RCI's Role in the Meet & Mingle Disappointing!

[Kikkycat]

My most recent M&M, on Liberty, was the least impressive of the three I've attended. On the first two, on Adventure and Serenade, the Cruise Director showed up, along with an assistant, and even the Hotel Manager came to the one on Adventure. No CD on the Liberty M&M, which is a shame since I really wanted to say hi to Mike S. again. He sent his activities director, Leigh, in his place. There was no question and answer session as I'd seen both times previously. They did have food and beverages out, but there was very little real interaction. I guess, based on other cruiselines, we should be happy they even showed up and had raffle items for us. But it wasn't as good as my previous ones.

[CRUSINGFAMILY]

We usually attend the meet and mingle on every cruise we sail on, the support from the cruise staff always veries, some are over the top and others on like you have said.

 

The whole experience I think is the people you have been chatting with and making new friends with them, and getting to know them better. It alwasy seems the longer cruisies alway seem to have the better get togethers, and many groups have evolved over years, like the Jewel repo from Boston, thier are many people on that cruise each year who have done all those repo's for like six or seven years now and they have a fantastic team of people who keep everyone entertained and having lots of fun.

 

Happy cruising

 

Brian J

[J & G]

As we have started cruising with groups of family and friends, the M&Ms have become less important to us. Sometimes we attend - sometimes we don't. When we do go, it's for the purpose of meeting our fellow cruisers....not for the refreshments (which seem to be less impresssive as time goes on) or for interaction with the crew.

 

We have found, in the past, that we have become friends with our table mates more so than with the CCers we meet at the M&M. That makes sense, since we spend more time with our table mates. Maybe cruisers who are so inclined could put together a table with some of their fellow CCers in order to get to know them better. Just a thought...... (Yes, I know it's possible to like another person's online persona and then not like them in real life....just a chance you take, I guess.)

[Lynnees]

As M&M are cruisecritic functions why isn't someone there from management of cc? I don't think RCL owes anyone anything for these M&M. Sometimes there OK, sometimes they aren't. They really arn't important in the large scheme of things.

 

It's called a meet and mingle for a reason - meet others and mingle with people you happened to have met online.

[Cruising89143]

I thought the M&M's were to meet your fellow guests. Not for free handouts or meeting with officers of the ship.

[Sandy Sails]

My favorite Roll Call party was on my one and only NCL cruise. All of the top officers (except the captain) showed up. The Concierge took all of our names and room numbers and added us to his VIP list. Wow - what service we ended up having for that cruise! The best was being the first people off the ship on debarkation day. Smooth!

 

Haven't been very impressed with the RCCL meet & mingles but I still attend, hoping for the best. Either way, it's very nice of them to put on the party, they sure don't have to do it.

[Trainman-2]

I think that part of this depends on the ship and the thinking of the ship's senior Officers.

[98Charlie]

My favorite Roll Call party was on my one and only NCL cruise. All of the top officers (except the captain) showed up. The Concierge took all of our names and room numbers and added us to his VIP list. Wow - what service we ended up having for that cruise! The best was being the first people off the ship on debarkation day. Smooth!

 

Haven't been very impressed with the RCCL meet & mingles but I still attend, hoping for the best. Either way, it's very nice of them to put on the party, they sure don't have to do it.

 

Have to agree with you. Was never very impressed with Royal Caribbean's parties for CC members, pretty lack luster, but NCL has gone beyond the call of duty for CC members for our cruises over the past 3 or 4 years.

 

NCl has sent ship officers to spend time with us and answer questions and really seemed to be happy we were aboard. Royal Caribbean has only sent one or two people to our meetings in the past cruises we've been on and once the person from RCCL who was in charge of the program left right after she introduced herself.

 

It's nice to have ship's staff there at the meeting who show that they enjoy having us onboard.

 

Dianne

[ssb]

I thought the M&M's were to meet your fellow guests. Not for free handouts or meeting with officers of the ship.

 

I agree and on recent Voyager TA Barcelona to Galveston....

there were many meet the captain, staff and all department officers with cruiser gettogethers to ask questions events.

What were your expectations on M&M?

[firefly333]

Personally, Im gratefull for RCL for handling the meet and greet so someone from the roll call doesnt have to set something up, or everyone send money to a stranger like Carnival does it.... like they suggest you pay for a open bar for an hour .. if you know someone they will give you a open bar to meet in.

 

thank you RCL. For doing the M&M for us.

[Host Kewlguy]

Just completed the November 7th cruise on the Explorer of the Seas last week.

The Meet and Mingle meeting our group had was very disappointing (our group was fantastic), but the meeting was a dud.

We were well over 100, yet RCI did not indicate by the lack of major cruise officials present that we were an important group to meet with.

 

On NCL and Celebrity Roll Call Meetings on their ships, the meeting was attended by the Cruise Director, Captain or 2nd Officer, Food and Beverage Managers and other important officials of the ship.

 

They answered questions and each gave us their business card to contact them if we incurred any issues or requested any special requests (restaurant reservations, birthdays, etc.) during our cruise.

 

RCI provided the normal spread of beverages and eats and a few nominal cruise prizes and kind of rushed us out for the next scheduled event in the Maraghi Lounge.

 

Perhaps I have been spoiled by the interest shown to CC members on other cruise lines at these meetings, but in my opinion, RCI "missed the boat!"

Don, we signed up for the November 7th Meet and Mingle on Explorer and never even received the invitation in our stateroom. We had to call Guest Services to find out where the meeting was being held. I agree with you that Royal should have some management attend the meetings. At least from a public relations standpoint I think it would be good business policy. On NCL numerous officers attend the Cruise Critic gatherings.

[mafig]

On NCL numerous officers attend the Cruise Critic gatherings.

 

 

HAL too. On our two Holland America cruise we had an open bar at one, and champagne, bloody mary's and a chocolate fountain with fresh fruit on the other. The HD Director took our names and cabin numbers and we were all invited to their VIP Party.:)

[98Charlie]

Don, we signed up for the November 7th Meet and Mingle on Explorer and never even received the invitation in our stateroom. We had to call Guest Services to find out where the meeting was being held. I agree with you that Royal should have some management attend the meetings. At least from a public relations standpoint I think it would be good business policy. On NCL numerous officers attend the Cruise Critic gatherings.

 

Thank you.

 

Dianne

[Irishnana]

I am one member of an enthusiastic group of CC’ers setting sail on RCIs’ Mariner of the Seas in two weeks, currently 129 members strong. Fully expect some attrition and fall out during this cruise for several of our eight roll call activities, and the official Meet & Mingle.

My major concern at this stage would be to vacate the official Meet & Mingle venue early due to poor scheduling by RCI, such as what the members of the Mariner BOO Cruise experienced several weeks ago. Therefore, our roll call has altered the start times of two of our planned activities to before the official M&M utilizing the same venue.

IMHO, it is not what RCI, or any cruise line, can do for us. It’s what we DO to hopefully make our cruise one of the most memorable and best to date :):D:)

[wwcruisers]

I am one member of an enthusiastic group of CC’ers setting sail on RCIs’ Mariner of the Seas in two weeks, currently 129 members strong. Fully expect some attrition and fall out during this cruise for several of our eight roll call activities, and the official Meet & Mingle.

 

My major concern at this stage would be to vacate the official Meet & Mingle venue early due to poor scheduling by RCI, such as what the members of the Mariner BOO Cruise experienced several weeks ago. Therefore, our roll call has altered the start times of two of our planned activities to before the official M&M utilizing the same venue.

 

IMHO, it is not what RCI, or any cruise line, can do for us. It’s what we DO to hopefully make our cruise one of the most memorable and best to date :):D:)

 

Sounds like you guys have a great roll-call group -- I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time on Mariner! We met so many great people on the BooCruise. It was a very active roll call thread, and we had lots of other activities (besides the foreshortened M&M) planned. There was a cabin crawl, and a horseback riding excursion. Some of the folks even got together at their hotel, on pre-boarding day. And, almost a month later, we're still over there chatting away, lol! :p

[Merion_Mom]

I believe you missed the point of the roll call (M & M) meeting. Our group used the meeting to organize our events we planned on the cruise (e.g slot pull, cabin crawl, gift exchange, etc.), but on NCL it also gave us a chance to discuss with the ship's officials some of our questions or concerns about the ship or cruise line policies and since they have freestyle dining, the dining director helped set up special reservations for some of the group that wanted to meet and dine together a few times during the cruise.

 

There was no expectation for "free chiatzkis" nor was anyone interested in them.

 

I do understand what you are saying, Don. They do vary in how long they are, who runs them, what food and drink are offered, what gifts are raffled.

 

Perhaps yours came up short, but many are better than what you described, and if they are not, I shrug and move on.

 

I hope that you won't give up on Royal Caribbean for this little reason. ;)

[J & G]

HAL too. On our two Holland America cruise we had an open bar at one, and champagne, bloody mary's and a chocolate fountain with fresh fruit on the other. The HD Director took our names and cabin numbers and we were all invited to their VIP Party.:)

 

Wow! Sorry we missed the one on our recent HAL cruise! We never got the invitation....even called and asked, to no avail. :(

 

We got some luncheon invitation for suite guests, but since our other group members were not in suites, we decided we preferred lunch with them. :)

[dongordon]

I do understand what you are saying, Don. They do vary in how long they are, who runs them, what food and drink are offered, what gifts are raffled.

 

Perhaps yours came up short, but many are better than what you described, and if they are not, I shrug and move on.

 

I hope that you won't give up on Royal Caribbean for this little reason. ;)

 

I will not give up on RCI....I loved my cruise and I wrote a very favorable review.

The one issue that would prevent me from cruising again would be their liquor and wine policy.

 

They have a very poor selection of wines on their wine package and my wife and I love a bottle of wine at dinner....particularly Pignot Grigio. The Chardonnays were not very good either and those are the two wines we enjoy. I know it may seem petty to some, but we feel that part of the dining experience is enjoying a good wine and frankly, RCI does not provide that in their wine packages. They only have one Pignot Grigio and quite frankly, it was terrible. Other cruise lines allow you to bring wine onboard and pay a corkage fee.....they (RCI) will not.

 

I discussed this issue with the Assistant Beverage Manager and that is their policy and they will not waive on this policy. He was going to speak to the "higher ups " in Miami and ask them to review their wine packages. I did place this comment in my cruise evaluation form and gave "excellents" for food and service on the ship.

 

In the NYC area, Pignot Grigio (and Chardonnay) is very popular and to offer only one wine is not only ridiculous, but bad business, since a large portion of their cruisers come from the NYC/Long Island area.

 

Hoping they change their policy in the future so I can enjoy my cruising experience with RCI once again.

 

Don

[critterchick]

As M&M are cruisecritic functions why isn't someone there from management of cc? I don't think RCL owes anyone anything for these M&M. Sometimes there OK, sometimes they aren't. They really arn't important in the large scheme of things.

 

It's called a meet and mingle for a reason - meet others and mingle with people you happened to have met online.

 

CC simply facilitates our getting together with each other. Their management can't be on every ship in the fleet every cruise...

 

I will not give up on RCI....I loved my cruise and I wrote a very favorable review.

The one issue that would prevent me from cruising again would be their liquor and wine policy.

 

They have a very poor selection of wines on their wine package and my wife and I love a bottle of wine at dinner....particularly Pignot Grigio. The Chardonnays were not very good either and those are the two wines we enjoy. I know it may seem petty to some, but we feel that part of the dining experience is enjoying a good wine and frankly, RCI does not provide that in their wine packages. They only have one Pignot Grigio and quite frankly, it was terrible. Other cruise lines allow you to bring wine onboard and pay a corkage fee.....they (RCI) will not.

 

I discussed this issue with the Assistant Beverage Manager and that is their policy and they will not waive on this policy. He was going to speak to the "higher ups " in Miami and ask them to review their wine packages. I did place this comment in my cruise evaluation form and gave "excellents" for food and service on the ship.

 

In the NYC area, Pignot Grigio (and Chardonnay) is very popular and to offer only one wine is not only ridiculous, but bad business, since a large portion of their cruisers come from the NYC/Long Island area.

 

Hoping they change their policy in the future so I can enjoy my cruising experience with RCI once again.

 

Don

 

If you don't like the offerings in the packages, then why not order off the full wine list, which contains a few other Pinot Grigios and some nice Chardonnays?

 

And back to the original post: RCI hosts a party for us, which is terrific. It would be nice if the ships' personnel were gracious hosts who acted pleased to be there with us and didn't evict us from the M&M for another group (I've never had that happen). We've had M&Ms where the Captain and/or CD have appeared, and we've had them where one bored junior staffer drew one ticket, gave all the prizes to that ticket holder and left. Although it's sad to see such a lack of enthusiasm for the job, we still had fun chatting with each other.

 

The bottom line is that they're making it easy for us to get together and throwing in a few treats to boot. This thread is reminding me of the complaining about C&A gifts (and yes, we accumulated a dozen baseball caps before I forbade DH from taking any more home, LOL). RCI read the threads and now doesn't give them any more. I'd hate to see that happen to the M&Ms, too.

[Merion_Mom]

CC simply facilitates our getting together with each other. Their management can't be on every ship in the fleet every cruise...

 

 

 

If you don't like the offerings in the packages, then why not order off the full wine list, which contains a few other Pinot Grigios and some nice Chardonnays?

 

And back to the original post: RCI hosts a party for us, which is terrific. It would be nice if the ships' personnel were gracious hosts who acted pleased to be there with us and didn't evict us from the M&M for another group (I've never had that happen). We've had M&Ms where the Captain and/or CD have appeared, and we've had them where one bored junior staffer drew one ticket, gave all the prizes to that ticket holder and left. Although it's sad to see such a lack of enthusiasm for the job, we still had fun chatting with each other.

 

The bottom line is that they're making it easy for us to get together and throwing in a few treats to boot. This thread is reminding me of the complaining about C&A gifts (and yes, we accumulated a dozen baseball caps before I forbade DH from taking any more home, LOL). RCI read the threads and now doesn't give them any more. I'd hate to see that happen to the M&Ms, too.

 

"LIKE"

[98Charlie]

CC simply facilitates our getting together with each other. Their management can't be on every ship in the fleet every cruise...

 

 

 

If you don't like the offerings in the packages, then why not order off the full wine list, which contains a few other Pinot Grigios and some nice Chardonnays?

 

And back to the original post: RCI hosts a party for us, which is terrific. It would be nice if the ships' personnel were gracious hosts who acted pleased to be there with us and didn't evict us from the M&M for another group (I've never had that happen). We've had M&Ms where the Captain and/or CD have appeared, and we've had them where one bored junior staffer drew one ticket, gave all the prizes to that ticket holder and left. Although it's sad to see such a lack of enthusiasm for the job, we still had fun chatting with each other.

 

The bottom line is that they're making it easy for us to get together and throwing in a few treats to boot. This thread is reminding me of the complaining about C&A gifts (and yes, we accumulated a dozen baseball caps before I forbade DH from taking any more home, LOL). RCI read the threads and now doesn't give them any more. I'd hate to see that happen to the M&Ms, too.

 

Sorry, but the RCI cruises I've been on as a CC member RCI staff have done little to help organize the meetings. NCL and Princess have done more. Carnival does nothing to help.

 

Guess I've been on the wrong RCI cruises.

 

Dianne

[lifeastrin]

we got off the FOS on Sunday sadly! We loved our meet and mingle. We met some fab people loved the silly raffle and the prizes. Have my cruise critic RCCL fridge magnet stuck proudly on the fridge. Even my husband who really doesn't like that sort of thing liked it. We did a cabin crawl after which was brilliant fun... I sure want a grand suite next time lol. We saw the meet and mingle group round the ship regularly after that. It was like having friends on board. So if you were in our group... Sharon, Ortrud, chief , the canadians etc. Thanks and hope you had a safe trip home.... it's snowing here

[SnrCroozer41]

As M&M are cruisecritic functions why isn't someone there from management of cc? I don't think RCL owes anyone anything for these M&M. Sometimes there OK, sometimes they aren't. They really arn't important in the large scheme of things.

 

It's called a meet and mingle for a reason - meet others and mingle with people you happened to have met online.

 

You've hit the nail on the head! One fundamental omission in every M&M we have attended is an opportunity for each attendee to introduce themselves. Remember most have only communicated on CC and see an avatar and maybe the member's first name. Surely the first order of business is, with perhaps the prompting of the cruise director's staff member or on the initiative of a seasoned CC member, to pass the microphone around so that everyone can connect the screenname with the live body.

 

It does seem that the facilitation by ship's crew comes across as a chore that they must get through. Perhaps it's time for CC and RCL to redefine the point of a M&M so that there is some purpose and value and more importantly ensure we all have fun, fun and morfe fun!

[SamFritz]

Best M&M we had was one that was "unofficial". No games, no key rings given out, no drinks, no noshes. We fell below the 25 required so we planned our own M&M and had a blast meeting everyone we had "met" on our roll call. I agree with Carol (MerionMom). It isn't who comes to the M&M from RCI, it's about meeting fellow cruisers.

 

Same here! I'm still in contact with several people that we met in our own meet and mingle that we set up on our roll call. We actually met twice, as I had the good forturne to be upgraded to an OS on that cruise, so at our M&M we invited the group to visit our room on the afternoon of the final "at sea" day. What a blast!

[NCMtnBoys]

Our Meet & Mingle in October on the Serenade of the Seas was Great! Nobody in our group was looking for anything special from the cruise line. They had the traditional raffle, gave everyone the traditional gift. Our Cruise Director was there and he spoke made a few jokes and we were able to ask him question. Aftewards we did a gift exchange and chatted for a while before it broke up and everyone went their own ways, and we never was felt like we were rushed to get out. It was a good way to put faces with the names we had been seeing in our roll call on here. Most from our roll call had already met before the Meet & Mingle as we did a Meet & Greet in San Juan the day before embarkation and a Meet & Greet to meet those who flew in the day of the cruise on Emabarkation day at the Sky Bar! We had a good group of people!

 

We were at this same M&M and know that RCCL bent over backwards to accommodate our group. The time for the M&M had originally been scheduled for 5pm and it also happened to be a formal night. Because some folks were concerned that it would interfere with getting ready for formal night, someone from our CC group emailed RCCL to see if the time could be changed and within a week she noted that the time had been changed to 10:15am. As Mike mentioned above the meet turned out as we expected. Nothing more, nothing less.