Worthwhile Meet & Mingle?

Lots of good commentary and accurate info.in the posts above. However, everyone doesn't like the same things. These things are what the roll callers and participants make them. Many people get cold feet or are naturally shy. some people just aren't people persons and are not interested in meeting others. Even with that, it's surprising how many people who show up wind up being glad they went. Especially to the preliminary and roll call planned "informal" and quick meet ups on sail away day. Having attended and organized or helped organized (not strictly or with a lot of rules) several myself, I can say from experience that some meet & greets or mingles work out great and some are duds. However, even the duds can often yield a nice person or a few who you connect with and may end up running into them over and over around the ship finding they like the same things you do. Or you might find yourself in an activity or on a shore excursion with someone you met briefly, then maybe decide to sit down with for a drink or coffee. This often leads to a new friend, whether just for the cruise or even longer. People have met who are from the same city, or who both have kids on board near the same age. Someone might need someone to share a taxi tour with and hooks up with another cruiser needing the same. Things like that.

The first time I ever registered on a roll call was for a 2003 cruise. It was a Royal Caribbean sailing. I, like so many, lurked a bit first but eventually joined the thread. It ended up being one of the best things to enhance cruising that I ever did! (We had cruised several times before then over the years, but never really connected much with other people other than whoever was at our dining table) The first roll call meetup was in the atrium after sail away, and was just sort of a chance to briefly meet. Very unstructured. Nice people. Nice conversation. It helped that we also attended the ship sponsored Meet & Mingle the next day as well, which advanced the connecting. We'd see each other and chat at times throughout the cruise. One of the couples visited us later in the year and they also did another cruise with us. On another cruise (on a line that didn't sponsor M&Ms), we did another brief meetup. Later some of us ran into each other in the dining room and around the ship. That led to permanent friends (7 of us - 3 couples and a single man) who periodically still cruise together after 10 years. None of us knew each other before that.

Actually, it's almost worse if there is a roll call meet & mingle or a gift exchange or other activity on a ship which has a huge roll call. Even if it's quite active. Our most successful M&M was on a 12 nt Celebrity cruise. I think they were about 40 taking part. We continued to meet with a number of those who first attended our informal get together all throughout the cruise. The M&M was fun because the CD attended. We also had an excellent gift exchange (gifts easy to transport or pack that had something to do with where the give was from. Some more creative than others but it didn't matter at all.) Since the actual cruise director attended and MC'd the gift exchange (with many funny remarks about the gifts), it was a blast! Oddly, the worst one we were involved with was also a Celebrity cruise. Only a small handful of people brought a gift (it was not required, of course. Those who brought one, got to take one. The rest didn't.). However, the roll call had around 200 different posters and most of them showed up at the Celebrity set M&M! Impossible to MC the gift exchange. We later learned one couple who arrived early left thinking a gift was required when they saw several sitting on a piano. The venue was in the evening (almost between the 2 dinner seatings) in a room far too small to hold that number of people except for standing and squished up.

Someone above mentioned NCL and their officers attending and giving out ph. numbers. The numbers came in handy for us twice on a cruise and something was taken care of that we were unable to get done ourselves. I'm glad the line continues to do that, apparently, because at the time I thought it may have been because we had a person who was professionally reviewing the ship in the group. We also had a very fun glow bowling game with everyone on that trip. Sometimes there have been slot pull tourneys (some ships don't want to award a THING for the players. Others are generous.) There are the cabin crawls as well. All sorts of things, really, depending upon the roll callers. Not all people attend all or any of the extra events (assuming there are any that get organized). Usually input on what to do, where and how, can be voted on right on the thread before the cruise. Sometimes things are planned after meeting each other. If someone joins a roll call and thereafter never, ever reads a post, they may all out of the loop. Unless they are willing to approach others and even just introduce themselves, they can't hope for much of a successful roll call.

IMO, a casual, informal and quick meet up on sailway day or the day after works wonders. A super large turnout at any official M&M means you might get to chat with a few people, but don't expect to be able to meet ALL of them. You get a much better turnout at at M&M when at least several people agree to take part in a gift exchange or some sort of an attendance prize. This is because when someone drags along a gift, they are more likely to show up to trade it and get one themselves. Sometimes people say they will attend - no matter what type of a meet up or M&M it is - and once on the ship are "too tired', or find there is something else they want to do at that time. That is another reason why the informal "touch base" initial meet up is good. Someone can stop by very briefly, introduce themselves to those - or a few - who are already there- and go about their way. At the ship sponsored ones, sometimes there are t-shirts, lanyards or other little things to be won which the cruse line provides. Other times nothing at all is given out. If a gift exchange or other activity is scheduled by the roll callers at all, it should not be at an initial touch base meet up, IMO. Some people may not have their bags yet or are too tired after traveling to do things like slot tourneys or cabin crawls.

Some itineraries and some ships differ. Oasis of the Seas often used to have a lot of no-shows.(I'm sure sometimes it had many but I read many complaints about this a few years back.) Huge number of pax but just so many other things to do on board is my guess. So a lot of encouragement and some friendly roll callers were necessary. My friend planned an unofficial one that took place 1 day into an Oasis cruise. Only about 3 people showed up: her, her friend, and one other person. A few more showed up for the official RCI one. I was on the same ship about 2 weeks later and 17 people showed up! Go figure (?). I'd say only maybe 6 additional showed up for the official one. So, numbers vary.

The moral of this rambling post is: often times a meet & greet is what you make it. Also, if you went to one and it was a dud, don't give up! Each one is different. There might be only 2 people show up. Yet if they are nice, interesting or fun, it can be better than when 20, 30 or 75 show up sometimes! You just never know.

I've found all the M&Gs to have been worthwhile. Some have been more fun than others. On our cruise last month, we had great organizers. It was a very active roll call thread. It was great to meet the others. One of the organizers helped match up people doing excursions together at the M&G. We joined a mother-daughter pair we met at the M&G for a Harry Potter trivia later during the cruise. The daughter was phenomenal--knowing all the answers. We did not take part in the slot-pull, but I did go by during it to chat with folks.