Ship's Log
Mar. 18th, 2019 08:14 pmI am back from my tropical adventure! Actually, I've been back since lateish on Saturday night, but yesterday ended up being mostly a rest-recovery-run urgent errands day. As will happen when one takes vacation for over a week, and one's cell phone does not survive the experience. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
So as I mentioned, the purpose of this vacation was primarily to attend this year's JoCoCruise. A group of my friends went two years ago and have been talking about attending again ever since; this year, the stars aligned, some of the group got together to make reservations, and T and I decided to join them. If you're not familiar, JoCoCruise is a sort of convention/music festival at sea, headlined by nerd rocker Jonathan Coulton and co-hosted by comedy music duo Paul and Storm. Other attendees include SFF authors, comedians, musicians, and podcasters -- and this year included a special appearance by They Might Be Giants. TMBG were one of my main incentives to attend, along with the fact that San Juan, Puerto Rico, was one of the ports of call, a place that sounded exciting to visit, and that I was happy to support with my tourist dollars.
As I often do with cons, I had hoped to jot down notes about each day as it happened, but it's probably no surprise that I didn't manage this. So I'll share my thoughts and memories as best I can.
( Perhaps unsurprisingly, this got very long )
JoCoCruise was a great experience, and under the right circumstances I'd go again for sure. But ultimately I would say that it's not quite my type of con. It's very gaming oriented, especially board-gaming oriented, and otherwise centered on a corner of Internet nerd culture that is not quite my own. The gender balance was pretty good, but it felt very white -- even whiter than most of the con spaces I'm in, which admittedly are also quite white. I believe that JoCo has been doing outreach into marginalized communities, in particular working on inviting more white women, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color to be featured performers, but I suspect they have a ways to go. Finally, it's quite expensive. The cost of a cruise, of course, and then a fair bit more on top of that. I could easily have gone to WorldCon in Dublin for the same amount, not even including the flights to Florida. And while I don't regret my choice at all, if I'm deciding where to put my con-going dollars, I'd rather do an international WorldCon or 3-4 book/media cons in the US, where I already have a community and the events more closely hit my interests.
That said, if you have any interest, and the means, I absolutely recommend this cruise. It's a fun time with fun people, and you won't be disappointed.
So as I mentioned, the purpose of this vacation was primarily to attend this year's JoCoCruise. A group of my friends went two years ago and have been talking about attending again ever since; this year, the stars aligned, some of the group got together to make reservations, and T and I decided to join them. If you're not familiar, JoCoCruise is a sort of convention/music festival at sea, headlined by nerd rocker Jonathan Coulton and co-hosted by comedy music duo Paul and Storm. Other attendees include SFF authors, comedians, musicians, and podcasters -- and this year included a special appearance by They Might Be Giants. TMBG were one of my main incentives to attend, along with the fact that San Juan, Puerto Rico, was one of the ports of call, a place that sounded exciting to visit, and that I was happy to support with my tourist dollars.
As I often do with cons, I had hoped to jot down notes about each day as it happened, but it's probably no surprise that I didn't manage this. So I'll share my thoughts and memories as best I can.
( Perhaps unsurprisingly, this got very long )
JoCoCruise was a great experience, and under the right circumstances I'd go again for sure. But ultimately I would say that it's not quite my type of con. It's very gaming oriented, especially board-gaming oriented, and otherwise centered on a corner of Internet nerd culture that is not quite my own. The gender balance was pretty good, but it felt very white -- even whiter than most of the con spaces I'm in, which admittedly are also quite white. I believe that JoCo has been doing outreach into marginalized communities, in particular working on inviting more white women, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color to be featured performers, but I suspect they have a ways to go. Finally, it's quite expensive. The cost of a cruise, of course, and then a fair bit more on top of that. I could easily have gone to WorldCon in Dublin for the same amount, not even including the flights to Florida. And while I don't regret my choice at all, if I'm deciding where to put my con-going dollars, I'd rather do an international WorldCon or 3-4 book/media cons in the US, where I already have a community and the events more closely hit my interests.
That said, if you have any interest, and the means, I absolutely recommend this cruise. It's a fun time with fun people, and you won't be disappointed.
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