ram1977

We do this cruise in a few weeks so was happy to see this post. Your videos are fun and you have some great photos. We also have a whale watching trip booked thru pacwhale. You say that if you did a whale watching trip like this again you'd want to do it on a smaller ship. what is the reason for this? as it looks like you had some really fantastic whale photos too.

Personally we like to do our own excursions rather than ship excursions, but we always make sure we leave enough of a time buffer. It's not worth the risk of having the ship sail without you.

8 hours ago, Wehwalt said:

That isn't cheating. Cheating would be consulting the sheets during the game if the rules forbid written material

I agree that keeping old trivia sheets and learning / remembering the answers isn't cheating. However, if you're saying that it's ok to look at a "binder" full of old answers during a trivia is ok, if the person running the quiz didn't specifically state that written material is not allowed - then I'm affraid you're part of the problem!

2 hours ago, Gretchendz said:

Wow..the number of replies here shows what a problem this has become.  We cruise often (not always, but usually Princess) and enjoy trivia very much.  We have seen much of the behavior reported here.  Like many of you, we like to play for the fun of it, not the coasters.

 

I have heard rumor of websites where people track the Princess trivia questions and answers. I have not looked to see if it's true because I don't want to know. 

 

I wish the cruise staff running trivia would do a few simple things to help reduce this because it does ruin the fun for everyone else.

 

1) Announce at the start of each session that cheating won't be tolerated and that if anyone sees someone else using a book or device to cheat--they should report it.  The crew may not like actually enforcing it, but perhaps the announcement would at least reduce the blatant cheating. They can do it humorously by talking about the crummy prizes.

 

2) There are zillions of sources of trivia questions--find some new ones cruise directors :) Lots of new ones.

 

3) On a recent Cunard cruise, they announced sternly at the start of each session--"No arguing, we are always right."  People accepted it. In fact, on two different nights the same question came up and two different crew gave two different answers :) Folks were a bit miffed but laughed and accepted it.

 

4) I like to think if there was someone blatantly cheating (like with the book) I would have a conversation with the offenders. And, if that failed, bring it to the attention of the crew.

 

P.S. You can tell we don't cheat because sometimes we get a question we had on a previous cruise and we still can't get it right :)

I particularly like #1

And also, if someone is caught cheating then they should have their photo taken with a sign around their neck saying 'I cheated at Trivia". Just like people do when they photo shame their pets! The photo should be put on the wall at the trivia venue until the end of the cruise 😉

Well I'm glad that most people (if not all) agree that this cheating behavior is strange and rude. I really don't understand it at all - especially for such poor prizes! I was a little worried that I was over-reacting about something that I was not that bothered about winning anyway, but I've just always believed that if you can't win something without cheating then what is the point! Unfortunately it does seem like it was not a one-time thing and a few people have experienced it in one way or another.

I really wish I could name and shame the people who did it on our cruise but I don't know their names - all I can say is they were an older couple (maybe early 70s). Both had grey hair, his quite short and hers shoulder length and she was in a wheelchair. From what we learned from other cruisers they do sail out of San Pedro a lot - so if you're on a Princess cruise and you see them at trivia - look out!

25 minutes ago, Level six said:

I just witnessed the same thing a week ago on Princess.  A group with a  binder full of previous trivia questions!  The best was when the cruise staff became aware and played music instead of asking questions......awesome.  We graded their paper and after all their perfect scores, they got 8 out of 20.  It honestly was the best!!  

 

But, we were on 4 B2B on NCL and they did repeat the questions.  We just play for fun, so unless the other new team members came up with the answer, we would not give the answer unless we knew it before the previous trivia.  It's no fun to cheat.  Trivia was created to allow people to meet other cruisers and have fun, not to have the great honor of winning a coaster!  I refuse to take trivia so serious, but several on Princess do, which makes it less fun.  

That was the word I was looking for! A binder full of old quiz papers - I said a book but I know what I meant! I wonder if it was the same people.

15 minutes ago, Crown Cruiser said:

The best way in my opinion to keep this from happening is to change the trivia questions/categories frequently.  We have been on cruises where it’s the same questions. Do we cheat?  No, because, #1 it’s wrong, and you’re right, we don’t want the same coasters!  More fun if it’s not the same old same old !

 

but it seems some people just want the attention of winning at any cost !

I really agree with your last statement - sad but true!  If someone wins fairly I'll happily congratulate them but i don't like cheats!

So do you think that the cruise staff use the same questions too often. I suppose if they are using the same 20 questions and not mixing them up then it makes it easy for our 'cheaters' especially - if they can find the right sheet in their little book!

Hello, I'm new to this website and quite new to cruising in gerenal. My husband and I have done 3 Carnival cruises over the last 2 years and did our first on Princess earlier this year. While we thoroughly enjoyed the Princess cruise we did come across one thing that we never saw on our Carnival cruises.  Let me start by saying that we are not Trivia experts and do not take it seriously, but we do really enjoy meeting people, having a drink and having a good time while answering the questions. We didn't ever win any of the quizzes on Carnival but had a great time meeting people. There were usually only a couple of quizzes a day on Carnival but we were happy to see days when there were 4 or 5 trivia contests on Princess.

Now comes the problem! We teamed up with new people virtually everytime we did the trivia, and we usually got about 15 out of 20 answers correct. However the winning team always got all 20 correct. And it was always the same team (An older couple). This went on for a few days - no big deal we thought as the prizes were pretty awful! There's only so many plastic coasters you can want...right? Anyway, on about day 5 we teamed up with a couple who said they knew the people that won all of the time and they're long time Princess cruisers who keep all of their previous quiz answer sheets in a book and look at them while the quiz is going on! I actually thought they were joking but as we were sitting closer to the 'winners' for this quiz I did look over and sure enough, out came the little book filled with old answer sheets! Now I have no problem with people remembering answers from previous quizzes but this seemed like some pretty strange behavior to win a naff prize! the 'cheats' were an older couple too, probably in their early 70's - definitely old enough to know better. As the cruise went on we talked to more and more people who knew of them and what they did! A lot of people in the trivia contests were getting quite angry by their always perfect scores and it did make the atmosphere a little uncomfortable sometimes. I really don't want to sound like a bad loser but it is nice to go to a trivia contest and know you have a small chance of winning!

Now this cruise was out of San Pedro and we are thinking of doing a Mexican riviera cruise on the Royal later this year, also out of San Pedro. The trivia contests aren't something that will make us decide not to take a cruise but I just wondered if anyone else has encountered something like this on board?

Thanks in advance for any feedback