How do special chartered ships differ from regular intineraries?

[mszpolaris]

So I'm boarding a special chartered music cruise in January, and besides the obvious factors, how is everything else?

 

The food?

The service?

 

Thank you!

[sail7seas]

Service will be the same as always.

Food might vary some with special requests having been arranged in advance by charter leader but for the most part, expect the usual.

 

Itineraries are often somewhat adapted to special requests of the group. Of course, you will know the intinerary in advance.

 

[paul929207]

These things can be identical to a normal cruise or completely altered. It is up to the leader(s) of the group.

[cb at sea]

Some "charters" will have events suited to the group....like on "Rock and Roll" charters, there will be concerts by favorite bands. Stuff like that!

[kitty9]

A lot depends on whether the entire ship is chartered or if it's a partial charter.

[mszpolaris]

well the whole ship is chartered, so I was just wondering what its like to be on a fully chartered ship

[marco]

You mentioned that it is a "musical" charter. Probably most of the entertainment will be of the venue of the type of music that is the theme of the charter. IE: If it's a jazz cruise, most of the entertainment will be jazz, if it's a county and western cruise, most of the entertainment will be C&W, if it's a big band cruise, most of the entertainment will be 40's era music, etc, etc. It's likely that the itinerary will not be different than had it not been a charter for your group, but you would know that from when the trip was originally advertized. I doubt that there were be any changes to menu/food unless specifically requested by whoever organized the charter.

[okgirl]

I read a thread about a complete charter by a religious group and they required that none of the bars have liqour in them and the casino remained closed all week.

[sail7seas]

A lot depends on whether the entire ship is chartered or if it's a partial charter.

 

I didn't think was anything called a 'partial charter'. There can be large groups as part of a regular cruise but either a ship is chartered or not.

 

A charter takes over the whole ship and the only way to book is through the group.

 

A large group is simply part of the whole and others not part of the group can book in their usual way.

 

It is miserable to be on a ship that has a very large group that constitutes more than 30% of the total. It happened to us once and we were barred from using parts of the ship for the whole cruise.

 

Sadly, cruise lines keep that information as secret as they can so they can sell the cabins the group does not use.

[notentirelynormal]

My husband's company chartered a Carnival ship once. Drinks were free but we had to pay for bottled water. Go figure! The food was the same as a normal cruise. Some of the venues were closed due to company supplies taking them up. The entertainment was definitely specialized for the company... since they sang the company's name in their routine. We were all given an OBC and if you went over that you had to pay like on a regular cruise. The company had flown people in from all around the world so it still had an interesting flavor of people from different backgrounds even though everyone worked for the same place.