How can you tell if your cruise has a large charter group?

[ImADaneFan]

I was trying to do some research on future cruise dates to see if there were going to be large charter groups onboard. I found info on R Family Vacations charters for 2010, but nothing else. If the ship is chartered, is it normally for the entire ship (like the Olympics), or just a group of cabins? Is there a website that you can find the info or are you just surprised when you board? :D

 

For those that are interested R Family Vacations has 3 charters scheduled for 2010. They are:

 

POA 3/27/10 to 4/3/10

Jade 6/20/10 to 6/27/10

Epic 8/14/10 to 8/21/10

[lonstermonster11]

I recently posted about the 2009 jazz party festival on nov 15th jewel. Usually chartered cruises that are not sponsored by ncl are smaller in size,and NCL may not appear to be aware of it. if ncl is chartering the ship to a group they will let you know if you are booking through ncl. If you use a TA, you may have to ask.

I was told that if there is a group on board that they shouldnt interfer with regular cruisers. Heres where i have issues. If in my case they are having a concert in the spinnaker lounge and it is private it takes my opportunity to have a drink in that part of the boat.

[njhorseman]

You have to differentiate full charters from partial charters from groups. On a full charter you're not going to be on that cruise unless you are booked through the group chartering the ship. They have leased the ship for that cruise.

 

In a partial charter situation an organization may lease rights to a significant percentage of the cabins...50% as a hypothetical example...but the remainder of the ship may be booked through the normal outlets...the cruise line and travel agencies. I'm not aware of any Web sites that have this information but that's not to say there might not be.

 

Groups involve smaller blocks of rooms held by individuals or their TAs for their personal group (such as a wedding party), or TAs holding a block of rooms for sale to the general public, normally at a discount. If the rooms are not sold prior to a specified date the TA releases them back to the cruise line for sale through normal retail channels. There's really no way to tell if a TA has booked you into group block cabin they hold, unless they tell you.

[bakerintn]

I was in a group booking last year on the Dawn....a favorite musical group. The group benefits includd three private concerts and an informal get together. The only way that we could get those benefits was to book through the TA who put the group together, and we paid a premium to participate.

 

On the Dawn, the concerts were held in the Spinnaker Lounge. There was a sign "private party" but that did not stop several other passengers from coming into the bar and using the lounge chairs, etc. Since they weren't sitting in the seats by the dance floor / stage, that did not seem to bother most of the members of our group. NCL sets up these private parties as part of encouraging a group booking and I don't see that the loss of an hour's access to a particular bar should be a big problem for non-group passengers, given all of the other opportunities on these ships.

[terrymtex01]

OP.. from what I have read here on CC, the best way to know is to do a search on google using your ships name and the dates of the cruise. That will at least pull up most of the charters for groups that have websites.

 

I recently posted about the 2009 jazz party festival on nov 15th jewel. Usually chartered cruises that are not sponsored by ncl are smaller in size,and NCL may not appear to be aware of it. if ncl is chartering the ship to a group they will let you know if you are booking through ncl. If you use a TA, you may have to ask.

I was told that if there is a group on board that they shouldnt interfer with regular cruisers. Heres where i have issues. If in my case they are having a concert in the spinnaker lounge and it is private it takes my opportunity to have a drink in that part of the boat.

 

I am so with you on this. Last year on the Pearl there was a huge group of people all together.. on one excursion we took there had to be at least 40 to 50 of them just on that one excursion. Now one part of them did have one of the GV's (much to the saddness of the Concierge) and because they were in the GV, they kept trying to get all of the benefits that come with the GV for the whole group. It drove the Concierge crazy.. LOL. Anyone on our particular excursion where there were so many of them, because they were so loud and obnixious to the Pearls staff while we were all waiting in the theater to board the boat for the excurions, the staff relented and let them board first. Needless to say the boat we had the excursion on was not that big so they got all of the best spots on the boat. That did not make a good impression with me and let me see why people are so hesitant to book on a ship with a charter onboard. This was just a very large family reunion and it often drove us crazy for one reason or another.