[Disaster Area]

Monsters of Rock Cruise Vs. 70K TOM - Part I

Well a few of us just returned from Monsters of Rock Cruise 2015 so I thought I'd share my thoughts and do some compare/contrast-ing.

First off, if you don't like/care about the MORC lineup spare the “funny” comments for another thread because I am making this post not so much to hype the lineup but rather to do a comparison of the overall experience.

ANYWAY, heregoes:

Booking and Run-up to the Cruise.
The clear winner here is MORC with the entire lineup announced MONTHS before sailing and frequent FB and website updates with relevant information about the cruise. Running order was posted several days before departure so there were some nice spreadsheets uploaded by other cruisers. I contacted customer service 3-4 times by email with various questions and got personal (not generic) responses within a few hours each time. Booking was completely smooth with zero payment acceptance problems, I had CC issues with UMC in the past, but I suppose that can be blamed on Moneybookers. However, MORC has no official web forum??? Although I rarely visit or post on 70K forum much anymore, I made many solid friendships on there during the runup to the first 70K and I know a lot of you still visit the forum often (I'll post this there too). It is puzzling that MORC has decided not to host one. Overall I get the impression that MORC has a much bigger and more professional support organization than UMC.

Embarkation
I have discovered your embarkation experience is pretty much dependent on you the traveler. The trick to avoiding those crazy lines is to either show up early (our plan) or show up just before sailing. This is one case where I can't say either cruise was superior, we showed up by 10 and were on the boat by 12:45 for both 70K this year and MORC. However there was not a single drug sniffing pooch in sight anywhere at the MORC embarkation. There was most definitely some weed floating around the Divina.
The Boat (generalities, I'll cover venues in a later paragraph)
MORC has been with the Italian cruise line MSC from the beginning and I have a lot of good and bad to point out about MSC. However, MORC is switching to Norweigen Cruise lines for both their East and West Coast sailings next year so I will keep this section shorter than I would have if they were remaining with MSC. MORC started out on the Poesia which is a smaller boat very similar to the Majesty and moved up to the larger Divina last year or maybe the year before (not sure). The Divina is a fairly new boat and is really beautiful. Without checking the stats I believe she is about 15-20% smaller than the Liberty, however, the overall layout very similar the Majesty. Especially the pool deck, it was very similar although there were a few more obstructions scattered around like those silly posts on the Liberty pool deck. Cabins were nearly identical to the Liberty, much larger than on the Majesty. We had balconies on both MORC and 70K this year so I was comparing apples to apples.
MSC falls right on their face in 2 critical areas though. First off there is the bar staff, I cannot stress how terrible they are. I didn't encounter a single bar tender (and I saw a lot of them) who looked like he/she was having fun or even really giving a shit about serving anyone. We were met with complete indifference. I walked away from bars 3 times after having the bar tender look me dead in the eye and then turn to serve someone else who had clearly walked up after me. The wait staff in the restaurants was equally poor. The “hotel” staff, room stewards, customer service etc were far better though. They were friendly and helpful when I encountered them.

Tha Booze
As far as alcohol sales go MSC REALLy blew it. The combination of shitty bar staff and NO roving alcohol sellers anywhere on the ship. In the buffet I was asked just once for a drink order, ONCE in the entire cruise. You couldn't even buy a bucket of beer, only singles! The selection was also weak, just the normal generic stuff. Prices for booze were comparable to 70K but MORC offers a couple drink packages. You could buy a beer wine package or an all-alcohol package. The savings with the package weren't spectacular, maybe $1 a drink however there were a couple good things about it. If you bought a package you got a number of drink tickets. You used those tickets to buy your drinks instead of handing over your card. That saved the time of waiting for the barkeep to ring you up and have you sign the receipt. The other great thing is it allowed people to split packages. I didn't buy a package but I might if I hit MORC again. Another letdown was there was no booze allowed in the theater. They made you down or toss whatever you walked up with. So instead of trying to sell you as much as they could before you went in as on 70K, MORC had the booze police telling to to get rid of it...

The Food
The food in the buffet was generic but consistent with the exception of the pizza which was fucking amazing. I guess if you are an Italian company you have to get that right... the buffet selection was not nearly as diverse as on RC but the real advantage MSC has is that the buffet is open 24 HOURS! On the downside there was almost no selection of drinks in the buffet, it was water or iced tea and occasionally lemonade and punch in the morning. The constantly ran out of ice and the drink dispensed iced tea was gross. So 70K wins on the buffet food (except pizza) but MSC gets points for 24 hr service. The downside of a 24 hour buffet though is that they were not offering room service food, just alcohol??? another real head scratcher. As for the dining room, we made the point of sitting for a proper dinner once. What a complete waste of time. Suffice to say this, bad service and worse food. 70K and RC dining rooms have never been a let down, in fact we always enjoy the food and the service, MSC was just pathetic all around. We didn't eat at any of the specialty restaurants so unable comment on them.

Okay so this is turning out to be fairly lengthy so I am going to break it into 2 or 3 bits. I have yet to comment on the venues, fellow MORC-ers, ports and debarkation. I will hit those next along with anything else you freaks want to know. I'll also get some photos posted at some point too.

To be continued....

[mooyagi]

Thanks for posting this. It's interesting to see a comparison between music cruises.

[Janet]

Hi Craig,
Just to clarify, the Poesia was not smaller like the Majesty. It was a much larger ship similar to the Divinia. MOR was always a 3000 ticket event. They changed ships last year, I believe.
So far your comparison is identical to mine. Looking forward to hearing the rest of it.

[Disaster Area]

Monsters of Rock Cruise Vs. 70K TOM - Part II

I should have said this in part I but as far as MSC cruise lines go, I would have to think long and hard about doing another cruise with them, the boat was nice enough but the shitty bar and wait staff along with the poor food really spoiled them for me. Also, I stand corrected, a MORC vet of their first cruise told me that the original boat, the Poesia was the same size as the Divina, I checked it out and it is true, so MORC has been on a big(ish) boat from the get go. She also noted that on the first cruise nearly EVERY band went on late. (thanks for the input Janet)

Ok now on the the important stuff.

The Venues!
MORC had 5, actually 8(9?) if you include the “Poseidon's Grotto” (Great Stirrup Cay) port and the official MORC pre-party venues and I will hit each of them individually. Note, since this is live music there were certainly the expected number of sound gremlins and equipment failures. Not excessive at all and the sound crew handled most pretty efficiently. (no artist tantrums were required)

Pool deck
Day 1 - pool deck delayed by a couple hours, all the MORC regulars were panicking, and I was like “Hey, this is totally normal!” Apparently past MORC cruises have had pretty spot on show times so the pool deck delay had many in a tizzy. But hey, we 70K-ers KNOW what real delays are all about don't we...? Anyway, they got their junk erect (pun intended) eventually and everyone stopped whining. As I previously said the pooldeck was comparable in layout to the Majesty although wider and deeper, consequently the stage was similarly wider and deeper. No, it was not THE BIGGEST STAGE ON THE SEA OR IN THE GALAXY OR WHATEVER, but it was a perfectly sized for the space and was 100% covered (came in handy because there was some rain). Lighting was pretty generic but there were no stupid seizure-inducing strobes either... Visibility was good from most angles with the exception of straight on from the back, here is the reason. MORC sold VIP packages that got you a superior cabin, some swag, first entry into the theater and a reserved raised platform 2/3 of the way back on the pool deck. The platform was part of the deck structure and raised about 3 feet. So anyone directly behind the platform had a blocked view. There was another platform against the back wall that was open for everyone but even there the view was obstructed by the VIP dopes. The stupid thing is there were rarely more than a handful of people on the VIP platform. Anyway, you could always re-position and find a spot with good visibility. That VIP platform bullshit though, you could easily fit 50 people on it but it was nearly empty a lot f the time. Back to booze for a second, there was only 1 bar on the pool deck (in the vicinity of the stage) so it was stupidly packed during sets. There were no pools or hot tubs in the vicinity of the stage or crowd. So no hot tub guitar solos, circle pits or band members crowd surfed into the pool, but there also weren't any stupid dicks hoisting beer buckets full of DNA filled hot tub water all over the crowd. Needless to say, I didn't miss the hot tubs and pool. The sound system on the pool stage was fantastic, good mix and volume from all angles I experienced. One place the MORC PA excelled was bass response. Man, compared to 70K, their PA had massive bass, those opening synth notes of Europe's the Final Countdown were quite literally vibrating the deck. It was fuck-all impressive. Not being a sound engineer or stage tech I am not sure what else to comment on, overall the pooldeck was a 7/10 experience for me.

Theater
Similar size and capacity to the one on the Liberty and quite beautiful. Excellent visibility all around. and they DO REMOVE FLOOR SEATS. They pulled the middle section of seats which was more than enough standing room for those that wanted to be in the pit, and it never felt overly packed.
Lighting in the theater was impressive although they had some blinding spotlights that were sweeping the audience, still nostupid strobes though...
Sound was stellar, especially in the middle 2/3 seating wow, it was really perfect. We were on the rail for Y&T and the sound there was bad to horrible, eventually I bailed to mid level seating and it was perfect there. As with the pool stage the bass in the theater was astounding, not just brutally loud, but clear and defined. And again back to booze, none was allowed in the Pantheon theater. So while you didn't have to worry about sitting on a spilled beer, you couldn't enjoy one while watching a gig either. Overall I give the theater a solid 9/10, definitely my favorite venue on this cruise.

Black and White Lounge
Similar the the Spectrum with a super low ceiling but a bit more floor space. Only caught 2 shows there, one from the back ana as with the Spectrum it was impossible to see the band from any angle due to the wall of people around the stage. For the second show I was right up front and could have tied Randy Jackson's (Zebra) shoelaces together. Mix was good and not overly loud, once again I' say MORC had the superior sound. Oh and no smoking in there or any indoor venue. Overall the Black and White gets a 6/10 from me. Not my favorite type of venue.

Golden Jazz Lounge
A very small and intimate lounge with one bar in the back and a tiny stage, watched Heavy Mellow do one of their 5 awesome sets in there and was also coerced into watching the ridiculousness that is Bang Tango (thankfully all those memories were alcohol deleted). It was the perfect setting for an acoustic set but a crowded mess for anything other than that. I don't think 70K has an equivalent to this venue, not that I remember anyway. The closest would be the one with the piano (name escapes me) but the Golden Jazz was more of its own segregated space. I guess I'd give this one a 6/10 too, it was a bit awkward to as the walking path through the ship cut right through the middle of the lounge so when people walked through they were strolling right in front of the stage, difficult when it was crowded.

Atrium
They had some acoustic sets and auctions and other silly non-music stuff there, didn't watch anything other than a bit of the Dio memorabilia auctions and Heavy Mellow's sound check. It is an atrium, not a venue so limited seating and probably not the greatest acoustics. I am nuetral on that one.

Meet and Greet venues.
Unfortunately, meet and greets are not my thing at all so actually I have no idea whatsoever where the meet and greets were held or how they went off. They could have been sacrificing virgins down there for all I know. Sorry, reviewer fail on this one. : )

Karaoke venue
Don't even remember the name of the lounge, it was tiny, non-smoking and actually ok for karaoke. Went there once, had a bit of fun but the guys running the karaoke there were complete douches. Some psuedo-celebrities or something. 70K karaoke on the Majesty ruled and always will, we must find a way to bring that vibe back on whatever ship we are on next.

Poseidon's Grotto (aka Great Stirrup Cay)
Our first of 2 ports of call, a fairly small private island owned by Norwegian Cruise lines. They had a small bar stage and a large (semi truck trailer) portable stage. Ok, THIS was a great day, the whole private island thing works so well for a music cruise. The bar stage was a tiny thing, Heavy Mellow (again) and 2-3 other small timers played there. The bigger portable stage had Atomic Punks (great fun) and Black and Blue (left before them). They hauled all the PA and instruments over by tender , plus all the booze and food. I had fun overload that day, sound at both stages was good for a quickly thrown together set. I'll touch on this place a bit more when I review the Ports.

The one Preparty we hit was at the Magic City Casino and greyhound track. Saw Lillian Axe (bleah) and Queensryche. This was a great great great venue. Stage was set up in front of the grandstands on the infield of the race track. We stood down front on the sand track but many sat in the grandstands. It was nice and uncrowded. We met up with a few 70K-ers there who weren't going to MORC so that was a great night. Totally different vibe than Donn's 70K preparties, more like a proper concert. Not necessarily better, just different. Personally I enjoyed the MORC venue more than the clubs where we've had 70K's pre parties. They actually had a second preparty at the track the next night, but we went to see The Who and Joan Jett at the American Airlines Arena instead. Apparently there was a third preparty (Rockerz gone wild) happening concurrently, I know nothing about that one. Mind you these are OFFICIAL MORC pre events, which goes back to their organization. They are not depending on their customers to put on the pre parties. Everyone say a collective thanks to Donn for picking up UMC's slack...


OK, that's it for venues. Next up you'll hear about our fellow MORC cruisers...

[cowboy71]

Sounds like by and large the venues were a bit better.

Still don't think that win is worth the negatives - lack of drinks, sucky food, VIP wankishness, etc.

Very insightful - thanks again mate.

Dallas (not to be confused with Matt Barlow)

[Pellaz]

Awesome review and comparison...looking forward to the rest!

I'm really curious to see how the tendering worked to get over to Great Stirrup Cay. Royal's private island, Little Stirrup Cay (or "CocoCay") is literally right next to it and has awesome snorkeling, but I figured the tendering back and forth would be a bear.

BTW, my mom's low opinion of MSC pretty much agrees with yours.

[Janet]

I can help you out with the Meet and Greet situation. They put five or six bands in the disco all at the same time and arrange them around the room on settees. One line goes through the room to each station. The MOR staff takes one photo of you with the band and then you move on to the next station to meet the next band. Not allowed to take your own photos. And if you don't want to meet band number one but you want to meet bands number three and four, you are pretty much stuck in line until it gets there. Then you have to wait who knows how long until MOR uploads the photos so you can see yourself with the bands.

[Disaster Area]

Monsters of Rock Cruise Vs. 70K TOM - Part III

A tale of bandannas, Affliction shirts, straw cowboy hats (and 1349)...

So, then there was the MORC crowd. I was really interested to see the crowd that MORC would attract, in the end there were very few surprises. Just from my observations, I'd guess the demographics broke down something like this: Average age mid to late 40's, 50/50 male female ratio (lots of couples) and probably 60-70% American. Certainly there were many there who were simply nostalgia fans but I also met a fair share of die-hard music fans. As for foreign attendance, I believe the most common aliens were Canadian flavored, there were also a ton Swiss and Aussies. We also met a few Swiss, Swedes, some really fun Belgians and at least one very metal Italian couple. Overall there were far fewer Euros and almost no South Americans in sight. It made for a much less interesting experience. In fact I coined a new term to describe most of the attendees: GENERICANS... generic – Americans :p
There was a bit of hard drinking going on, but I saw no fights or tension whatsoever. Of course there were no pits, walls of death or aggressive enjoyment of any kind, just doesn't fit with the genre but most everyone we talked to seemed to be having a great time. I heard this a couple times: “Oh, your first time on MORC? Isn't it just the greatest thing EVER?”... Hmm, that has a familiar ring to it...

MORC does some silly theme nights, 80's Prom, Hot Tub Time Machine Night are two that come to mind, so there is plenty of costumed silliness going on, although no outright silliness like cows, or Picachus. A lot of women took the opportunity to really tramp it up like they were 17 again, it was mostly entertaining, but occasionally horrifying... I saw some great 80's vintage concert T's and jerseys. One day I was sporting Behemoth and I passed by a dude in a 1349 shirt (only other extreme metal shirt I saw onboard) and we shared a thumbs up. All in all the crowd was what I expected, I met some nice folks but didn't meet anyone that I was able to really deeply connect with like a lot of you maniacs. So you 70K people win hands down in my book. But you know, most people on MORC would feel just as out of place on 70K. Music cruises are a really magic if you find the one that fits your taste.


Ports of call:

MORC hits 2 ports on the 3rd and 4th days. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the first was Great Stirrup Cay, renamed Poseidon's Grotto by MORC. Man, this was just a great day (and included in the price). The boat anchored about a mile away and we were tendered over to the island. Tendering over was a painless process the whole trip including load up and motoring to the island took about 45 minutes. By 6am they were barging mountains of food/booze and equipment over to the island in advance of our invasion. The island is a pretty small affair, the beach and water were simply stunning with not one single scrap of trash visible anywhere and hundreds of lounge chairs and cabana chairs available. There were several bars open and a place to eat though I didn't bother with solid calories that day... Since it was a cruise owned (rented) island you only needed your sea pass for purchases like on the boat, so didn't have to drag any cash there. There were apparently some activities like jet skiing and snorkeling available but I didn't investigate any of those. They had one tiny stage right by one bar and a larger semi-truck towable stage. I really really really wish 70K would do something similar to this, it was such a fun day.

The second Port was Nassau, I guess MORC always hits that one. MORC had a sponsored trip to some other island with a couple bands playing. That was a paid excursion ($80-$150 depending when you paid). I heard a couple reports that it was a real stinker of a trip. In fact I didn't hear a single positive thing about it. As for us, a MORC vet had planned a snorkel trip with a local guide. (http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_R ... hamas.html)
We paid $80 but and in retrospect I can say without a doubt I would have gladly paid $150 for this trip. Everyone had a fantastic time, the guides were great, the other cruisers were all friendly and having a blast, this is where we met the great group of four Belgian guys. Well, everyone was having a blast except me, due to my commitment to drinking the previous day on Stirrup Cay and then again on the boat that night, I was nursing the most wickedly debilitating hangover I have had in a decade. So most of the excursion was spent by yours truly laying on the deck or bench of the boat wishing for a quick death. However, I did manage to snorkel at our first of 4 stops and it was bloody magical. There was a 60 something year old 100+ ft shipwreck just covered with coral and sponges and teaming with spectacular fish. Apparently this was the WORST of the snorkeling sites, but at the others there was no way this guy was getting in the water without losing stomach contents. Sooo, seeing as there are sharks lurking about in the Bahamas I thought it better not to go chumming the waters, safety first! Our last stop was REALLy cool and I managed to ooze off the boat for that one as well, it was an island that is famous for being the island shown in the opening credits of Gilligan's Island. It was tiny but had the most perfect beach that my toes have ever squished! And that water, so achingly swimming pool blue! Wow, I can't imagine how great that day would have been if I hadn't been feeling like I had spent the previous day in a chemotherapy tournament. Needless to say, I AM NEVER DRINKING AGAIN! (he lied to himself). In all seriousness, If I return to the Bahamas, there is a 101% chance I will do that same charter again. As for Nassau, it looked nice and island-y from what we saw while hoofing it from the Divina over to the place where we met the Islandtimes boat.

I've got more left to say, hopefully I'll wrap it all up in Part 4. Ask questions now and I'll answer them if I can in the next installment.

[Laura]

Craig - As I already mentioned on the forum fiends fb page, I absolutely love your highly informative & entertaining write-ups - great attention to detail with humor to boot!

I am inspired to do a three way comparison (70K, PNAS, & RLC) on the general "Music Cruises" thread - it won't be as detailed as yours perhaps but will be fun to do by category as you did.

[Disaster Area]

I am inspired to do a three way...

you heard it here first folks.

[Laura]

^^^ hahaha.
Naughty Craig.

Damn - sometimes I miss the "golden age" (early days) of this forum.
....Not to say I don't enjoy it now - I'm just not on as much & so many folks migrated to fb only (as you know).

Can you believe it was around five years ago many of us started our 70K adventure???

[Lala]

Thx for the very detailed Review, Craig. Some sounds good, some bad - the Thing that i see very critically is the percentage of Americans. After spending 12 Days in a Hotel in Dominican Republic with 80 % Americanos i don't prefer to spend 5 Days on a Boat with them. Much better with Metalheads from all-over-the-World.....

[Pellaz]

Great review! Sounds like the audience composition was exactly as I expected, although I'd have expected maybe a couple more "extreme" metal shirts.

How bad was the line for tendering back to the ship?

It sounds like your excursion in Nassau was really awesome (despite your hangover)! Can you say who it was with?
If I go on a "cheap" cruise later this summer there's about a 40% chance it will end up at Nassau (it's a much-frequented port and hard to escape) and I'm always looking for something decent to do there, since it's kinda a crappy port.

BTW, Great Stirrup Cay is generally considered the weakest of the "big three" private islands (Half Moon Cay and Little Stirrup Cay are the other two), so if MORC's stop there was awesome, I figure a 70K stop at LSC would also be at least as awesome...the only drawback being the chance of missing the port due to winds, weather or waves.

[Mal2000]

Carig,

Fantastic detailled review. I admire your patience to write it all down

Looks like you started a wave of new reviews: Music cruises comparison.
After Laura's reviews there must be someone to write about Wacken cruise, right?

See you maybe on next 70k

[Disaster Area]

Pellaz, I left the island while Black and blue (the headliner of the day) was playing, or very shortly thereafter, that memory is a bit drunk-fuzzy but I do know the wait was tolerable. The tenders were large, I think they held 100+ people. I would do it again. And the excursion was with these guys: http://islandtimebahamas.com/

Gnoffy, yeah, notice we went straight from the Boat To the charter boat so I didn't really experience Nassau. I have heard others say Nassau was a hole, I don't doubt it as pretty much every other port has been too. But our excursion left a nice memory for me.

oh, and look who was also on port that day, the Old Rust Bucket herself!

[SaraMarie]

No booze in the venues, regardless of genre, would be an immediate "see ya later" for me. Everything else sounds pretty normal and expected to me. I do really enjoy the more international feel of 70k... hahaha, "Genericans."

[Laura]

No booze in the venues, regardless of genre, would be an immediate "see ya later" for me. Everything else sounds pretty normal and expected to me. I do really enjoy the more international feel of 70k... hahaha, "Genericans."

Haha - I almost have to agree with you on the NO booze in the venues (rule) - I honestly don't think I've ever been at a show without a drink in hand (at least at some point during it!).

[Disaster Area]

It was only the theater that was a booze free zone. Everywhere else it was okay.

[Laura]

It was only the theater that was a booze free zone. Everywhere else it was okay.

Well doh, I guess that makes sense. They probably think the theater is too nice to risk the inevitable drink spills - especially if they had a pit area as you said.