Roll calls : not the flavour of the month anymore?

When I first came to CC (almost 10 years ago) the roll calls were buzzing. Now we're lucky to see a handful of posters on some of them . What gives? Are there more lurkers than posters? Checking the "views" does suggests this.

Just feel it's a shame that enthusiasm has waned :o

When I first came to CC (almost 10 years ago) the roll calls were buzzing. Now we're lucky to see a handful of posters on some of them . What gives? Are there more lurkers than posters? Checking the "views" does suggests this.

 

Just feel it's a shame that enthusiasm has waned :o

It is a shame but everyone is different. Maybe it is shyness or just a concern they have on going online. I have found some roll calls more active like Celebrity than other cruise lines. I think it's great to be able to share info with fellow cruisers. So if you are watching this join in don't be shy 😃

I was quite surprised when I joined the roll call for our upcoming Dawn Princess cruise. Only six posts, including mine. :eek: The ship is almost full as the cruise is only two months away.

Maybe most of the passengers booked haven't heard of Cruise Critic. :confused:

Also with RCI and Celebrity, the cruise line supports the Meet & Mingles / Connections, with a direct link to sign up for the meetings, invitations waiting in your cabin, snacks and some drinks (non-alcoholic) provided, door prizes and prize draws. And it's all organised by the cruise line.

Princess only provides a venue if someone on the roll call is prepare to organise a Meet & Greet and, from comments I've read here, it's not always easy to arrange.

Thats true. Also think that Americans are more active on roll calls. I was on the Diamond Princess just jumped ship recently but it was very slow.

We are first time cruisers and I expected there to be more than just 1 other poster on the roll call for our cruise in November.

Bear in mind that CC participants represent a very, very small percentage of the total number of passengers on any given cruise. There are a bundle of other cruising websites out there that have equally active roll call forums.

If I talk to 10 people about cruising, that are frequent cruisers and by that I mean at least one cruise every two years at most one is on CC.

I suspect that only a small % of those on CC join in roll calls.

We are on the Golden Princess for a transpacific this fall and there doesn't seem to be a roll call for this cruise. Last year on Celebrity Constellation there was very active roll call that allowed us to connect to book some private tours at a significant saving. I am looking for the same for this cruise but no luck so far!

We are on the Golden Princess for a transpacific this fall and there doesn't seem to be a roll call for this cruise. Last year on Celebrity Constellation there was very active roll call that allowed us to connect to book some private tours at a significant saving. I am looking for the same for this cruise but no luck so far!

Start one.

If no one starts it it'll never start.

We are on the Golden Princess on the repo cruise from San Fran to Sydney in September. The roll call was started about a year out and was very slow with only a handful of people contributing, over the last month it has really started to take off and people have been chatting and swapping info on tours, organizing a meet and greet (about 60 confirmed an interest to attend) and a cabin crawl. It should be a quite a social cruise.

Cheers

We are on the Golden Princess for a transpacific this fall and there doesn't seem to be a roll call for this cruise. Last year on Celebrity Constellation there was very active roll call that allowed us to connect to book some private tours at a significant saving. I am looking for the same for this cruise but no luck so far!

I had to use the Roll Call Tool on the bar above to find my Dawn Princess roll call. It looks like the roll calls disappear off the forum pages if they aren't active for a certain period.

Check there first and if you still don't find one, then start it.

We are on the Golden Princess on the repo cruise from San Fran to Sydney in September. The roll call was started about a year out and was very slow with only a handful of people contributing, over the last month it has really started to take off and people have been chatting and swapping info on tours, organizing a meet and greet (about 60 confirmed an interest to attend) and a cabin crawl. It should be a quite a social cruise.

 

Cheers

2-3 months out seems to be the most popular time to join...that's about the time final payments are due.

Hope you have a great time on this cruise.

It could be that they also have them on Facebook and most people tend to use that. I used to live on these boards but rarely come on now due to the numerous cruising pages on Facebook that I take part in.

When I first came to CC (almost 10 years ago) the roll calls were buzzing. Now we're lucky to see a handful of posters on some of them . What gives? Are there more lurkers than posters? Checking the "views" does suggests this.

 

Just feel it's a shame that enthusiasm has waned :o

The Roll Call for our upcoming cruise was started in September 2014, now has 890 views and only 63 posts.

I think itinerary has a real sway with roll calls as well, if it is a local cruise or one they have done before they only gather the information they want and do not participate in the roll call, where as other itineraries may have a higher presence. This is in addition to the fact that not many cruisers have even heard of Cruise Critic.

The Brits are not into roll calls, I have tried with Aurora and Oriana upcoming, little bit of interest on Aurora, nil on Oriana.

Also I have just today booked my wife and 17 year old grand daughter on Diamond Princess, 23 January, Syd - NZ - Syd - 12 days. No roll call up for that either. Yes, I would agree Roll Calls are not as popular these days.

I agree that FB is more the flavour of the month now! I participate in a few FB cruising pages which are quite lively! I'd be surprised if many have even heard of Cruise Critic!

I can never find my cruise on FB but then I'[m hopeless and hardly use FB at all.

FB is definitely where most cruise lines are setting up groups/pages for the individual cruises.

The Roll Call for our upcoming cruise was started in September 2014, now has 890 views and only 63 posts.

We have a roll call set up last November for November this year and it has only 15 posts (5 couples) and 100 views. Not active at all.:(

Hi Anna

Yes, it seems to be that roll calls are not the present flavour

Our Diamond cruise out of Singapore on 17th Sept is very poorly represented on the rollcall and the only active member apart from us, had to cancel last week because of family health concerns

It is certainly nothing like our Bangkok to Sydney Diamond cruise 3 years ago when everyone joined in and we organised several tours between us

There were some interesting characters too

I can only hope that now that final payments are due we may get more joining

John

If I talk to 10 people about cruising, that are frequent cruisers and by that I mean at least one cruise every two years at most one is on CC.

I also have a similar observation.

If people are only interested in the roll call for joining private excursions then the roll call may fall flat, if they want to be active and meet people as well organise activities while on board, these tend to thrive. The most active boards that I have been involved with have been cruises with lots of sea days like TAs or TPs.:D

signed up and attended two roll calls on RCI cruises.

sadly, everyone stayed seated in their own groups, no mingling was encouraged, collected some free gifts and then left as on both occasions it did not seem as if we were going to meet any new people....