A few observations/thoughts, in no particular order:
– Lines: Folks, this isn’t SDCC and the Firefly panel where 7000 people are trying to get into a room with a max capacity of 1500. We have more seating capacity than Sea Monkeys. Alhambra seats 1200. Studio B with the floor has a capacity of 1000. We totaled, including performers & friends & family, 846. We don’t NEED to get in line a half-hour before the doors open.
– Agreed that doors/show times on the schedule would be useful.
– Someone mentioned registration taking too long. I was line-herding at the door for most of it and with some exceptions, most folks were in and out in just a few minutes. For some reason, EVERYONE in the LI-MI line showed up all at once, which clogged up the works a bit there, but even that line was moving pretty well. We had 8 lines running during the initial crush, combining some later as the flow dropped off to a dribble.
– Having done both Hotel Registration followed by Boat Registration last year, and just Boat Registration this year, this was much better. Even though the Registration Helper Monkey crew was delayed over an hour getting aboard due to some port security procedures that changed between Site Visit and the cruise, we still had everything together and only were about 15 minutes late opening the doors. If we had to move all the goodie bag and merch materials through the X-ray individually like last year after Hotel Registration, there would have been even more delay. As it was, everything was in place and we were able to bust through boxes and stuff goodie bags quickly.
– Not enough cruise. This was the first one (out of 13 total) I’ve gone on that was less than 7 nights, and the whole thing, not just our part of it, seemed compressed. That’s being fixed for next year, of course. Yay! Please, Home Office, resist the urge to cram TWICE AS MUCH STUFF into those 2 extra days. ONCE AS MUCH STUFF is plenty. 😉
– Related: as
@paulandstorm have mentioned, the compressed 6-day schedule led to more competition with RCCL for venue time, but if we can keep the “main event” shows earlier, that’s preferable. I know some things can’t be helped, like stage setup and sound checks that can’t be done until RCCL vacates the premises after their shows.
– I’ve addressed RCCL issues on the survey I received from them. Nothing the Home Office can do about those things.
– Noise at shows. Thanks for the feedback, folks. As one of the Door Helpers, I’ll make a note and we’ll try harder to keep it down at the back by the doors. Away from the doors, not much I can do, but we’ll try. Maybe this can be a polite addition to Morning Announcements as a courtesy reminder.
– The expanded Helper Monkey Corps was simply OUTSTANDING. Huge THANK YOUs to all who chipped in for an hour or two in all different capacities. We’ll make some notes about the shift scheduling (particularly on things like doors where it’s being divvied up somewhat oddly as it appeared to be by set but was by time) and try to communicate that better. To be honest, *I* thought it was by set, too, until clarified.
– Echoing Glenn, it’s more than a little rude, IMO, for an official Famous Person to essentially publicly defecate on the work that the Twit-Arrr and CruiseMonkey teams do making useful and fun tools for no pay because they love the community and their skills lie in that direction. But that’s happened on the first night of each of the cruises where those applications were available.
– Biggest problem: it’s over and I have to go back to work tomorrow.
