March 25, 2017: Back From Baja

You already read Phil's report on this year's GAMA Trade Show as well as a preview of next year's GAMA at the new venue in Reno. I was also in Vegas for GAMA, but I was coming off another trip: the 2017 sailing of the JoCo Cruise, the first where the JoCo folks chartered the entire boat.

I was lucky enough to have my colleagues Alex Fernandez and Rhea Friesen along this year. Both of them were first-timers on the JoCo Cruise ("New Monkeys"). They seemed to have a nice time, although you'd have to ask them to be sure. Unfortunately, Steve and Monica weren't able to make it this year, so we didn't have any specific scheduled events, but I did a lot of talking about the Munchkin Shakespeare Kickstarter. (In fact, I was obsessed, since the Kickstarter ended while I was on the cruise and the shipboard Internet for the first half of the week was sporadic and slow. Thanks to everyone who had to put up with my refreshing my phone every few minutes.) I ran into lots of people playing our games over the course of the cruise: plenty of Munchkin, of course, but also Chez Geek, Castellan, Revolution!, and Ogre Sixth Edition (and those are just the ones I saw!). The ship had a very well-stocked game library, between the JoCo permanent game collection and all the games brought by the Sea Monkeys themselves, and games were being played around the clock in just about every space with a table or two to cluster around.

There were plenty of things to do besides play games, of course: sleep, eat, watch the dolphins and whales and seals, and if we got bored with all of that, there was a full slate of events both small and large to keep us occupied. As always, I had a great time! (I also contracted a cold that didn't hit me until I was in Vegas, but that's another, much sadder story.)

If this sounds like fun and you have a week to spare next February, you might think about looking into the JoCo Cruise. I've already booked my cabin!

-- Andrew Hackard