Meet & Mingle

[terrytallent1]

This will be our first official meet and mingle for cruise critic when we take the RCCL Brilliance 5/11 around the Med. I had some questions about who is in charge and what happens in the way of names tags, door tags, cruise critic giveaways, party time and place etc. Any feedback on what to expect would be appreciated. terrytallent1

[johnjen]

We applied online for the cruise critic membership on our last cruise. Our name tags were waiting in the cabin for us when we arrived, indicating the date and time and place of the meet. are The person in charge of the M&M is usually a staff member. Door prizes are offered and there is a ticket draw held near the end of the meet. You are given a small "Cruise Critic" pin as well. It's a nice little thing to do, plus they will have Hors' Douerves and soft drinks.

 

You can get the Cruise Critic M&M door sign on the boards here, near the top, but that is not required.

 

Now, should you get onboard and there is nothing to tell you about the M&M and there is nothing in your cabin, consult with the information desk right away.

[dashton]

Johnjen is correct. There is usually a staff person that is in charge. It really is a place to meet the people you have been chatting with on line prior to your cruise. There are door prizes given away and everyone gets a cruise critic pin. I made name tags for our last Meet & Mingle but there will be name tags there. I also downloaded the Meet & Mingle door sign for our cabin. Have a great time and meet lots of new friends. :cool:

[wraithe]

I would recommend that you do additional door prizes as well, maybe the folks who want to bring some little something from their home towns, for instance, I brought one of the guys at ours, a terrible towel. He was a Steelers fan and couldn't get one easily in Atlanta. I also brought shot glasses from Pittsburgh, and little things like that. Make sure the staff person knows you want to include them in his give away. I would also suggest that you get as many people who are willing to say their names and/or handles, help break the ice a little. Just a couple thoughts.

[emeraldcity]

Wraithe is right.

 

A Meet&Mingle is what the group makes it to be. We included a raffle/gift exchange (bring one-get one) for those who wanted to participate and we had a great turn-out. We set a $10-15 price range and suggested you bring something from your geographical area. I brought something from the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame. It was lots of fun and there was plenty of kidding about some of the things people had posted about. The staff did their presentation and gave out their gifts, and then left us to our gift exchange, which was handled by one of our group.

[scotts8826]

When the time comes for the Meet and Mingle, expect about half of those signed up to not make the meeting. Once on the ship there is so much to do that conflicts occur. Ours was on the first full day when we were at sea. We were competing with the shopping report for Key West so several folks attended that instead.

 

Our son won the best raffle prize on the ship! It is a computer mouse that has the back half filled with a blue fluid that floats a cruise ship with a clear fluid on top for the ship to sail through. It has a Royal Caribbean logo on it. They do not sell them in the gift shop so it is a rare item.

[Schasz]

We did our first Meet & Mingle on the last cruise on the Grandeur. I believe that at least 25 people must register for it. We are going on the June 18th AOS and so far my family are the only ones registered for the Meet & Mingle. There aren't too many people that are even posting on the Meet & Mingle for our cruise.

 

John & Shari

[BayMan123]

Be careful, I just got off the Navigator on Saturday. Our Meet and Mingle never took place.

Not sure what happened, but I called the Guest Relation desk several times and never got a straight answer about why it didn't take place. We had about 50 people ready to meet.

RCL really dropped the ball on this one, and worse they didn't seem to care. By Monday afternoon, I just asked Guest Relations just to provide a room for us and make some sort of an announcement for the meeting. I wasn't interested in having them provide anything beyond a meeting room. They never got back to me!

[Woody]

We did our first Meet & Mingle on the last cruise on the Grandeur. I believe that at least 25 people must register for it. We are going on the June 18th AOS and so far my family are the only ones registered for the Meet & Mingle. There aren't too many people that are even posting on the Meet & Mingle for our cruise.

 

John & Shari

 

You are right. Wish you were going to be on my cruise; having the same problem, but at least there are 11 people signed up for our Meet & Mingle. Sailing July 16, Maniner. If anyone is reading this post and haven't signed up for your Meet & Mingle please consider doing that today, they wont hold one unless 25 people have signd up..

[terrytallent1]

Thanks to everyone for their input. I did an unofficial meet and mingle on the NCL Wind for 16 last month and 10 showed up. NCL provided non alcoholic drinks and meeting space and a staff officer and we enjoyed it. The Brilliance 5/11 from Barcelona 12 nights in the Med has close to 50 signed up. We are not super organized for a gift exchange or extra door prizes but some have sailed on cruises that had meet and mingles and it looks like we should have a good turn out. The only problem seems to be the fact the meet and mingle may be scheduled at 11 am and we dock at 10 AM for Monte Carlo/Nice so a lot may be trying to do shore excursions. Our TA signed up 38 so she is having the ship throw a party for us on a sea day. The unofficial meet and mingle on the Wind we decided to meet again for St Patricks day in one of the bars and we had 12 show up. We found the other 4 and they apologized for not getting the time for the St Patricks party. The important thing was for everybody to have a good time. Looking forward to a great time in the Med 5/11 on Brilliance!

[Schasz]

I would give a call out to anyone going on the June 18th AOS cruise to sign up for the Meet & Mingle. We like to meet the people that we share stories with on Cruise Critic.

 

John & Shari

[LLSullie]

Don't forget that the Meet & Mingle takes place in Ship Time.

 

We had a lot of people not show because they forgot to change the time on their watches.

 

Still had a good turnout though. Some of the nicest folks I've ever met :D

[pacthepuppies]

Be careful, I just got off the Navigator on Saturday. Our Meet and Mingle never took place.

 

Not sure what happened, but I called the Guest Relation desk several times and never got a straight answer about why it didn't take place. We had about 50 people ready to meet.

 

RCL really dropped the ball on this one, and worse they didn't seem to care. By Monday afternoon, I just asked Guest Relations just to provide a room for us and make some sort of an announcement for the meeting. I wasn't interested in having them provide anything beyond a meeting room. They never got back to me!

 

Ours was very nice- about 10 people came- we had food and drinks and gifts and the MOUSE- hands off chelle!!!!- and it was very nice- guess it depends on the ship and the crew...

[emen822]

was also cancelled..even though we had over 30 people signed up for it AND it was in the cruise compass. We showed up and there was something else going on. Someone called guest relations and they were told by the Miami office that it was cancelled. It made no sense to us since we were confirmed on the Royal Caribbean website and each received an email confirmation! So they said they would get back to us and they did schedule another one for us during the week. It was very nice, even though we basically all had met the first day at the pool bar. They gave out these little notepads and then had a few raffles.