Carnival M&G's, have you attended one that actually "worked"?

[micro yaya]

now we did have a great one on the freedom in 97' our c.d. came and took pictures, he was absolutely terrific. there were about 40 of us. we call ourselves the MELLOW YELLOWS it was the third trip for the freedom and of course our cd was john heald. he couldn't have been nicer :)

[Gayle V]

We have been to several Meet and Greets, both informal and arranged thru the cruise line. And on both Carnival and RCI. For the few arranged ones, I've found that the crew members assigned to attend usually just "show up" say hi and leave. Never had any of them give a speech longer than than to just say: "Thank you for cruising with us. Have fun."

 

For the informal ones, where the entire plan consists of "Let's meet at the aft bar on the lido, right after muster", those seem to go the way the roll call went. If the roll call was busy and funny, and chatty, so was the Meet and Greet.

 

If the roll call was slow and quiet, and people didn't check in often, then the Meet and Greet tended to be poorly attended, and just a brief, "Hi", "Hello, nice to finally meet you." And broke up quickly.

[pkrchkr]

I am organizing the private cocktail party for the Breeze Nov 24-Dec2 2012 cruise out of POM..I come from the certal prairies in Canada where we have giant parties to raise funds for such things as weddings, and charites they are called Socials.. that is what our Cocktail party is based on.. the largest and 1st ever Social at sea.. We are doing a 50/50 draw where the winning ticket will get 50% and the staff gets the other 50%of the profits from ticket sales for the draw.. we are also getting donations from attendees for a silent auction again the proceeds go to our great servers...It will be a 2 hour open bar with dry snacks.. but we have reserved the right to hi jack the Pizza guy and a DJ LOL...

All you need to do to get one of these started is contact CCL special event team, get a roll call going and get a spread sheet to make your list.. On event day there will an employee check the number of attending.. and charge your S&S card for the amount of people in the room.. be sure to identify clearly those who are drinking and those who are not as there is different prices for the non drinkers.. an you don't want to get stiffed..

I attened one Cocktail party on the Glory this past Feb and had a wonderful time..there was alos in informal sail away on the lido deck by the aft pool.. not to many showed for that but did find a few good friends out of it all..

Cheers/Salut'

[snedecor]

On the Conquest, we had a great M&G with Wee Jimmy, although he wasn't going by Wee Jimmy, due to some political correctness of the day. ( A virtual solid gold plastic ship on a stick to who remembers his nomme de guerre at the time)

 

We set it up with Mach's help. We met at 1:00 in the piano bar on the first sea day, and Jimmy showed up with the assistant CD, the piano bar pianist (who he announced he was dating), the ventriloquist, and a bag of goodies!

 

He welcomed us, thanked us for coming, answered our questions, went round to his team for introductions, questions, etc. He then brought out some trivia sheets and we played for drink tickets, prizes, trinkets, etc.! It was really fun!

 

As things were winding down, Jimmy announced that he loved us all, and said he needed a secret sign so that he could identify us for special perks (such as front row seats at the shows) etc. We came up with two hands held chest high with hands facing together making forward and backward C's (standing of course for Cruise Critic). You would see him during that cruise, walking around making that silly sign, and most of the pax not having a clue what he was doing!

 

We also showed our love for Jimmy for obtaining for him over 90 barbeque wings from the KFC in Grand Cayman, one of his favorite foods!

 

After he left, we stayed and mingled and matched faces to names we had seen on the Roll Call boards. We ended up doing some excursions together, and the Roll Call thread lasted long after the voyage had ended.

 

Meet and Greets are what you make of them. If you've had a good roll call, where you have gotten to know and invested a little in your group, you're going to want to get to know them. If it was a perfunctory listing of who's going, you may not care to know the others.

 

None of my others have been bad, but none have measured up to the "secret sign" Meet and Greet!

 

Gayle Snedecor

[snedecor]

It also seems, based on my limited number of M&G's that the ones on the first sea day are better attended.

 

We even had two on one cruise, on on the Lido just after sailaway, and one on the first sea day. The embarkation day had 4 people, the first sea day probably had 40.

 

I can see why. On embarkation day, people are excited to be on perhaps a new ship, looking around, setting up reservations, waiting on luggage, etc. and may not remember to come to the M&G. Getting the one on the first sea day into the Fun Times may also help attendance (although we got one couple who though our Cruise Critic Meet and Greet was a complaints desk!