blue whale

I often keep the good-night cards that HAL leaves with the chocolates on longer cruises. A favorite is one with this message,"A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles," by a Tim Cahill. CC has served us well in the past because we have made wonderful friends with whom we continue to interact when the cruise is over. When I opened our email this morning, three of the new emails were from cruise friends. Two were from folks we met through CC.

We must keep the emphasis in meet and greets on getting to know one another and sharing our knowledge of ports we will visit. When get-togethers center on private tour organization and complaints, there is little time for "getting to know you."

IMO on a lovely spring day here in the east.

D

We just noticed this thread because we have been off cruising and there was much to do when we returned. Thank you to the original poster for bringing to our attention the point raised by Maryann in her blog from the world cruise 2012. We find it interesting that the hotel manager on the ship noticed the "problem" that has developed in regard to CC meet and mingles. Doubtlessly this problem was evident to the hotel manager on the 2012 world cruise; CC meetings were being used to manage private tours offered by the CC leaders.

We encountered a similar situation on our Prinsendam 2011 South America cruise. The meet and mingle was chaired by folks who had arranged many tours. The primary focus of the meet and mingle was to go over arrangements for those tours.

Since we tend to do our own thing in port, the gatherings were not so productive as prior gatherings on cruises where there would be considerable mingling and some general discussion about what was great to see in upcoming ports. We stopped participating in CC shipboard events on the SA 2011, because of the focus on tours being offered by a few CCers.

We were fortunate to know numbers of people on the SA 2011 cruise from prior cruises; as a result, we did not miss the CC interactions that we had enjoyed so often in the past.

But would it not be terrible if HAL chose not to have anything to do with CC on long cruises? If they could dump Sterns from those offering sessions on the ship, HAL could logically decide not to help with CC meetings. After all the private tours being managed through the CC meetings are cutting into HAL profits. HAL is in business, after all, to make a profit for shareholders.

The important question is how to prevent future meet and mingles from turning into a checking-up-on-tours-we-are-offering-session. I intend to reference this thread on the threads for the two long cruises we have booked—the 2013 SA and the 2013 Asian/Pacific. I am certain that Homeless, who is managing the 2013 Asian/Pacific list, will do a good job and keep the focus on meeting and mingling and sharing port info. I am not concerned about that cruise.

However, I can foresee a focus on putting together tours on the world cruise 2013, just by reading some of the postings on that thread. Fortunately we are not doing that one! But if that situation turns off the hotel manager on Amsterdam, it could affect each and every one of us on future cruises.

What can we do to keep the focus of Meet and Mingles to meeting and mingling? How can we prevent situations such as that which turned off the excellent Hotel Manager on world 2012 from occurring again?

This may sound naive, but why would anyone want to organize buses with 20 or more folks in numerous ports and assume the legal responsibility for this? After all, this is their vacation. On our trips, there is never enough time in a day to do all we want to do. Why use up time becoming a tour agent?

Well, let us hope that we can all achieve some change. I intend to post a reference to this thread on the threads for longer cruises where this situation might develop.

Perhaps the company that runs CC can do something, such as warn organizers of M and Ms to take care not to monopolize meetings with tour arrangements.

Blue Whale

Thanks Travel Cat2

Blue W

Someone mentioned that Regent uses STAR Alliance air lines. Continental is one of the lines in the STAR group. Does that mean that Regent uses Continental?

Hello,

Since returning from world 07, we have been swamped by mail, laundry, and all those catch up tasks required after having been away from home for three and one half months. But we are gradually getting back to normal.

We have had time to read only about half of Bill and Mary Ann's posting. What a super job they have done to share their experiences with everyone at CC! Theirs must have been a labor of love, for we saw them on many evenings before supper in the library working at their computer.

As we think about our trip, we keep remarking how fortunate we were to be part of this "dream of discovery." So few people in this world will ever have the opportunity we have had, and we are so thankful for the privilege.

Yes, we were fascinated by our ports of call. We probably took fewer tours than B and MA, for in some instances we had been to the port previously and preferred to walk around.

We also did not realize the ease of taking local transportation. For example, in America Samoa, we climbed on a local bus. The driver took us to the end of his route—way out on the island—and then turned around the bus to head back to the port. He told us that he had to stop on the way to pick up his daughter at kindergarten, and would we mind. Would we mind? We hopped off the bus (there was only one other couple from the ship, and no one else) and headed into the school. We saw teachers and children and well-decorated classrooms, and got a splendid welcome. On the way back, too, the driver stopped at a general supermarket, and again we climbed off to pick up some odds and ends. We passed all the important sites—the flower pot (a big rock protruding from the sea), etc. But the best was just the kindergarten. The cost was 2 dollars per person round trip, and we gave a couple of more dollars to the kindergartner. The other couple bought the child an ice cream at our supermarket stop. A fabulous experience! We are going to do more of this kind of informal traveling on our next trip.

Another blessing was the group of people we met. Cruise critic is wonderful. We met and enjoyed the greatest people, and we know that we will keep in contact with some for years. Mr. Kafa, the beverage manager, was wonderful, too; he sent out invitations to all our CC gatherings and he always came by to check that everything was going well. Thank you!

We absolutely loved our trip—the ports, the ship, the friendly passengers, the sincere staff.

Hello, Teresa. Hello, Iris.

Blue Whale

No one has mentioned one of the best aspects of a HAL cruise—the passengers! There hasn't been a HAL cruise where we haven't met some great people and enjoyed meals/conversation. We especially like to go to the Ocean Bar before dinner to dance and often to talk to someone already seated there. And after dinner, our venue is the Explorer's Lounge for more conversation. We've learned not to be shy about asking others if we might join them in the Explorer's Lounge. We like the assigned seating at meals and always request a table with others. And then there is the great trivia—again a super place to meet and talk to others. The six pax teams make it easy to get to know others. It doesn't matter whether you know much trivia—the fun is in meeting other people who love to cruise.