Your friends and family cruise photos and tips?

[Erica@cruisecritic]

Have you planned a cruise with your extended family or a group of friends? Cruise Critic is putting together a slideshow about group cruises, and would love to include your best advice, anecdotes and Kodak moments. Help us reach out to new cruisers (or new big group cruisers) and make their planning process painless and their cruise the best vacation ever. Please post your stories and photos below.

[6rugrats]

Best advice? Turn the booking over to a TA and let them handle it.

[LauraS]

Do you have some of your group family photos to share?

 

Here are some tips that will help with displaying your photo on this thread:

 

Attaching and/or Linking Photos

[Erica@cruisecritic]

To sweeten the deal, we'll be offering a Cruise Critic prize pack from our store to anyone who submits a photo or tip that we use in our slideshow!

[notentirelynormal]

NO fair! LOL I submitted a response on your other thread but I can't find it anymore.

[QTMichele]

Here's our group picture from our Freedom of the Seas cruise in January 2010. We had such a WONDERFUL and FUN time!

 

A little advice - relax and go with the flow. Expect that everyone will go their own way throughout the vacation, but meet at least once per day (e.g. dinner) to catch up and share the days events.

 

[Erica@cruisecritic]

To notentirelynormal: It doesn't matter which thread you post on -- I'm monitoring them all (and will reward accordingly)! Just trying to entice people to submit, since everyone is being strangely shy on this topic.

[pcreek]

To notentirelynormal: It doesn't matter which thread you post on -- I'm monitoring them all (and will reward accordingly)! Just trying to entice people to submit, since everyone is being strangely shy on this topic.

 

 

I'm not being shy on this topic - it just doesn't apply to me. :(

 

I always cruise with just my husband - um...to get away from family, friends & neighbors! LOL We have 5 children, + spouses, and 11 grandchildren...nice to escape occasionally!

[ivan427]

My tip for bringing your family and and your in-laws,so that theyll have an amazing good time,let them plan and pick everything that we do on the cruise. Theyll have a great time and youll have piece of mind,it worked for my wife and me.

[zimadog]

One of my Biggest tips for traveling in a group: Remember not everyone has to do the same things. Don't get upset if the group members want to go different ways on shore or even onboard. This is their vacation too and to much togetherness can back fire!

[232271]

The best thing was having a FAMILY CRUISE shirt made for all 11 of us so when we boarded or went on excursions the pictures were so cool! Also makes an easy souviner and memory of our trip. :) It is so fun and made all of the family feel special!

 

I am searching for a photo, but they are all on my hubby's computer.

[tjdj]

My Father-In-Law took me, my husband, his other son and his wife on a cruise in June. Last year was a bad one - FIL lost his wife and mother within two weeks, so this was a much needed break for us all. DH and I spent most of our time with FIL, so it was great bonding time! Dinner was our favorite time each night - the only time all five of us were together. I wish I had a picture of all of us, but here's a great one of BIL, FIL and DH.

 

 

The only tip I would have has already been mentioned - don't think you all have to be together all the time. If you dine in the MDR, you can always catch up there.

 

Also, I printed out a bunch of pictures (and labeled them) for FIL of our trip and mailed them to him a few weeks after the cruise - it was another way to say "Thanks for the trip" and he'll have them to look back at later on.

[uksimonusa]

Here's our group picture from our Freedom of the Seas cruise in January 2010. We had such a WONDERFUL and FUN time!

 

A little advice - relax and go with the flow. Expect that everyone will go their own way throughout the vacation, but meet at least once per day (e.g. dinner) to catch up and share the days events.

 

 

Got that same photo of our family, will try and post it when I get home!!

[magroo]

Our very first cruise was with another couple we are good friends with. While we made sure to plan things together (meals, excursions, activities, etc.) our rule from day one was that we didn't have to do EVERYTHING together. While we spent a good percentage of our time as the "four of us", there were times when each couple went our separate ways. We even did an all girl/all guy afternoon in Jamaica.

 

And as proof that we had a great time, here is a pic of us on our last night at sea with Captain Johnny from RCL Mariner of the Seas and a gentlement our hubbies befriended on their deep sea fishing excursion.

 

We'll cruise with this couple again...for sure.

[tishavens]

We've cruised with my parents, parents-in-law, aunt and uncle, grandmother, and friends... individually and together. We love cruising with friends and/or family, because I can find someone to go do and see with, while my husband happily finds a lazy spot, and doesn't have to worry about me.

 

When we do cruise with family and friends, we often arrange our own private 'group' tours in most ports - in "safer" ports (US, its terriroties, Canada) we'll often split the cost of a car rental and create our own tour off the beaten path. In Nanaimo, British Columbia, my parents, husband, and did just that, stopping at wineries and tourist traps, and ending up in the small town of Chemainus, touring it's "world-famous" wall murals! (see the photo attached, taken by a kindly passerby.)

This lets us get to things we'd never seen on a ship's tour, or just walking off the boar--but we had a wonderful day enjoying each others' companies and acting like 5-year-olds.... miles and miles away from the rest of the cruise ship crowds.

[irishdreamer]

My husband and I took our entire family and nieces boyfriend on a Christmas cruise last year. We all went on the excursions together and have plenty of pics to remember it by. The kids are almost grown but Santa still managed to visit even though we were at Sea!

 

[SUMPAC]

Don't

[cmac cruiser]

Keep -- and distribute -- a list with everyone's room number. You'll be surprised at how often you'll need it (calling from room to room, making reservations, buying special occasion gifts etc.) It's invaluable for bigger groups. You don't need to know where everyone is all the time, but it's a good way of tracking people down when you need them.

[tishavens]

Another tip from our group cruises: I always take my laptop, which has a built in CD/DVD burner, a card-reader that reads most formats of camera memory, and a handful of empty CDs.

 

The last afternoon or evening of the cruise, we dowload everyone's photos, then spend the evening burning them to CDs, which I distribute just before we all start disembarking. That way everyone has all the photos in their highest resolution as soon as they get home! No problems with the uncle who can't figure out Flikr, or the friend who never gets around to emptying her camera memory for 3 months...

[Vegas Voyager]

Cruising with a group can be VERY FUN if you recognize that everyone has their own ideas of "fun"! To some, it may be learning to scuba dive...to others, a good book and waiter served cocktails poolside is their idea of enjoyment! Embrace the differences--let everyone go do their own thing, and meet back in the evenings to share the stories! You get a lot of info that way and new ideas not only for the NEXT cruise you take BUT also to post on Cruise Critic! :p

[sewgoddess]

I've organized and done 3 groups cruises. I guess my biggest suggestion is to get the payments out of the way as early as possible. Don't wait for deposit dates, something else will always come up. Take your group as far as the ship and then everyone is on their own. We all did separate things during the day and then all met for a group dinner to exchange stories. An occasional wave during the day kept us connected, but we weren't always in each other's faces! Everyone had a great time and you didn't feel as though you needed a vacation from your vacation.;)

[flamomo]

Here's a photo from our wonderful CC roll call group on the Golden Princess in March 2010. It was a 14 day r/t LA-Hawaii cruise.

Only a few of us knew each other from a previous cruise.

We had a very active roll call of 30 plus. We talked and planned for many months before the cruise, and had a very successful Meet & Greet.

Every evening before dinner, those who were available that day met in Crooner's for pre-dinner drinks, to chat and talk about our day. Several of us dined at the Crowne Grill together.

It really was one of the best roll calls I have been involved in, and a number of us are still talking on FaceBook, and planning to cruise together again.

Gotta love Cruise Critic!

 

 

Look further down the page for that errant photo!!!

[KandCsailing]

We cruised with my In-laws for their first cruise and we made sure that the first thing we did was to tour the ship and point out all the places that they might enjoy or need to find like the buffet, library, casino and the theatre. We also went over the daily newsletter with them to help plan the next day.

Once they figured out that we couldn't go very far away (since we're on a ship); they were fine and had a great time.

We picked excursions that we would enjoy together or we did walking tours of the ports on our own for a bit and then break up for a while and meet back on board for sushi before dinner.

We did dinners together and some breakfasts, but lunch was on their own.

[flamomo]

The photo didn't make it the first time, for the roll call group.

[lafdcruiser]

Posted on behalf of member: notentirelynormal