What's the skinny on Mitch Merucci?

Seems as there has been a change in plans for our upcoming Grandeur cruise on 11-1-14. Word was that Rich Edwards was going be to be replacing Ricky Matthews as CD but now it seems that Mitch is.:confused: As I am not familiar with Mitch, I'd appreciate any info on him.;)

He was our CD on our last cruise , good old canadian boy , did a good job , no Graham Seymour , but was engaging and entertaining

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Funbobby68...Had the pleasure of cruising with Graham a few times a number of years ago. He is in a class of his own. If Mitch is anything like his fellow Canadian Darryl Dyball, we'll be OK, Aye!;):p

Mitch was the CD on our Navigator cruise in April. We really liked him. He was very personable and approachable, and we liked his sense of humor.

Sailed with him on Majesty. Rickey is a much, much, much, better CD, who I sailed with on Navigator and Majesty. There are two ways to do The Quest, Studio B and lounge. In Studio B, teams are formed by the section you are sitting in whereas in the lounge you pick your teams (6-8 member) and then sit together.

Rickey did that just as other CDs have. If you're in Studio B, you do it the Studio B way, like he did on Navigator. If you're in the lounge like Majesty, you do it the lounge way when it comes to teams.

Mitch, on the other hand, did the Quest Studio B style on a ship without Studio B in the lounge last October. It did not work. He gave team numbers to undefined sections of the lounge. He then had twice as many team captains than teams, so he doubled the teams, but didn't redefine the sections. I had no idea what my team number was. My team captain quit half way through and stormed out of the lounge because nobody on our team wanted to participate.

As long as you weren't planning on attending the Quest, you should have a good time. I've sailed with 9 different CDs on RCL and would rank Mitch as #9 on my list.

Mitch is a very good CD. I would not evaluate a CD based on one activity. He/She is the Manager of all the entertainment on the ship and as such must try to keep all guests happy and entertained. I was very pleased with him as a CD as all the entertainment activities I use were great.

We had Mitch on our Navigator cruise a couple of weeks ago. I thought he was very good. He was even at the Meet and Mingle. He did fine at Quest in Studio B. I loved the Love and Marriage show.

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Lots of good comments! I am totally a Quest fanatic but am not familiar with the Studio B and Lounge designations!:eek::p:rolleyes: Ya learn something new every day!:D Lately, I only cruise out of Baltimore and that has been on Grandeur and Enchantment. The Quest is always held in the lounge on these ships. Twice it was run in Studio B format which I thought of as pie cuts. I though that it had probably been done for safety/liability reasons, cutting down on the number of teams allowed to participate. It's much more fun if you are allowed to form your own teams and was happy to see it back to lounge style on some later cruises. Will just have to wait and see how things go.

Good to hear Mitch did a good job on the Navigator. Like with the way he did the Quest, I can image he would do a better job on a Voyager-class ship.

The OP is sailing on Grandeur (Vision-class), so IMHO he lacks the ability to adapt to the older ships.

On the night we left Nassau (or was it CocoCay), Mitch was warming up the audience in the theater before introducing the comedian who had just flown into Nassau and boarded the ship there. Mitch mentioned how many people were sailing from each country. We even had some people from The Bahamas sailing with us. Of course, he had to make a joke about "Why would you want to fly to Florida and sail back to The Bahamas when you're from The Bahamas?" (or something similar). That by itself would have been funny, and the Bahamians laughed, however, the comedian continued with jokes about how scary it was to fly into Nassau and other Bahamas jokes that left me with a bad taste. Maybe it was because there were people from The Bahamas in the audience. I have flown directly into Nassau and enjoyed the views. The only thing scary was flying by the eye of Hurricane Sandy on my way to Florida to switch planes to Nassau.:eek:

To the OP, if you don't expect much from the CD and they exceed your expectations, you'll have a better cruise.:)

To be nice to the Mitch Merucci fans, I ranked him a "9" (instead of bottom of my list like I originally planned). You can take to mean 9 out of 10 (with 10 being the best), but I'll rank the other 8 CDs I've sailed with 10 out of 10.:cool:

Lots of good comments! I am totally a Quest fanatic but am not familiar with the Studio B and Lounge designations!:eek::p:rolleyes: Ya learn something new every day!:D Lately, I only cruise out of Baltimore and that has been on Grandeur and Enchantment. The Quest is always held in the lounge on these ships. Twice it was run in Studio B format which I thought of as pie cuts. I though that it had probably been done for safety/liability reasons, cutting down on the number of teams allowed to participate. It's much more fun if you are allowed to form your own teams and was happy to see it back to lounge style on some later cruises. Will just have to wait and see how things go.

Hi DELTABLUE,

Studio B is also where they have the ice shows (and the ice is covered during events like The Quest), so think of it as a small 3 sided arena with a stage and theater seats. The lounge has chairs you can move, however, the dancefloor space in the lounge is small compared to the larger floor space in Studio B. Another difference is the Cruise Director and their entire Cruise Director's staff dress up in funky athletic outfits for Studio B (maybe because it resembles an indoor basketball court without hoops) and are a little more formal in the lounge (unless doing it "Studio B style").

Although my team won 1st place twice in Studio B and came in 2nd once in the lounge, I enjoy the lounge Quest better because everyone on your smaller team (up to 8) get a medal for winning whereas only the team captains in Studio B win a prize. I never volunteer to be a team captain and I never do the finale. (:o for those who do. ;))

Anyway, have a great cruise. Hopefully you'll have a better experience than mine.

That is about how I figured it from pictures I checked out. I've been to some Quests where almost every participant got a medal of one color or another. I think the Blairs do that. Makes it nice for all who chose to play. Not as nice when only hastily appointed team captains are eligible. I've turned some of my gold C&A medals into refrigerator magnets. Was going to mount them as earrings but they were a little bit too heavy.:eek::p