You might want to mention that you are a "Cruise Critic".

[greenie]

In setting up our meet and greet, I was advised (without my asking) that NCL will NOT be providing invitations, so I have made them myself... I was intending to put them on the little rack that is next to each door, will they be removed? I've never heard that signs weren't allowed... did they just tell you and ask you to remove them or did they take them down on their own?

 

I wonder if maybe NCL is getting a bit fed up with CC members expecting a whole bunch of freebies and special treatment? :o When I asked what info they'd need for our meeting, she volunteered that NCL would NOT be doing many of the things I've read about here (invites, staff, food etc)... without me mentioning it... it was almost as though she had answered the question many times before and was annoyed at the expectation... Just a thought... I KNOW that various members of NCL staff on different levels read these boards... so they KNOW if people are talking about these things and they hopefully KNOW if people are expecting something for free, or are appreciative of a nice surprise... I guess any of the special treatment would be a nice perk, but just going into the cruise armed with all of the knowledge I've learned here is the real :) bonus

 

It's just a thought, but I'd hate for NCL's perception of Cruise Critic to become negative...:o

 

Copper_beeches, I was wondering the same thing. I e-mailed an NCL rep about our Meet & Greet and got a reply the next day confirming date/time. That's it. I e-mailed back asking if they needed a head count and/or names & cabin numbers. No reply. Our cruise isn't intil 5/1 so I will go on the assumption it's too early for them to deal with anything more detailed--and I will try and re-establish contact next month. Still ... not asking for any info and then not replying after replying so quickly initially, I started wondering ... I agree that even just having a space and time is great. Just wish I knew what could be expected or if that's it, y'know? :confused:

[hcf]

I agree there are many perks to being a CC memeber especially with NCL. I arranged our cruise critic meeting with NCL nad they provided us a place to meet. I guess since I was the contact person I also recieved concierge service and had direct phone #'s to a lot of the senior officers on the ship. Every night at around 5 we had something delivered to our room from the concierge...usually a tray of canapes or chocolate covered strawberries...got 2 bottles of wine as well. It pays to do the legwork for a CC meeting on board!

 

EMCEMT

PLEASE TELL ME EXACTLY HOW YOU ARRANGED FOR YOUR CRUISE CRITIC WITH NCL. I WOULD LIKE TO ARRANGE FOR ONE ON THE 5/30 10-DAY ALASKA CRUISE ON THE DREAM. THANKS

IF ANYONE ELSE IS GOING ON THIS SAILING, PLEASE MAKE YOURSELVES KNOWN. :)

[sinkers22]

I organized a Cruise Critic meeting for our group on the Dawn a few weeks back. It took a few emails to Claudia Reyes, but she finally answered and simply asked how many people I thought would attend. She set up the meeting for Monday morning at 10:30 in the Star Bar. When I got to our cabin there was a letter from Ruth, offering me Concierge service and a letter from the Assistant Hotel Director asking me to confirm our meeting. Unfortunately, the first night was pretty rough, so only 8 showed up (people were very sick from rough seas) but there was a beautiful spread of danishes, muffins, orange juice and coffee. It was a nice surprise. The CD, Hotel Director, and 4 other Officers showed up and believe me, they know all about Cruise Critic! We also received canapes every afternoon, and sweets every evening, and a bottle of wine on our last night!

 

It was only offered to me and not to other members of the group. I assume it was for the work I did organizing the meeting, and it was quite nice of them. It sure made me a NCL fan and I will be sure to check out cruises with them, before I check other lines, when planning my next cruise! In fact, we might just do the Dawn again. It was a fabulous cruise!

[morningglorymish]

I love this site and to prove it we have ordered Cruise Critic logowear. :D My husband has a t shirt and I ordered a luggage tag that I am making into a key chain for my room card key. I'll be sure and have my big key chain out at all times. Doesn't hurt to support the site we love.

Many people from our CC meet are wearing logowear to our meeting and onto the ship. I think it's nice that NCL shows us a lit bit extra love. We are THE CRITICS. Forget the books. This is real people.

 

As far as staff reading this site

Maybe someone volunteers to check roll calls for each sailing.Good people skills.

 

Off on Sunday for my first cruise.

[jjfla]

EMCEMT

PLEASE TELL ME EXACTLY HOW YOU ARRANGED FOR YOUR CRUISE CRITIC WITH NCL. I WOULD LIKE TO ARRANGE FOR ONE ON THE 5/30 10-DAY ALASKA CRUISE ON THE DREAM. THANKS

IF ANYONE ELSE IS GOING ON THIS SAILING, PLEASE MAKE YOURSELVES KNOWN. :)

 

My husband and I will be on the May 30th cruise as well. Would love to meet you!!

[Elaine515]

After cruising on Carnival for years, and trust me, we love Carnival, just the fact that NCL is willing to give us a room to have our Meet & Greet in is a plus right off the bat.

 

Sure, I'd love a couple of "perks" for setting it up etc, but if I dont get any, thats ok too...

 

Thus far, Christina at NCL has been wonderful to me/with me in arranging our Meet & Greet this Saturday on the Spirit. We communicated both thru email and telephone. She asked me how many I thought would be showing up, asked me when we wanted it, confirmed it with the Cruise Group Coordinator on board the Spirit, and got back to me with the place.

 

I'll let you all know in about 11 days how it went and if there were any perks....

 

Right now the only perk I need is just knowing that I'll be on a ship tomorrow!!

 

 

..

[swoosh2005]

I thought I read somewhere that CC folks were asked not to put up door signs. I'd like to prepare some for our CC group on the Star 5/8/05 cruise. Does anyone have the scoop? I found the template on the RCL Meet and Greet site, but it doesn't mention RCL.

 

Adele

 

I helped organize our CC meeting for the Dawn 12/30 cruise and was given a very nice letter that among other things stated that we should NOT be posting signs.

For all they did for us I didn't think it was an imposition.

Denise

[cmdchiefthom]

Cecilia

 

I downloaded the CC meet and mingle door sign from the boards several months ago. If you'd like, I can email it to you and perhaps you can post it here for anyone to use.

[Cruise_More_Often]

Here's the link for the Meet and Mingle door sign. It's from CruiseCritic's Royal Caribbean Meet and Mingle Board. However, since so many are saying we shouldn't use them, ???

 

Adele

[Host CMLA]

I downloaded the CC meet and mingle door sign from the boards several months ago. If you'd like, I can email it to you and perhaps you can post it here for anyone to use.

Is it the RCI sign? If yes, then the poster below you linked to it. If it's a new sign, let me check with the administrator to see how we could post it. I don't know how to do that! :eek:

[greenie]

After cruising on Carnival for years, and trust me, we love Carnival, just the fact that NCL is willing to give us a room to have our Meet & Greet in is a plus right off the bat.

 

Sure, I'd love a couple of "perks" for setting it up etc, but if I dont get any, thats ok too...

 

Thus far, Christina at NCL has been wonderful to me/with me in arranging our Meet & Greet this Saturday on the Spirit. We communicated both thru email and telephone. She asked me how many I thought would be showing up, asked me when we wanted it, confirmed it with the Cruise Group Coordinator on board the Spirit, and got back to me with the place.

 

I'll let you all know in about 11 days how it went and if there were any perks....

 

Right now the only perk I need is just knowing that I'll be on a ship tomorrow!!

 

 

..

 

 

Elaine515--HAVE A WONDERFUL TRIP!! :)

[Dancinboots]

When we were on the Sun last year I attended a cruise critic meeting, and there was someone from NCL there to greet us in the lounge. She had brought along a large sign that said cruise critic meeting. You can decorate your doors or what ever ( we have done it in Hawaii) I even decorated around the mirror. Some people even decorate their balcony. Have fun with it.

 

One thing they don't want is for you to use tape that would be hard to remove. I am using Elmers tac & stick I purchased at Office Max for $1.39. I purchased a package of mexican decorations from a party store. Almost everyone from our cruise critic group will be decorating their door on our Mexican Riviera cruise on the Star next week!!

 

Sharon

[angelsx4]

Dancinboots,

Take pics for me please of all the cabins that are decorated if you can. That sounds like so much fun. We're taking our kids and we have two inside cabins next Jan. I was thinking about getting some surprise decorations for them for our own bon voyage thing. I'm not paying for the package thing. I'll bring some non-tape adhesive that won't leave marks. And I didn't think about getting decorations in Mexico. That would be a blast. We're going to have a girls(36, 14, and 8) and boys(36, 10, and 8). I have boy/girl twins. I'm sure I'll mention to our steward that I'm a Cruise Critic and hopefully more people will answer the roll call before then. Since we're taking our family, I plan to write a big review on all the kid and family friendly stuff.

 

Thanks!

Jenne

[angelsong]

A very good idea I may just do that on our cruise on the poa in June

[tigerlilycruiser12]

anglesong and others

 

when I went on the majesty cruise, I saw many doors decorated with such creativity. It was fun to see what people came up with. ;) They were great.

[niya305]

I find this too funny. I wonder if the staff on these NCL ships think the people are critics for some travel magazine or something and they are trying to provide excellent service so the "critics" will give NCL a good rating in their publications. They probably have no idea what cruise critic actually is here in the states.

 

Actually, much of the NCL crew is aware of our website. Some of them check up on these boards once in awhile. I do know that some of the Senior officers also stay on top of it.

[shoreguy]

Actually, much of the NCL crew is aware of our website. Some of them check up on these boards once in awhile. I do know that some of the Senior officers also stay on top of it.

 

The do in fact. When we were on the Dawn in Feb. The CD's morning TV message included a shout out to the CC members onboard and he was laughing at the fact he saw his name online.

 

What a great market sensing tool this site is for the cruise industry. Real time feedback on what the best customers are thinking. I am sure the roar around the intial problems on POAL helped fund a rapid fix to the situation and focus the problems that the passengers had the most issues with.

 

 

Proof this board is read by the most senior management. The following was cut from an email I recieved from Colin Veitch last year:

 

"I am glad the outcome has been to your satisfaction. I

have noticed you before on Cruise Critic and am glad now to make your

acquaintance under a real name!"

[BillandLaura]

You bet, they know who we are! I was on the June 20 San Francisco to Honolulu cruise onboard the Pride of Aloha! Most of the crew (especially officers) definitely knew who the "flamingos" (our CC group - we adopted a mascot) were and that we would be there! They also knew that we were a large group of people who were approaching that cruise with a positive attitude! We were treated very well by all and, by and large, had very little to complain about!

 

Not only did the crew know who we were, I ran into several people who saw my flamingo bracelet, or shirt, or something else and asked, "Are you a flamingo?" These were people who had never posted to our thread, but had been lurkers for some time...

 

The thing is, the cruise lines are aware of the existence of these message boards, and they can use them as a sort of "barometer" for their performance. They may not always admit it, but I would be surprised if there was a ship out there whose upper management did not keep an eye on their threads! The bottom line is, word of mouth (or of computer) has power. When people talk, other people listen! Therefore, the cruise lines want what you say about them to be good things.

[angelsx4]

You know I was just thinking. You said they know about these boards. WHAT IF? When you fill out that card for the steward that took such great care of you, and the waiter who sat down with you and visited for a few minutes(we were nosey and asked him to join us and tell us about himself and his family at the end of the late seating), and the other waitor who doted on me after I asked about preservatives in the food....If you mention in the comment card that you're going to mention them on the Cruise Critic Board by name because they were so awesome. It will get around and I'll bet the service could change dramatically(well, not that dramatic because we've had top notch service each time). But, I'm guessing no one would complain anymore about anything. And I do believe when you go in with the positive attitudes like BillandLaura mentioned you get better service. How much do you remember about the staff that waited on you?

[shoreguy]

How much do you remember about the staff that waited on you?

 

Enough to have sent and email to Colin Veitch naming each of the members of the crew that went the extra mile to make my last cruise special. I even sent a link to the thread on Gede the bartender in the Star Bar that others were praising.

 

Saying thank you for a great time can be done many ways. I did not want their efforts lost in a pile of 2000 comment cards only.

[emcemt]

EMCEMT

PLEASE TELL ME EXACTLY HOW YOU ARRANGED FOR YOUR CRUISE CRITIC WITH NCL. I WOULD LIKE TO ARRANGE FOR ONE ON THE 5/30 10-DAY ALASKA CRUISE ON THE DREAM. THANKS

IF ANYONE ELSE IS GOING ON THIS SAILING, PLEASE MAKE YOURSELVES KNOWN. :)

 

Sorry for the late response....from what I have experienced each ship has a seperate contact person that arranges such functions. For the Dawn it is Claudia Reyes. To arrange the meeting I simply E-mailed her with the request. She emailed me back a few questions (group size, etc) She confirmed the meeting a few weeks before the cruise having us meet in the Star Bar at 1030 am on our first sea day out. The had a nice spread of danish and muffins and coffee and juices. Numerous staff showed up. All were very helpful.

I agree that they know all about cruise critic. What I cant understand is why they dont have a formal policy in place with cruise critic like RCCI does. With RCCI if you have twenty cruise critic members register for a particular sailing on the RCCI website a party is automatically thrown on board. I must say though the NCL meet and greet on the Dawn were much better than the ones I attended on RCCI and I feel that NCL did go a little further with the customer service aspect knowing that we were from cruise critic. All the top managers handed us there buisness cards with their personal hand held extension #'s on them.

[Host CMLA]

What I cant understand is why they dont have a formal policy in place with cruise critic like RCCI does.

Because RCI was smart enough to take a chance on Cruise Critic when Cruise Critic came calling. I don't know if NCL was ever approached but when RCI signed the affiliation deal, they wanted exclusivity and they got it. I don't know when the agreement started but RCI might have been the only cruise line to take a chance on CC being successful and now they're reaping the rewards of having an official affiliation with what's probably the largest cruise board out there. At this time, no one else can have official CC events.

[singitalto]

We sailed the Dawn last year and I organized the cc meet and greet. They did put a lovely spread of juices and cookies. We were very happy with that. I never recieved anything for my efforts(and it was a pain, phone calls, being put on hold and a bunch of emails) Not a big deal- we had a great time on the cruise, enough so that 3 weeks from Sunday we will be on her again! Just an FYI, not everyone gets extra perks for organizing the cc meeting.

[hcf]

Sorry for the late response....from what I have experienced each ship has a seperate contact person that arranges such functions. For the Dawn it is Claudia Reyes. To arrange the meeting I simply E-mailed her with the request. She emailed me back a few questions (group size, etc) She confirmed the meeting a few weeks before the cruise having us meet in the Star Bar at 1030 am on our first sea day out. The had a nice spread of danish and muffins and coffee and juices. Numerous staff showed up. All were very helpful.

 

Thank you. Did you call NCL to find out who would be the contact person? I wll be on the Dream. :)

[marianneyaya]

I called NCL yesterday...for the Dawn, Claudia Reyes is on maternity leave and Yulexi is filling in for her. I sent an email, but haven't received a reply yet. Her email is passengercourtesydawn@ncl.com. Or...call and ask for that department.