exception. Rushing to the bathroom at the end of a show happened way more often than I thought was necessary.
Helper Monkeys - I found myself with a couple of paper cuts resulting from Sea Monkey delivery. This is mostly significant because Purell (or as I managed to express, "HOLY FUCKBALLS OW!" in liquid form). At other events I've volunteered for, I've found a good way to prevent such things is to provide latex gloves for paper handlers. They're usually cheap and come in large quantities. Tagging @chicazul for this one.
Venues - I was not particularly happy with the outdoor events this year. The wind was a nightmare to deal with while wearing unsecured headgear at the 5APFTMMF&F, and it was just plain cold and unpleasant at the closing cocktail hour. The unmoved pool chairs are also frustrating to work around. In the past, these events usually get rescheduled into Studio B anyway. I understand that the Superb Owl was a factor working against that this year, but if we have an inside venue available, I think we should just skip the part where we debate using the deck and just go straight inside.
Events - The complimentary mustaches at the 5APFTMMF&F did not adhease as well as they have in previous years.
Twit-arr - I actually feel like Twit-arr took a few steps back this year. That's not to say it wasn't a phenomenal tool that I utilized extensively, but I remember thinking last year that Twit-arr was only a few tweaks away from being everything that Sea Monkeys needed in such a tool. And instead, it felt like a lot had been reworked from scratch, and things just fell short of where they were a year ago. I think my biggest issue was the lack of threading in the twarrt feed (side note, I absolutely LOVE the word twarrt), which made roughly two thirds of posts completely meaningless. I'm glad there were forums to mitigate that issue, but I still found the feed frustrating to use. Getting to a full twarrt thread was non trivial. Getting to your own user page was non trivial. Only a recent list of your posts were available, not a full list. Case sensitive hash tags. Feed based on local device time. No way to view likes if there were more than 4 of them. Upload stability was not great. Alert notifications were inconsistent. Inconsistencies between username and display name. And I'm sure there are others that are slipping my mind as well. I wish I could remember in more detail what I loved about last year's interface, but it unfortunately hasn't stuck with me after not using it for nearly a year.
Itinerary - Obligatory request for a no port cruise that is just 7 days at sea. Interns - I was really upset with the Speed Mating thing. I didn't even see the original typo, but it could not have been a worse situation. A huge part of Speed Meeting's mission statement is to provide a safe and comfortable environment to meet other Sea Monkeys, and the reference to mating accomplishes the exact opposite of that. Then the first Sea Monkey was delivered, and while it was clearly the intention of the interns to clarify their mistake (and to their credit, I did find Speed Meating hilarious), it ultimately only managed to draw more attention to the issue, which I was not happy with. I was terrified that #SpeedMating would become a thing, and that the integrity of the event would be compromised. I did Sea Mail the interns and request that they stop using the term. They were very understanding and apologetic, which I appreciated. Lessons learned all around.
Misc - How did Home Office only manage to discover mudslides (best drink, obviously) this year?
Misc - I was disappointed to hear at the Management Q&A that the term Snork is being downplayed, and I think it is worth explaining why. We call them Snorks because calling them The People On The Ship Who Are Not Sea Monkeys is a mouthful. I understand the sentiment that we don't want to make it about us and them, but until we have our own ship, there is always going to be a them, and we're always going to have to refer to them as something. It's just an unavoidable thing, and to think otherwise is kind of unreasonably idealistic. Snork by itself is not a derogatory term, and has never been meant to be used in a derogatory way. If there is any group of people we can trust to use an identifying term properly, it is definitely Sea Monkeys. If we must refer to that group of people, and we will ALWAYS need to refer to that group of people, I don't see why that reference should not be Snorks. If we don't, we'll just end up calling them Normals or Casuals or another word that has the potential (but not really the risk) to be used in the same negative manner as our current terminology.
Ship - I was pleased to find that the free orange juice provided in the Windjammer did not gradually degrade into vaguely orange flavored water, as it has in previous years.
Itinerary - I certainly never want to go back to 6 nights, but I found it staggering how many Sea Monkeys didn't make it to this year's 8 night itinerary due to time and finances. I think 7 nights is a solid sweet spot. Events - The Fancy Shmancy Ice Skating was lovely! The pants thing was an unpleasant surprise (especially for women on formal night), and the 50 person limit was certainly a concern. But I really enjoyed myself. Kinda forgot how much I enjoy ice skating, and it was wonderful to rediscover that.
Ship - If we have any say in the matter, I much prefer remaining on embarkation time over the hour jumping method.
Ship - Felt really weird that we literally had sweatshirts that said Warm Bread on them and Warm Bread was not a thing.
Helper Monkeys - I was concerned to learn that the side entrances to Alahambra were being used. I don't think there's a problem with using those doors, but we need Helper Monkeys to badge them if that's going to happen. And it looks like there's very little in place to prevent that, so it's probably going to happen.
From my Hearing impaired angle, For me the pool deck was easier to hear people than in the "Studio B" area, as in "Studio B" all of the noise just seems to be amplified. Though the pool deck was a tad annoying because of the wind. However, I have no real suggestions for improvements on that, as we need a pretty large area for the gathering.
Echoing what someone else said, I loved the lanyards from last year, this year's was plain. And this year's badges, I couldn't seem to keep my name from disappearing from it.
Other than that, I pretty much loved every waking minute of it. Sometimes wished I had more waking moments too, to try out some more games, I didn't get a chance to play.
I was an idiot and went in the side entrance at one point, despite having taken attendance at other events, because I was so tired and out of my mind that I could not think straight. Sorry about that.
I used the side upper entrances up until day 5, when a Helper Monkey was positioned up there to tell us not to because of counts. Didn't even occur to me that I was doing anything wrong, I was just trying to avoid hitting the crowd on the main floor. Even if you can't station a helper there, sticking up some printed signs that say "Please use Main Entrance" will help new/confused/tired monkeys.
Yeah, to be clear, I don't blame any Monkeys for using the side entrances. I'm sure no ill intentioned Monkeys made use of the side doors. It's more so the Snorks and the counters we need to be concerned about. It's not so much a problem as it is a thing that we need to be aware of and manage properly.
I think Snork is very apropos as a term, because Snorks were one of my favorite 80s cartoons, and SeaMonkeys were popular in the 80s as well. It keeps us on the same level, but different. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snorks for anyone who isn't familiar with the show)
Oh yeah, the ice-skating thing was definitely a bummer. Prior notification on that would have been good (the needing pants thing) or having it on a non-formal night as well. I thought the Kigarumis were awesome for skating though, and think it could be re-branded as a kigarumi skating night.
And while I understand the reasoning behind the removal of Crazy - it also makes me a little sad. This is a group of quirky insiders essentially and to explain it, all you would have to do is play one song. Or have a one-liner on the website explaining the origin of the term. Or make it a play off one of the more well-known songs. *shrug* It's minor but with the other "fancy" type stuff that was a little more bland, it just fell a little flat to me.
I really liked the last cocktail hour once I realized that there was a truly open bar in the middle where I could get a drink I liked.
Loved The Princess Bride too, for movie night. It might have been nice to even put the closed-captioning on to encourage it to be a "quote along".
I personally apologise to @dopplex and any other New Monkeys who felt alienated at the start of the cruise. I had many plans on that front—including some similar to @dopplex's ideas—but I totally dropped the ball.
On that note, I liked that Home Office tried to include content for new monkeys on the first day, but from my observation the events did not do much to introduce new people to each other and to veterans, and that is an area to improve on.
I loved having organised game events like Tabletop Taste Test: they seemed overwhelmingly popular and provided an easy way to get involved in the gaming side of the cruise. Hopefully people who did more than just observe will have useful feedback to make the concept better next year!
I'm worried what the lack of weird goth club will mean for shadow cruise events next year. Will we have to battle for time slots?
Your papercut concerns have been noted, @Thalandor46!
I think I was the helper monkey who warded people off from the upper level doors one evening, as it was a position I'd been put in previously. After a few people, it became clear that there hadn't/wasn't anyone posted in those spots for the duration of the cruise, so I left to find Thera, but she was on stage for Artemis by then.
The hard part is that regardless of everything, people are on the cruise to have fun and relax, and being told Go Use The Main Entrance isn't fun. I'd rather have a clicker, and just let people through, whichever entrance they want. More clickers for helper monkeys? Then there's the problem of scheduling enough helpers to cover all the entrances. Statistically, the "leak" might not matter much for the counts, as you could fudge it, or treat the counts as strict lower bounds...
I also think that guests of performers would be better off carrying a regular badge instead of saying "oh I'm with <performer>" Literally anyone could say that after performers are announced. Then get into venues early, or badgeless, and unnecessarily complicates door duty. I'm aware it largely isn't a problem, but nonetheless, unnecessary exceptions bother me.</grumble rant sigh>
I liked the cool badges, except for the following two "features": Delaminating in any kind of humidity, and no good name space. For door duty, I got to tell people to show me their boats, which made people smile .
I'll hold my CruiseMonkey and Twittarr suggestions for that thread wherever it appears, and maybe help with the impls.
I really liked the schedule this year. The decision to allow the Labadee day to be unscheduled with main events, was a nice change of pace, but I could do without it as easily.
The main pool events with the wind were different than I'd imagined, largely because I omit the wind. I didn't find it too bad on the edges, but the deck chairs made it very difficult to navigate.
This was a most fantastic cruise, and I'm super happy with how each successive one has gone!
I love the idea of door magnets, as it would make it easier for helper monkeys to not only see which cabins have monkeys in them, but how many monkeys, and hence how many copies to deliver. The Sea Monkeys could even be attached to the door with said magnets, though I suspect that would be too fiddly. The only downside is the magnets would not stick to the Presidential Suite's wooden doors. If small enough, though, they could be attached to the doorframe #FirstSuiteProblems
I too loved the cooler bags, and would have liked them to have a more visible logo.
I agree about the lanyards etc. being pretty boring, but this was explained in the Q&A as being due to running out of time.
Some events were in the printed sea monkey, and others were in Cruise Monkey. I missed some events because I was relying on only one or the other. It would be nice to have a single way to get events into both (maybe an 'also notify the Sea Monkey editors' checkbox when adding an event to Cruise Monkey?)
It was nice to have more time. Sometimes there were even hours when I didn't know what to do.
The only places big enough for a full-group get-together seem to be the pool deck and Studio B. I guess we get whichever is available at the time. I can't say I found either to be that great, due to the noise (either of music or wind. Can we please turn down the music at mingling parties?) and my not particularly liking such big crowds anyway, but of the two I prefer Studio B. Or could we take over Olive or Twist? That would be more like the welcome parties I think I remember from several cruises ago.
The pool deck is also not the best for viewing of fancy pants, but I can understand not wanting to use 15 minutes of JoCo concert time for the parade.
The helper monkey lanyards seem to have solved the problem of identifying helper monkeys from a distance. I wasn't aware the 'CRUISE' shirts were a reference to anything (I'm not familiar with Animal House, so I probably forgot that immediately after being told), and a few days in I couldn't remember what they were even supposed to indicate, since I mainly only saw Storm wearing one.
I loved the idea of the schedule with space for notes at the back of the first Sea Monkey. It could be used to record not only what we did but also who we had dinner with (like the Sea Monkey Passports made last year.) I did not actually get around to using them during the cruise, but still, I loved the idea. Maybe the 'friends' list in Cruise Monkey that other people have suggested would be a handier way to keep track of people I've met.
My Beige Bear is cool and all, but Summer's Over had never been performed live either, and I, for one, had always wished for it to be performed at the final concert of a cruise. So I'm not complaining about that. The final concert was excellent. The first concert didn't really have any deep cuts (remember how he did Overhead on JCCC4?) but perhaps they just didn't want to spend the time to teach Jim Boggia a song he'd be unlikely to do play than once. I mean, it would probably take almost a whole minute to teach Jim Boggia a song.
Recording policies were communicated clearly ahead of time, and the non-recordable shows were at a decent time of day early in the cruise when we still had the ability to remember things with our brains. Well done!
I agree that it would be cool to have an official videographer. A few regular videographers did not film this year, and that means there's more chance that things will be missed. But when there are multiple shadow/featured events at once, where would the official videographer(s) go, and how would it be communicated that someone else needs to get to the other events? Should there be something in Cruise Monkey where people indicate which events they'll be filming, and then helper monkey videographers could be allocated to events that nobody had already volunteered to film?
I agree that there should be intermissions in mainstage shows over a certain length, mainly because sometimes I need to change a camera battery.
I was frustrated by an apparent lack of threading in Twitt-arr, but then some time late in the cruise I discovered there was a link to the replied-to twarrt after all, and I'd just missed it somehow.
It was nice to actually see the skating rink, though I didn't skate. To avoid problems with the pants requirement, perhaps fancy skating should be called fancy pants skating, and scheduled after the fancy pants parade rather than after formal dinner.
When we were told about the discounted rate for the unlimited internet package, and that we could no longer have the per-minute discounted rate from last year, I assumed that this meant the package was our only option. I did not realise that internet could be purchased by the hour (without a sea monkey discount) until near the end of the cruise. Consequently I did not use the ship's internet at all, whereas if I'd known about the hourly rate, I'd have probably used an hour or two over the course of the week. This is probably my own fault for not looking it up, but this possibility could be mentioned next time even if we don't get a discount on it.
There will probably be more from me later, but here is what is pressing on my mind after a day of work and reflection:
Big Events: +1 for Studio B over the pool deck. I didn't get to see several friends at the closing party because it was too cold/windy. Plus with the cruise crud that was kind of going around, the environment wasn't helpful to anyone's health. Also, I was positively disheveled by the end of the 5APFTMMF&F, and as a girlie monkey, when I wear dresses, they're not exactly warm.
Studio B: Could we not with the fog machines next year? I think they ran them a bit on 4, but this year seemed excessive, and TBH, the smell of the stuff causes me headaches. Plus, since we have a good floor contingent for a lot of concerts, it seems... Unnecessary.
The Princess Bride: loved it, hated that I crashed out in the middle of it from sheer exhaustion.
Alcohol Service at Events: Seemed much better, IE the cocktails at the closing party seemed to be much more than just sugar water that a bottle of alcohol had looked at (unlike 4.) Still a small problem with frozen drinks during things in the Alhambra, but also seemed better than last year.
Twit-arr/CM: I had no problems after initial setup, except when we overwhelmed the ship's network by concentration of monkeys in spaces, which can't really be controlled. So no complaints here!
Name Badges: 4 set the bar really high for me, but I even feel that these were a little boring (and a lot harder to use!) comparative to the years before that. I gave up on having my name written on mine by day 3. Maybe we could make small label printers available assuming we do sharpie-able badges going forward?
Swag Bags: Bag quality vastly improved, but I kind of miss the humor, so to speak, of the contents in 4. I felt like 4's contents were more personal (and useful!) to us as a group with the sunscreen, etc. (Though big ups to Looney Labs and the other contributors this year!) Lanyards weren't really an improvement quality wise, just seemed very generic.
Helper Monkeys: Good gracious, I love you guys. I'm going to be one next year.
I have no complaints, because I want to go to Mars. But I will point out that wearing a kilt on the pool deck definitely gives me sympathy for the woes that women in skirts go through more often. I let modesty overrule me the second day and changed into shorts, though I did *ahem* stick it out for the farewell cocktail party.
@villicious I think everyone understands that twitarr is a labor of love - as are most of the things on the cruise. But this is a thread for people to discuss what did/didn't go right, and I would hate for people to think they couldn't be honest about their feelings because that would make them ungrateful.
I think everyone who is giving both positive and negative feedback is doing so out of love as well. We love the cruise and we want it to get better and better every year. If we say nothing but good things, that actually does not help things get even better.
I liked the pool in some ways - the outside venue is actually a little better for the crud aspect - much harder to share germs outside. Though the wind was VERY hard on the hair and dresses.
I should be clearer on the bag - the quality was great, but the branding was what I didn't like - it was so subtle and hard to see, that was my issue. And this is the first year I didn't get a portal turret
Definitely agree on the fog machines! I think omitting them entirely would be good. I really felt the environment was hurt rather than helped by them.
I love the Helper Monkeys in general, and would love to be utilized throughout the year, not just during the cruise. I know THO is incredibly small and there are a lot of things that could potentially be delegated so there is less pressure on the main staff. I wish Thera and Bob and the rest of THO could enjoy the cruise more.
Events - I was kinda disappointed with the Fancy Pants Parade. The pants were perfectly fancy, but the performance wasn't a complete and utter clusterfuck. After so many years, I've come to expect such shenanigans when determining the best in terms of pants!
Events - If we do ice skating again, mayhaps we could do two sets, one for beginners and one for not beginners. I noticed a number of Sea Monkeys trying ice skating for the first time, and I imagine that may have been an overwhelming feat, with the small rink and the experienced skaters flying by.
Events - Concert Idea: Performers Sing Their Inappropriately Timed Holiday Songs
Venues - Another vote for cutting the fog machines. It was mostly uncomfortable for people in the vicinity, and it added very little to the shows.
And yes, I'm hoping to be constructive with the technological labors of love. I will try to elaborate more if/when they call for feedback in their own respective threads
Here's the thing. The cruise itself is a huge vacation we all spend a lot of money on. The cruise line is paid to work on it. The Home Office is, at least to some degree, also paid to work on it (or, at least that is my logical conclusion based on the separate entertainment fee that is now folded into our cost for the cruise, and the fact that there are sponsors of the cruise). This doesn't entitle us to be jerks, but it does mean that reasonable and constructive feedback makes sense. It's something we paid for.
Twit-arr is something somebody worked on for free and that people get to use for free. So why repay that time and work with a public laundry list of flaws?
* Agree with the fog machines and pool deck parties being difficult to navigate.
* I wish there was more time between the end of a show and the beginning of fez formal dinner to allow more time to get ready.
* The Sea Monkey was handy at first but seemed to devolve into just a bunch of inside jokes among the interns.
* Thera, please delegate! I felt terrible seeing how hard you were working when I was only assigned one Helper Monkey task. We're here for you!
* Perhaps the official website can include encouraging new Monkeys to join the Facebook group before the cruise? Knowing names/faces before boarding makes it a little easier to approach people.
* Code of Conduct should include not having conversations during performances. If you want to talk instead of listen, you can literally do that anywhere else besides during the show.
* Please have Ted Leo back every year until the end of time.
@villicious That's a fair enough point, but also on the flip side, I do see the benefit in, again, constructive feedback to all participants, shadow cruise, twitarr, CM or whatever, because their labor goes to waste if people don't end up using it, and it is partly a matter of "don't talk behind peoples' backs". As long as it is done constructively (and preferably with the intent to assist with improvement and implementation) I see it as better than just thinking in their heads or talking with other people about things that could be improved, without talking to the dev. They may not realize how important people felt threadedness was. It might be better to wait for their specific feedback thread because then they could have a list of things they are aware that went right and wrong and whether it is in the works or possible to change it or improve it. Then people could focus on things that the devs don't already know, and if they have an idea for addressing a known problem, they can know who to contact.
Many things here are a labor of love, like CM and Twitarr and the manifest, and to some extent the fb and wiki and Primer. And that is fabulous! I've done stuff like that and it's hard then when people come in with new ideas (maybe ideas you've tried and haven't had success with before) but those people bring life to the ideas and provide continuity for when you want to "retire". By having things be predominantly the "baby" of one or two people, if they ever leave or quit or whatever, we're lost. And we lose out on the alternate ways of viewing problems that other people can give to the situation. As well, it is more likely to become possessive of it which can inadvertently feel exclusionary to people who are coming in.
In no way shape or form is it ok to trash things, and especially when a problem is mentioned like "the DNS didn't work", that was out of their control really and truly. Phone notifications I am fairly certain is something they tried for but weren't able to get working - so if you have experience on how to do that, offer your expertise! I think CM could work well/better as a web-based platform, which then would take out the issues of trying to make things cross-compatible with phone brands and carriers.
I also think that THO should consider paying the devs of CM/Twitarr something, whether it is a discount on their next JCC or something else, because clearly it is something we really depend on to function for the cruise, and not having it available is not good, and I believe that while volunteerism is great with this sort of thing, I also believe that rewarding good and hard work is important. Even with the glitches and issues with twitarr and CM, without them, we would be reduced to signs in the game room and that would not work with the sheer volume of people we have.
As another aside, since they don't do the per minute charge for internet, I think it would be fairly cheap to pool together a bunch of us and buy the weekly internet package, set up a laptop in the game room and have it be available to people to log in as a public computer to check email etc. (no movie streaming or anything) but just a quick way to provide a way to check in with work/home without paying for 60 minutes when you only need 5.
@squinner +1 for more time between end of show and formal dinners! (Even if it's just 1/2 an hour!) This is the second year Paul and Storm have been in that spot, and both times, I've waffled between wanting to see the whole show and needing to go get ready. (Girlie monkey takes time!)
As a corollary to that, re: Paul and Storm- is there a way to just do a separate, hourlong (possibly late-night?) Captain's Wife's Lament event with whichever of the entertainers would like to participate? While Peter Sagal cracked me up on 4 (seamen joke, seamen joke, seaman joke, arr, I'm a pirate,) I was kind of sad to not get a real one. Plus, again, on 5, the butting of the end of the concert right against needing to get ready for formal night made me sad!
I really loved the 8-day cruise. It felt so much more relaxing than the hectic 6 days of last year. I even took naps - naps as in plural!
I think there was a mix-up in our reservation between the travel agent and RCI on our bed arrangement. It was no big deal and we just left a note for our room steward to please put the beds together on the first day. Later on she found us in the room to introduce herself and seemed highly annoyed that she had to put the beds back. She went so far as to accusingly wave around some paper that she said instructed her to separate the beds and wanted to know why we requested it that way if we wanted them together. Even after I explained there must have been some mix-up (everything we had said together), she was still pissed at us for the rest of the cruise. We weren't arguing with her at all, she was just having a fit I guess. Beyond her unprofessional reaction, it was an unfortunate start with the whole "guest - steward" relationship. To be honest, we've never had a bad steward until we sailed Indy. Both have been disappointing.
Please, please, please reconsider formal events on deck. It was pretty miserable having to hold on to a fez, keep a skirt down, keep a wrap from blowing away, and somehow keeping hair out of my face and I don't think I stayed more than 5 minutes. We ladies spend extra time getting dressed up and so much of the effort is destroyed the moment we step outside in that wind.
Loved the sea monkey-exclusive excursions. We did the St. Kitts railway tour and Arecibo.
Loved having the "night off" with no major events scheduled. It was a nice little break and added to the more relaxed feel of this cruise.
We missed more of the collaborative events of the past few yrs. Except for the final concert and a few other small bits, there wasn't a lot of multi-performer shows along the lines of last year's game show and Thrilling Adventure Hour or JCCC3's live "rifftrax." IMHO, I prefer that sort of comedy to stand-up.
Where was the best 36 seconds on the internet?! Meow.
Huh, in my cabin the beds were supposed to be separate, and initially they were placed together. I wonder how widespread the configuration glitching was.
And our beds. I logged on to my account at some point and landed on the page where it listed bed preference. It said "apart" and I couldn't see a way to change it. I emailed the Home Office, which had ours on file as "together," and got a response that they hadn't sent their list over yet. Our room steward graciously rearranged the beds while we were at dinner.
Monkeys who bring their own wine & share it with me! The "wine sharing" dinner turned out to be fantastic. I think we killed 18 bottles across the 24 of us, which isn't too shabby. Hopefully, Bat Steve's photo of the (drunken) lot of us on the stairs will turn up.
Monkeys who bring their own games & share them with me! The longer cruise meant for more time to play games. The new tables were a GREAT improvement. Table top taste test (T^4?) was a great event, and the whole idea of the gaming track is fabulous.
Arecibo & The Yoda Museum. Actually, our favorite excursion might have been the Catamaran Sail (& Snorkel) in St. Kitts; just very chill, with good company & a friendly crew who really wanted us to have a good time.
So many of the good things were covered above.
Things that felt a little off:
"Crazy." Yes, I know why they dropped the term. That said, it also felt like they dropped the fun level along with the name. The combination of the art style for the cruise shirts, the minimalist badges, and the (extremely) subtle branding on the swag bag just felt way less interesting than a fez-dolphin, or a USB coconut. (First year we didn't buy anything from the cruise merch.)
Performer collaboration. It's good to know that it wasn't just our impression, as Lissa mentions it, too - where were all the "Featured guests," and why weren't they featured anywhere? Where were the walk-ons & drunken shout-outs of past years?
Performers. Jean Grae has a fabulous voice and phenomenal energy; The Both are remarkable musicians. It happens that both fall outside my preferences. Comedy Night, though, I think was a miss for many of us. Lesbian humor & politics seem like a poor fit for this event & this audience.
With next year's island itinerary being a repeat of JCCC3, I think we're going to take 2016 off, and spend some vacation time outside the Caribbean. Hell, maybe we'll finally make it to PAX Prime, which is 2500 miles closer than FL anyway.
On this cruise and the previous one, the beds in my room were initially in the wrong positions.
I love the idea of a shared internet terminal in the game room, though I wonder if RCI would agree to that. I think it should have David Rees's disapproving face as the screensaver.
I also noticed a lack of featuring of some of the featured guests; Wil hardly seemed to appear at all, not even in the Captain's Wife's Lament (a song for which I continue to support the idea of a separate, optional show.) Meanwhile, Jim Boggia seemed to play a part in just about everything, which I don't mind at all. I was slightly disappointed by the lack of deep cuts in the first concert (though it's understandable, considering how many songs Jim Boggia already had to learn), but that was totally made up for in the last concert. Overall, I have no complaints about the quality of the entertainment and am only mentioning these things because other people did.
I think most of what I've said about Cruise Monkey so far was more like, 'Here is a thing about the cruise which could be better. Cruise Monkey has solved lots of problems in the past. So maybe Cruise Monkey could be changed to make this thing better!' rather than a criticism of Cruise Monkey or Twitt-arr in themselves. I agree that it would be great if sea monkeys or Home Office could give money to the developers.
Anyway, to balance any complaints or entitlement relating to these tools, I would like to say that I used Cruise Monkey and Twitt-arr a lot more this year than last year, having not bothered to set up Twitt-arr on my iPhone last year, and they were very useful. I usually didn't have any other copy of the schedule with me, so I don't know how I'd have managed without it. They were great, whenever the network was working well enough!
One improvement I would like in Cruise Monkey, though, would be some kind of indication of how recently its schedule was refreshed, and a way of forcing it to refresh (I think I saw that in the settings somewhere, but it didn't seem to do anything) which would say whether it succeeded. With all the network issues, I found out too late that my schedule was way out-of-date and missing some events or changes to event times.
- I've never had a plastic badge that held Sharpie. My solution is to simply my name then cover it with Scotch tape. I think a few scotch tape dispensers on the same table as the Sharpies could solve the name writing issues.
- Please turn off the fog machines in Studio B.
- 8 days seems just right. Not as much rushing as on 6 and 7 day itineraries.
- Love the lack of announcements and awkward forced performances of MDR staff.
Everything Angelastic said. I'd just be repeating.
Weird that so many of the bed arrangements were off (including ours). Makes me wonder if there was a system ic problem.
Loved Twitt-arr and CM. Many thanks to the developers! I would suggest a way to jump to the current day in CM would be great (unless it's already there and I just missed it).
Agree with the comments about looking for more multi-performer sets, deep cuts, pool deck problems, etc.
I really love the way the cruise is moving towards a multi-track, multi-sphere concept. This group has such an exciting and interesting demographic, I would love to see this turn more towards a TED at Sea. YMMV.
Agreed that, as a Helper Monkey, I would be happy to take on more assignments to relieve the core group, although I am well aware of how difficult it can be to explain what you want rather than just do it yourself.
Just as a data point, I've been on a lot of cruises over the years, and I'd estimate that about 1/3rd of the time the beds aren't arranged the way I specified at boarding. The steward always fixes it though.
Comments
I did feel that the swag this year was a lot more generic - The lanyards were just basic blue without anything on them, the bags had the "JoCo Cruise" on them, but it was so dark it was difficult to see. It felt like something I might have gotten at one of my medical conferences as swag. The helper monkey lanyards were great, though. Helper monkey tshirts were nice enough, but maybe I didn't get the joke with "Cruise" on the front. The badges weren't good either - very generic looking and no great place to put your name in big enough to see it letters. Not to mention the disintegrating in water aspect. Along with the removal of "crazy" from the cruise title, it just feels like we're trying to assimilate more (too much?) and becoming more bland as a consequence. But I don't personally want to be bland.
I think live band karaoke should have at least 3 people per song called up. It serves multiple purposes: 1) more people get to do it, which I think is a good goal to be including as many people as possible, instead of just ~8 people per year. It also takes some of the pressures/nerves off the people up there, because they're up there with friends. It also helps people with words/melody/etc because there are other people to keep things going if they forget something.
Those are the biggest things that jump immediately to mind.
I LOVE THIS IDEA!
I LOVE THIS IDEA!
Nays (also in no particular order):
Excursions: We went on three Monkey-exclusive excursions, the Yoda Museum and Beach Break, Rum Tasting on St. Kitts, and ARECIBO! Arecibo was amazing--I wish I had had more time to explore San Juan after the excursion, but that's a factor of the time spent in port, which I imagine is an RCI decision that we can't impact. Rum Tasting also amazing--going with a bunch of Sea Monkeys was the right call, as I imagine that excursion would have been much less fun without all the piratical references (ARR!) and singing Code Monkey to our tour guide. Yoda Museum was a bit of a letdown--the museum itself was great but really didn't require an excursion, and we felt a little trapped by the three hour mandatory "beach break." (with forced lunch that was subpar even by cruise standards).
New Monkey acclimation: This was tough - we both felt kind of meh about things until 2-3 days in, after we'd finally met some people. Opening with a cocktail party/mixer was particularly awkward, as it starts new monkeys off immediately with the impression of an impenetrable clique as everyone else greets each other like old friends. It's not that, and we eventually got much more comfortable, but it took a while. It would have been helpful to have some more structured socializing straight off - I think the speed meeting events were perhaps supposed to be that, but we didn't realize that that was what those had been for until after the cruise! I think this is a big area that could be improved. I get the impression from other forum threads that this isn't a new problem - and yet many of the issues I saw cited as JCCC4 issues seemed to be the same ones we experienced for JCCC5, especially the issues with social anxiety and freeform socializing. Perhaps some way of splitting the initial meet party, with part of it being more structured (not just for new monkeys, but for any of us who huddle at the back of large parties afraid to talk to new people...) Another suggestion we thought of was to have a "Meet a Monkey Mentor" event at the first MDR dinner. Veteran Monkeys could save seats at their tables explicitly for New Monkeys, so everyone has someone to sit with and ask questions of. Opt-in on both sides of course.
Coffee: Oh gods, the coffee was awful. Especially SpellWindjammer, but the cafe was no great shakes. I know we got some better Scotch and beer on the boat - could we do this with coffee too? There are a billion roasters that would be improvements over what was available on ship. Off the top of my head: Blue Bottle, Intelligentsia, Stumptown, Toby's Estate, and Counter Culture are widely distributed roasters that would make morning far nicer. We'll probably make some arrangements to bring our own supply next year, but given Monkey demographics we can't be the only ones who were left craving higher quality caffeination.
However! So so much was amazing and we have already pre-booked for next year. The entertainment was amazing all around, both the performers we knew and the new acts we're now aggressively following (BOGGIA!). We loved the Gaming and Writers Tracks, and while we had to make some hard decisions about what to see and what to skip, we appreciated the diversity of options. In particular we were thrilled to be able to playtest so many great games--the opportunity to meet and talk to designers in a personal way (as opposed to giant panels at gaming conventions) was extraordinary.
Home Office - Thera always seem to be doing a lot, and since she is the first point in the escalation path, I can't say I'm surprised. I found myself asking her "Everything good?" just about any time we crossed paths. She usually had things under control, but I was able to pull a little weight off her shoulders a few times throughout the week. I eventually learned that Sara Scrimshaw was also a good person to ask that. I'm wondering if there is something we can do to mitigate the load for people like Thera and Sara. I'm not sure what, but I think it's worth a discussion.
Booking - After the very generous onboard credit perk this year, the change to the tiered system is kind of a bummer, especially for someone who has been viciously loyal to the Promenade rooms for our lifetime with RCI.
Misc - The badges were a cool design this year, but they left much to be desired for the creative expression that Sea Monkeys typically require. Or, like, even an adequate place to write names. Also, sharpie resistance should always be a factor in badges. The bags, on the other hand, were excellent this year, although I would have liked the JoCo Cruise logo to be more visible.
Performers - The final concert did pretty well with this, but I'd like to see some more variety in the JoCo sets. We all love the classics, but we've also all heard them before. A lot. JoCo has, what, 200ish song in his library? I promise, we know them all, and the biggest smiles I get always come from the more obscure selections. I think the band set has played the Code Monkey/Sticking It To Myself/Big Bad World One sequence for three years in a row now, and we always hear Future Soon, Ikea, and I Crush Everything during the acoustic set. And I don't believe (although I'm not certain) that the Live Band list was updated this year either. To be clear, I didn't think any of the sets were bad by any means. I just see room for improvement. In conclusion, this is really just a passive aggressive way of complaining that My Beige Bear still has yet to be performed live.
Performers - I felt better about recording policies this year. In addition to listing off expected recording bans ahead of time, explaining the reasoning behind them helped a great deal. Last year, it was the "We disagree with how you want to experience this show" comment that sat most uncomfortably with me, and it was very clear this time around that there was none of that nonsense. In my perfect ideological insanity, there would still be no recording restrictions at all, but barring that, I think the way it went down this year is about as good as we can do.
Venues - The audio was a small clusterfuck for The Both show. They couldn't seem to hit a balance for the bass in the crowd and in their monitors. I think this was especially unfortunate since their recording policy was riding on the quality of the show, and things like the sound needed to be at their best. That show also started late and ran long, which was unfortunate in the middle of an exceptionally packed schedule day.
Events - Aside from the above, door openings were vastly improved this year. That has bothered me tremendously on previous cruises but very much did not this year. Props!
Misc - It is great having Atom and Bat Steve as photographers. I'm never worried about things not getting photographed. Videos, on the other hand, are a bit of a gamble. We have some great crowdsourced videographers among us, but they can only be so many places at once, and it's not their job to sacrifice enjoying the show in order to get a good shot. Have we considered an official videographer to film all the main and at least some of the featured events? I would pay extra for that! I think the idea becomes more and more relevant as the schedule becomes more and more dense.
Misc - I have loved all of my monarchs over the years, but my god, Queen Kristina was phenomenal! If there is any way we could model future monarchy around her, I would severely encourage it!
Venues - With Freedom's goth club venue shutting down, I'm secretly hoping we can commandeer the Egyptian venue. We make The Labyrinth work for our needs, but I feel like Pharaoh's Lounge could be utilized much more effectively for Shadow Cruise events.
Performers - I rather miss Roderick doing a concert and David Rees being an official moderator for a variety of events.
Events - I also miss the Performer Q&A. I enjoy the Management Q&A a lot, but a number of the cruise's best moments in the past have come from the Performer Q&A, and I really wish that was back. In a perfect world, both Performer and Management Q&As would be on the schedule. But if there can only be one, I would prefer that one to be Performer.
Events - I don't have a particular opinion one way or the other on the matter, but the topic of Shadow Cruise performers doing more of their same performances at Open Mic Night came up on Twit-arr. If, for example, a Shadow Cruise singer is going to sing another one of their songs at Open Mic Night, should we discourage that in favor of giving that time slot to someone else? It's another discussion that I think is worth having.
Events - I personally think intermissions during shared main stage shows should be the rule, not the exception. Rushing to the bathroom at the end of a show happened way more often than I thought was necessary.
Helper Monkeys - I found myself with a couple of paper cuts resulting from Sea Monkey delivery. This is mostly significant because Purell (or as I managed to express, "HOLY FUCKBALLS OW!" in liquid form). At other events I've volunteered for, I've found a good way to prevent such things is to provide latex gloves for paper handlers. They're usually cheap and come in large quantities. Tagging @chicazul for this one.
Venues - I was not particularly happy with the outdoor events this year. The wind was a nightmare to deal with while wearing unsecured headgear at the 5APFTMMF&F, and it was just plain cold and unpleasant at the closing cocktail hour. The unmoved pool chairs are also frustrating to work around. In the past, these events usually get rescheduled into Studio B anyway. I understand that the Superb Owl was a factor working against that this year, but if we have an inside venue available, I think we should just skip the part where we debate using the deck and just go straight inside.
Events - The complimentary mustaches at the 5APFTMMF&F did not adhease as well as they have in previous years.
Itinerary - Obligatory request for a no port cruise that is just 7 days at sea.
Interns - I was really upset with the Speed Mating thing. I didn't even see the original typo, but it could not have been a worse situation. A huge part of Speed Meeting's mission statement is to provide a safe and comfortable environment to meet other Sea Monkeys, and the reference to mating accomplishes the exact opposite of that. Then the first Sea Monkey was delivered, and while it was clearly the intention of the interns to clarify their mistake (and to their credit, I did find Speed Meating hilarious), it ultimately only managed to draw more attention to the issue, which I was not happy with. I was terrified that #SpeedMating would become a thing, and that the integrity of the event would be compromised. I did Sea Mail the interns and request that they stop using the term. They were very understanding and apologetic, which I appreciated. Lessons learned all around.
Misc - How did Home Office only manage to discover mudslides (best drink, obviously) this year?
Misc - I was disappointed to hear at the Management Q&A that the term Snork is being downplayed, and I think it is worth explaining why. We call them Snorks because calling them The People On The Ship Who Are Not Sea Monkeys is a mouthful. I understand the sentiment that we don't want to make it about us and them, but until we have our own ship, there is always going to be a them, and we're always going to have to refer to them as something. It's just an unavoidable thing, and to think otherwise is kind of unreasonably idealistic. Snork by itself is not a derogatory term, and has never been meant to be used in a derogatory way. If there is any group of people we can trust to use an identifying term properly, it is definitely Sea Monkeys. If we must refer to that group of people, and we will ALWAYS need to refer to that group of people, I don't see why that reference should not be Snorks. If we don't, we'll just end up calling them Normals or Casuals or another word that has the potential (but not really the risk) to be used in the same negative manner as our current terminology.
Ship - I was pleased to find that the free orange juice provided in the Windjammer did not gradually degrade into vaguely orange flavored water, as it has in previous years.
Itinerary - I certainly never want to go back to 6 nights, but I found it staggering how many Sea Monkeys didn't make it to this year's 8 night itinerary due to time and finances. I think 7 nights is a solid sweet spot.
Events - The Fancy Shmancy Ice Skating was lovely! The pants thing was an unpleasant surprise (especially for women on formal night), and the 50 person limit was certainly a concern. But I really enjoyed myself. Kinda forgot how much I enjoy ice skating, and it was wonderful to rediscover that.
Ship - If we have any say in the matter, I much prefer remaining on embarkation time over the hour jumping method.
Ship - Felt really weird that we literally had sweatshirts that said Warm Bread on them and Warm Bread was not a thing.
Helper Monkeys - I was concerned to learn that the side entrances to Alahambra were being used. I don't think there's a problem with using those doors, but we need Helper Monkeys to badge them if that's going to happen. And it looks like there's very little in place to prevent that, so it's probably going to happen.
More to come as they continue to cross my mind.
Oh yeah, the ice-skating thing was definitely a bummer. Prior notification on that would have been good (the needing pants thing) or having it on a non-formal night as well. I thought the Kigarumis were awesome for skating though, and think it could be re-branded as a kigarumi skating night.
And while I understand the reasoning behind the removal of Crazy - it also makes me a little sad. This is a group of quirky insiders essentially and to explain it, all you would have to do is play one song. Or have a one-liner on the website explaining the origin of the term. Or make it a play off one of the more well-known songs. *shrug* It's minor but with the other "fancy" type stuff that was a little more bland, it just fell a little flat to me.
I really liked the last cocktail hour once I realized that there was a truly open bar in the middle where I could get a drink I liked.
Loved The Princess Bride too, for movie night. It might have been nice to even put the closed-captioning on to encourage it to be a "quote along".
On that note, I liked that Home Office tried to include content for new monkeys on the first day, but from my observation the events did not do much to introduce new people to each other and to veterans, and that is an area to improve on.
I loved having organised game events like Tabletop Taste Test: they seemed overwhelmingly popular and provided an easy way to get involved in the gaming side of the cruise. Hopefully people who did more than just observe will have useful feedback to make the concept better next year!
I'm worried what the lack of weird goth club will mean for shadow cruise events next year. Will we have to battle for time slots?
Your papercut concerns have been noted, @Thalandor46!
I'll hold my CruiseMonkey and Twittarr suggestions for that thread wherever it appears, and maybe help with the impls.
Big Events: +1 for Studio B over the pool deck. I didn't get to see several friends at the closing party because it was too cold/windy. Plus with the cruise crud that was kind of going around, the environment wasn't helpful to anyone's health. Also, I was positively disheveled by the end of the 5APFTMMF&F, and as a girlie monkey, when I wear dresses, they're not exactly warm.
Studio B: Could we not with the fog machines next year? I think they ran them a bit on 4, but this year seemed excessive, and TBH, the smell of the stuff causes me headaches. Plus, since we have a good floor contingent for a lot of concerts, it seems... Unnecessary.
The Princess Bride: loved it, hated that I crashed out in the middle of it from sheer exhaustion.
Alcohol Service at Events: Seemed much better, IE the cocktails at the closing party seemed to be much more than just sugar water that a bottle of alcohol had looked at (unlike 4.) Still a small problem with frozen drinks during things in the Alhambra, but also seemed better than last year.
Twit-arr/CM: I had no problems after initial setup, except when we overwhelmed the ship's network by concentration of monkeys in spaces, which can't really be controlled. So no complaints here!
Name Badges: 4 set the bar really high for me, but I even feel that these were a little boring (and a lot harder to use!) comparative to the years before that. I gave up on having my name written on mine by day 3. Maybe we could make small label printers available assuming we do sharpie-able badges going forward?
Swag Bags: Bag quality vastly improved, but I kind of miss the humor, so to speak, of the contents in 4. I felt like 4's contents were more personal (and useful!) to us as a group with the sunscreen, etc. (Though big ups to Looney Labs and the other contributors this year!) Lanyards weren't really an improvement quality wise, just seemed very generic.
Helper Monkeys: Good gracious, I love you guys. I'm going to be one next year.
More to come later, I'm sure.
I think everyone who is giving both positive and negative feedback is doing so out of love as well. We love the cruise and we want it to get better and better every year. If we say nothing but good things, that actually does not help things get even better.
I liked the pool in some ways - the outside venue is actually a little better for the crud aspect - much harder to share germs outside. Though the wind was VERY hard on the hair and dresses.
I should be clearer on the bag - the quality was great, but the branding was what I didn't like - it was so subtle and hard to see, that was my issue. And this is the first year I didn't get a portal turret
Definitely agree on the fog machines! I think omitting them entirely would be good. I really felt the environment was hurt rather than helped by them.
I love the Helper Monkeys in general, and would love to be utilized throughout the year, not just during the cruise. I know THO is incredibly small and there are a lot of things that could potentially be delegated so there is less pressure on the main staff. I wish Thera and Bob and the rest of THO could enjoy the cruise more.
Events - If we do ice skating again, mayhaps we could do two sets, one for beginners and one for not beginners. I noticed a number of Sea Monkeys trying ice skating for the first time, and I imagine that may have been an overwhelming feat, with the small rink and the experienced skaters flying by.
Events - Concert Idea: Performers Sing Their Inappropriately Timed Holiday Songs
Venues - Another vote for cutting the fog machines. It was mostly uncomfortable for people in the vicinity, and it added very little to the shows.
And yes, I'm hoping to be constructive with the technological labors of love. I will try to elaborate more if/when they call for feedback in their own respective threads
Twit-arr is something somebody worked on for free and that people get to use for free. So why repay that time and work with a public laundry list of flaws?
Many things here are a labor of love, like CM and Twitarr and the manifest, and to some extent the fb and wiki and Primer. And that is fabulous! I've done stuff like that and it's hard then when people come in with new ideas (maybe ideas you've tried and haven't had success with before) but those people bring life to the ideas and provide continuity for when you want to "retire". By having things be predominantly the "baby" of one or two people, if they ever leave or quit or whatever, we're lost. And we lose out on the alternate ways of viewing problems that other people can give to the situation. As well, it is more likely to become possessive of it which can inadvertently feel exclusionary to people who are coming in.
In no way shape or form is it ok to trash things, and especially when a problem is mentioned like "the DNS didn't work", that was out of their control really and truly. Phone notifications I am fairly certain is something they tried for but weren't able to get working - so if you have experience on how to do that, offer your expertise! I think CM could work well/better as a web-based platform, which then would take out the issues of trying to make things cross-compatible with phone brands and carriers.
I also think that THO should consider paying the devs of CM/Twitarr something, whether it is a discount on their next JCC or something else, because clearly it is something we really depend on to function for the cruise, and not having it available is not good, and I believe that while volunteerism is great with this sort of thing, I also believe that rewarding good and hard work is important. Even with the glitches and issues with twitarr and CM, without them, we would be reduced to signs in the game room and that would not work with the sheer volume of people we have.
As another aside, since they don't do the per minute charge for internet, I think it would be fairly cheap to pool together a bunch of us and buy the weekly internet package, set up a laptop in the game room and have it be available to people to log in as a public computer to check email etc. (no movie streaming or anything) but just a quick way to provide a way to check in with work/home without paying for 60 minutes when you only need 5.
As a corollary to that, re: Paul and Storm- is there a way to just do a separate, hourlong (possibly late-night?) Captain's Wife's Lament event with whichever of the entertainers would like to participate? While Peter Sagal cracked me up on 4 (seamen joke, seamen joke, seaman joke, arr, I'm a pirate,) I was kind of sad to not get a real one. Plus, again, on 5, the butting of the end of the concert right against needing to get ready for formal night made me sad!
- Monkeys who bring their own wine & share it with me! The "wine sharing" dinner turned out to be fantastic. I think we killed 18 bottles across the 24 of us, which isn't too shabby. Hopefully, Bat Steve's photo of the (drunken) lot of us on the stairs will turn up.
- Monkeys who bring their own games & share them with me! The longer cruise meant for more time to play games. The new tables were a GREAT improvement. Table top taste test (T^4?) was a great event, and the whole idea of the gaming track is fabulous.
- Arecibo & The Yoda Museum. Actually, our favorite excursion might have been the Catamaran Sail (& Snorkel) in St. Kitts; just very chill, with good company & a friendly crew who really wanted us to have a good time.
So many of the good things were covered above.- "Crazy." Yes, I know why they dropped the term. That said, it also felt like they dropped the fun level along with the name. The combination of the art style for the cruise shirts, the minimalist badges, and the (extremely) subtle branding on the swag bag just felt way less interesting than a fez-dolphin, or a USB coconut. (First year we didn't buy anything from the cruise merch.)
- Performer collaboration. It's good to know that it wasn't just our impression, as Lissa mentions it, too - where were all the "Featured guests," and why weren't they featured anywhere? Where were the walk-ons & drunken shout-outs of past years?
- Performers. Jean Grae has a fabulous voice and phenomenal energy; The Both are remarkable musicians. It happens that both fall outside my preferences. Comedy Night, though, I think was a miss for many of us. Lesbian humor & politics seem like a poor fit for this event & this audience.
With next year's island itinerary being a repeat of JCCC3, I think we're going to take 2016 off, and spend some vacation time outside the Caribbean. Hell, maybe we'll finally make it to PAX Prime, which is 2500 miles closer than FL anyway.