Gift Bags..A little advice please

[aainsjen]

Hello ladies-

I am getting married Jan 27 on the Carnival Liberty. I plan on doing wedding gift bags for all my 40 sailing guests. Here are my questions:

 

I live in NY so I am shipping all my goodies down beforehand to the house we are staying at..but I would like to get more "sample" products, like asprin, shampoo etc...any good ideas on where to go or look online thats affordable?

 

Now do you think I should bring everything on the ship and hand out the bags after the wedding or do it the night before when everyone arrives, it would obviously be easier then lugging everything on to the ship but I think everyone would be pleasantly surprised after the fact. And do you think the stewards will let me in the rooms to drop them off?

 

I think thats all for now.. Thank you for the advice in advance!!

[2007CarnivalBride]

I got all the travel size stuff for our bags from a site call minimus.biz they are great! They have absolutely everything just in small travel sizes and for pretty reasonable prices! :D

[sas80]

We got married on the Vision in 2004.

 

I know that my wedding was "2 full years ago", and that I should "just get over it" ;) but....

 

I shipped everything before hand. We (the wedding party, DH and I) put the wedding favors together ON the ship, prior to the wedding. Here is what we did....

 

If you are working with a travel agent then you can have your travel agent call the cruise line - if you are handling your own reservations then call yourself.

 

You (your TA) can call the cruise line and reserve a conference room for your wedding party to sit in and assemble things. The cruise line just needs to know what date/time you would like to reserve the room for.

 

I also recommend that any brides being married on the ship, during the cruise, reserve a conference room for an hour or two prior to their wedding in a location that is close to the wedding venue. It serves as a great gathering place/home base for the wedding party and, this way, you don't have to go knocking on anyones doors/calling anyones room. You just meet at a particular conference room at a particular time.

 

Hope that this info is helpful!

[megr1125]

that mini whatever site has lots of stuff...plus most targets and wal marts have lots and lots of this too....cheap....

 

btw sas...that line was funny!! :)

 

congrats and good luck....

[flhokie]

I also found that Office Depot and Staples sell boxes of the individual packets of Tylenol, Advil, etc. I got a box of 50 packets (2 per packet) of Tylenol for $14 at a local Office Depot (they seem to have more variety on their websites). They also had a box of Purell Wipes for less than $10 for around 50 wipes. Minimus.biz also has a lot of good stuff. We've also been keeping our eyes open for things at Dollar Tree and other places, especially with end of season sales too.

 

We ordered custom printed tote bags from qualitylogoproducts.com. They had a good selection, resonable prices and great services.

 

We will have a full day in Ft. Lauderdale before sailing so, if we haven't assembled the bags yet (except for the wine) we plan to do it in our hotel there. We will be driving to Ft. Lauderdale since it's only a 3 hour drive for us which definitely makes it easier. If you will be flying to your cruise definitely ship everything in advance if you can. We'll then put our bags in some suitcases and add the wine once we're onboard. Princess said that they will deliver the bags to the cabins for $.50 per bag, which would be a total of about $15 for us so we will probably do that so we don't have to worry about them.

 

sas80 thanks for the idea about the conference rooms.

[aainsjen]

Thanks ladies for all the great ideas, Im actually searching EBAY and have found some reasonable things on there as well!

 

Keep the ideas coming!!

THanks again.

[DNineMoons]

I think I'll be getting my stuff at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. If you have the store that has the Harmon store in it (personal/beauty care items) they usually have a ridiculous amount of travel sized things. I could spend hours there, travel things are so cute! They have adorable mini bottles of sunscreen, as they do on the minimus site, but I think they're a little cheaper. Plus, if you catch the right coupon (or are industrious enough to go back a ton of times to get the 20% 1 item coupons that seem are in abundance) then you could get a pretty good deal.

[NurseBeth]

We got married on the Vision in 2004.

 

I know that my wedding was "2 full years ago", and that I should "just get over it" ;) but....

 

Okay....that was just TOO FUNNY!!!!

 

If you are working with a travel agent then you can have your travel agent call the cruise line - if you are handling your own reservations then call yourself.

 

You (your TA) can call the cruise line and reserve a conference room for your wedding party to sit in and assemble things. The cruise line just needs to know what date/time you would like to reserve the room for.

 

I also recommend that any brides being married on the ship, during the cruise, reserve a conference room for an hour or two prior to their wedding in a location that is close to the wedding venue. It serves as a great gathering place/home base for the wedding party and, this way, you don't have to go knocking on anyones doors/calling anyones room. You just meet at a particular conference room at a particular time.

 

Hope that this info is helpful!

This is FANTASTIC info!!!! I never thought of the whole conference room thing!! Sas I don't care what anyone else says ;) you are awesome!! :D

[sas80]

I also found that Office Depot and Staples sell boxes of the individual packets of Tylenol, Advil, etc. I got a box of 50 packets (2 per packet) of Tylenol for $14 at a local Office Depot (they seem to have more variety on their websites). They also had a box of Purell Wipes for less than $10 for around 50 wipes. Minimus.biz also has a lot of good stuff. We've also been keeping our eyes open for things at Dollar Tree and other places, especially with end of season sales too.

 

We ordered custom printed tote bags from qualitylogoproducts.com. They had a good selection, resonable prices and great services.

 

We will have a full day in Ft. Lauderdale before sailing so, if we haven't assembled the bags yet (except for the wine) we plan to do it in our hotel there. We will be driving to Ft. Lauderdale since it's only a 3 hour drive for us which definitely makes it easier. If you will be flying to your cruise definitely ship everything in advance if you can. We'll then put our bags in some suitcases and add the wine once we're onboard. Princess said that they will deliver the bags to the cabins for $.50 per bag, which would be a total of about $15 for us so we will probably do that so we don't have to worry about them.

 

sas80 thanks for the idea about the conference rooms.

 

You know....we made up on board invitations to give to our guests as well as a "your presence is requested" invitation for the rehearsal....

 

My plan was to run around to everybody's rooms, or at least in the vicinity of them, and ask a local room steward to open the room so I could put the invitation in the room, on the bed.

 

This is what we did and we had no problems finding the room steward for everyone's cabin. They are usually out and about, cleaning someone's cabin (right?)

 

So you might want to consider saving yourself some $$ and trying this plan. I am willing to bet that you can accomplish delivery yourself....!

 

Also, now that I am typing this, we had the rehearsal in a conference room as well, prior to our 8:30 late seating dinner time.

[Boo's Mom]

Hello ladies-

I am getting married Jan 27 on the Carnival Liberty. I plan on doing wedding gift bags for all my 40 sailing guests. Here are my questions:

 

I live in NY so I am shipping all my goodies down beforehand to the house we are staying at..but I would like to get more "sample" products, like asprin, shampoo etc...any good ideas on where to go or look online thats affordable?

 

Now do you think I should bring everything on the ship and hand out the bags after the wedding or do it the night before when everyone arrives, it would obviously be easier then lugging everything on to the ship but I think everyone would be pleasantly surprised after the fact. And do you think the stewards will let me in the rooms to drop them off?

 

I think thats all for now.. Thank you for the advice in advance!!

 

You could put a lanyard type of a holder in the bags, for each guest. We got ours at a ski shop. It is really nice. Several zippered compartments, ...and a see through area for their ship card. It will cost in excess of $5.00 per person, though. You might consider putting one "big item" in each bag, meaning one item that cost more than the rest.

 

Another thought: How about a pen?

A personalized pen.

Thank you for sailing with us, pen?

You could put the name of the ship and sail dates.

A nice souvenir for your guests.

 

The ship provides pens in the cabins, but it still seems like we are always looking for a pen.

 

Chekc with your travel agent. Sometimes they get promo things that represent the cruiseline.

 

How exciting for you. Best Wishes as you sail into your new life together.

[aainsjen]

What great ideas you all have!

Im doing T Shirts for my big item, but I am doing personalized Stickey notes. On VistaPrint.com you can do faces, so since we'll be married I did Hubby, myself, and our 2 dogs and underneath the faces I added out new married name.

I think everyone will get a kick out of them!

[2007CarnivalBride]

We also included bottles of water with personalized water proof labels in our bags. Everyone really enjoyed them especially since you have to pay for bottled water on the ship. We even had other people aboard the ship asking our guests were they got the bottles of water from!:D

[AlabamaWorley]

Has anyone actually shipped all of your goodie bags (already assembled) to the ship so they are in your cabin when you arrive? I don't want to lug anything extra ANYWHERE!

 

I suppose then as long as I have everyone's cabin number, I can get our onboard coordinator to deliver them the first evening...we get married the next day AT SEA:D

[kruise22]

To Aainsjen, when is your wedding. Are you getting married on the Liberty January 27, 2008. We have a group of the same size on the Liberty and we are getting married on Grand Cayman. We are going to do gift bags too.

[aainsjen]

Yes I am getting married that day, but were doing it right on the ship that day. I have decided against the goodie bags, my mom talked me out of them --she thinks there not necessary. You must of just booked your wedding because I talked to Carnival 2 weeks ago and they said I was the only wedding. Maybe Im the only ship board wedding??

[kruise22]

That's right. Carnival doesn't know that we are having our wedding. I booked directly through the Grand Old House and am getting so excited. It's really creeping up. We have been booked since March so I just tried to put it in the back of my mind so I wouldn't drive myself crazy, now, It's coming quick. I hope you have a fantastic wedding, and so much fun on the cruise. Maybe we will run into each other. I will probably be wearing my dress to dinner the night of Grand Cayman so if you see me feel free to say Hi!! That would be awesome.

[aainsjen]

Well I can guarantee you that you will see me in my dress at dinner, I'm not taking that dress off til I possibly have too!! I am getting excited, just hoping everything works out just because so much is out of my hands, and Im a little bit of a control freak. If you want to chat directly my email address is bergerinsjen@adelphia.net.

Good luck to you too!

Jen