A question for spongerob

[verwirrt]

I noticed on another thread that you had arranged a CC meeting for your group by contacting the purser's desk. Would like to do the same thing for our group sailing in October.

 

Is there a mimimum number in the group before Princess will do this?

 

Did you ask them as soon as you boarded?

 

I have names and cabin numbers for those who expressed interest. What else to I need.

 

Did they select the place and time or did you?

 

Sorry so many questions. Any other details you could provide, I'd certainly appreciate it!

 

Thanks,

Sharon (escaping the dreadful, oppresive heat in Tulsa as, I'm guessing are you in OKC :eek: )

[verwirrt]

Sponge where are you?

[srphnx]

Sharon,

 

I have done this setting up as well. The pursers desk is helpful but they are usually somewhat helpfully confused not really knowing who cruise critic is.

 

We picked the location, and provided the time and day info, I gave them cabin numbers and names and they sent out nice inviitations but did so late. I wouldn't plan it for the second day.. cuz no one got it in time.

It is hot here in Phoenix too, big surprise.

[spongerob]

Geez, d'ya gotta drag me out of bed at 5 AM...?:)

 

Here's the whole story, or as much as I can still remember after reading that airfares thread:

 

We had a very active roll call group for a Western Caribbean cruise. We really wanted a get together just like RCCL does for CC members. I had a distinct advantage. I was sailing back to back, and would be on the ship the week before the roll call group showed up. So, I inquired with the purser's desk about the possibility of setting up a function for our group while we were still on the Eastern cruise.

 

Shortly after making my request, I received a phone call from a very nice person in guest services. I explained what I wanted to do. I went ahead and booked the Skywalker Lounge, with waiters and snacks, for a mid-cruise sailaway party from Costa Maya. All was arranged in just a few minutes and I was able to get on the internet and let the roll call group know the plans for our mid-cruise party.

 

On the appointed day the following week, I went up to Skywalker a few minutes early and saw that someone had placed "Private Function" signs at the door. There was already a largish group gathered, so I went over to them. I didn't really recognize anyone, but I'm not that good with names and faces, so I just walked right up and asked very cheerily, "Are you folks here for the cocktail party?"

 

Stunned silence.

 

This wasn't my group. In fact, it was the daily Alcoholics Anonymous group meeting. :eek: So why the hell does AA have their meetings in a bar. Huh??? Man, was I embarassed.

 

The next thing to go wrong was that I'd been given the wrong time for cast-off the previous week. I had therefore scheduled the party about 2 hours earlier than I should have (4 PM instead of 6 PM). Most of our group was still ashore. Those who were on board, though, came up and we did yeoman's service keeping both waiters busy and eating the snacks I had ordered. One of our group was a somewhat recognizable actress of BH 90210 fame, or so I was told since that wasn't one of my shows. Anyway, she was cute and laughed at my jokes, so famous person or not she was OK in my books.

 

We tipped our waiters and bartenders well by putting together a whip-around for them. I'm sure they had to sacrifice their time off to take care of us, so I hope what they got extra was worth their while. Princess comped me the hors d'oeuvres because they'd mixed up the sailing time and many didn't make the party until late, or not at all.

 

Basically, I think this can be done without the need to have someone on the ship the week before. Your roll call group needs to decide upon a day and time to get together. Someone has to take charge and set it up (if possible) early on the first full day of the cruise. You might put your request in on embarkation day, but with all that is going on the message might get misplaced. Planning ahead is key, though. You need to give the ship's staff plenty of time to find a place for you if you want to have bar service available. You'll also need to have a large enough group to make it worthwhile. Don't be surprised when many decide not to show up - there are so many things going on that the roll call group might not be a priority.

 

Hope this helps.:)

[mii]

Sharon: We are planning a cruise in Oct. and our roll call people are doing a get-together all on our own. We agreed that it is much easier to get everyone together, we have already discussed where we are meeting, the time we are meeting etc. ON our last cruise we also did the same thing and it worked out great. Trust me where we met on the Lido deck there was a waiter right there getting out drinks; we ended up staying togeter for about 2 hours,

 

I know that you can plan with the ship to celebrate meeting together but I just find after reading some of the posts in recent threads that just do it on your own.

 

Marilyn

[verwirrt]

'K, thanks for the replies. I'm thinking just doing a regular get together without going through the ship is the way to go. That's what we've done before and it was still a lot of fun. Was just thinking that a private location with waiters and snack would be cool, but sounds like it might be more trouble than it's worth. KISS, right? :)

 

Sponge, was there a charge for this service? I know you said you were comped for the snacks.

[lkmamom]

Marilyn,

 

Getting together with cruise critic roll call members is so much fun. Our family actually had the great honor of meeting the famous "SpongeRob" and wife. They are great fun and we had a blast getting to know everyone.

 

Another fun thing to do as a group ( as we did) is to pool your money together and buy a racehorse. We had a lot of fun decorating our horse and planning and the we even involved the kids, they made signs advertising our horse before the actual race. There will never be a finer "SeaBuffet" race horse

 

Part of the excitement before the cruise was getting to know the people that would be on our cruise. Call it lucky, but we had such a great group of cruise critic buddies on our Eastern Carribean cruise. Have fun!:)

 

Linda