Groups on Board?

How can I tell if a large group is booked on a cruise that I am looking at. I really don't want to cruise with the Drum Player's Marathon cruise if you know what I mean

Thanks!

This question has been asked and answered in previous posts, but the short answer is, no, there isn't a cruise line that will tell you if any large groups are booked for a particular cruise, just for the reason you mentioned. They don't want people not booking or cancelling because they won't like a particular group that will also be sailing. There aren't any internet sites that will tell you anything either. But with all the cruises out there, the chances of booking with a large group isn't all that great.

Darcie

Durn

You can always try google and search for the cruise (ship and dates) you are interested in. Many groups post information about their group cruises.

It's not fool-proof, but it might be better than nothing.

By the way, Vogue Knitting is taking a group to Alaska in August on the Island Princess.

http://www.a1specialtytours.com/Knittingframe.htm

Counting down to the Rhapsody OTS - 12/05/04

Maybe try asking your TA or call the cruise line directly. As a tidbit, we had a large group of kids from various schools that were band members. While I almost died when I saw them onboard, they were one of the most well behaved groups of kids that I have encountered in my life!

OUR NEXT ONWARD JOURNEY!

We had a large group of Cookie Lee salespeople on our cruise to Alaska last summer. There was a smaller group of employees from an Italian company. We did not have any problems with either group. The Cookie Lee women were fun to talk to. They did have a special reception for them in one of the lounges--but it was late afternoon and did not interfere with the evening activities in that lounge.

The Italian group did get some announcements made in Italian over the PA system, but it did not bother me. They also had the newsletters printed in Italian for them. We noticed that one afternoon when walking down one of the corridors of cabins. All of their cabins must have been close together.

I agree with the Yahoo & Google search idea. This is exactly what I do.

For example, you could type in something like...

"Voyager" and "January 10 - 17, 2005"

OR

"Voyager" and "January 10"

When I last did this (for my own upcoming sailing) it took me about 5 minutes to find out that TWO groups had booked on the same sailing as mine. (It pays to do this search ahead of time I'm sure!) Hopefully both groups are small & won't overwhelm the rest of the ship. I'm sure each ship has a handful of smaller groups that we never even hear about.

It's not a sure-fire way to find out if a group is on your ship... but it's a start.

.

In December 2003, we were on the AOS where there was a group of +/- 300 Trekies plus Mister Sulu. They kept to themselves. I saw no pointy ears or Vulcan salutes. They were just like everyone else on the cruise - looking to have a good time. Go and enjoy!

Live long and Prosper \\//

SBtS

Here's to swimmin' with bowlegged women........

-- Cpt Quint of The Orca, Amity, USA

We had a large group sailing on Infinity last August. The only problem we had was the group took over the cinema for the week. A little disappointing for us, since we like to see a movie or two on our cruise. We just rented a couple of movies in our cabin to watch.

This past Halloween on the Star Princess my brother ran into a very large group. They were called something like the XXXL Bears, can't remember for sure, but they were a large group of about 575 that were older, gay men. What is even more interesting is the reaction from most of the other passengers. Everywhere my brother went, people were talking about this group and how much fun they were! I guess they took over Skywalkers every night and it soon became known as "Gaywalkers" with the YMCA song being played on a regular basis. It actually sounded like a lot of fun.

Large groups of any kind can make a cruise more interesting as long as you have an open mind and nobody is being disrespectful to other passengers. I think the brats that are allowed to run the halls and disrupt elevators are much more annoying.

On one cruise almost 2/3 of the ship were fans of a country/zydeco group. At first I was panicked as I am not a fan of this type of music. What we discovered was--

1-the public rooms were almost deserted as they held their own events in the theater most of the time

2-most of the fans were much like "deadheads"- very peaceful and looking for a good time without bothering anybody

3-very few "professioanal complainers" on board as these people are used to camping in pastures- this was ultimate luxury

4-great deals toward the end of the week when they realized this group was not into the spa thing!

5-they were up late and slept in so there were no lines for the early tenders!

granted, some groups would not be the most pleasant ( I won't name them for fear of offending someone) but my post is to let you know that it isn't all bad when there are large groups on board.

We found right here on a CC rollcall that we were on a "Blue Grass" cruise. If you are on with a large group there is a good chance that you will run across the info that way. I was a little worried about it because this is not my kind of music but it was no problem at all. We met a lot of very interesting people. I hope this helps!