Meet & Greet Photos for Eurodam May 22 and June 3 cruises

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I was the co-ordinator for the Meet/Greets for these two cruises and I wanted to share a few photos with you. We had over 70 people at the May one; almost 90 at the second, so the group photos won't show individuals as well as I'd like. If you were part of these groups, just e-mail me to get a larger copy.

 

Here's the group for the May Meet/Greet:

 

 

And below, Captain Darin Bowland talke with a couple of the CC'ers:

 

 

We had 7 officers join us for the first Meet/Greet and 5 were able to come to the second one! They stayed around for most of our time together, moving from group to group, answering questions and just generally visiting with our groups.

 

More in a minute; I think 2 large photos per submission is probably enough. And for those interested in comments and reviews about this cruise, this is the CC link.

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More photos:

Hotel Manager Mark Zeller, with CC'ers:

 

 

And here, Cruise Director Dominic Venn-Lever and Travel Guide Ian Page join the Captain in chatting with guests:

 

 

Still more to come!

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These photos are from the June Meet/Greet (this was a Collector's Cruise so there are 2 segments with some overlap of the guests across the two):

 

The first is the June group shot; we had so many attendees that we spilled across into another section of the Crow's Nest. By the time we were able to gather everyone up for a photo quite a few had needed to leave, but there's still a good crowd here!

 

 

Once again Hotel Manager Mark Zeller moves around the room, talking to small groups:

 

 

Finally, there will be just one more, with an interesting story to go with it!

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Here's the photo, and below it, "the rest of the story!"

 

 

At the June Meet/Greet the party was in full swing when a gentleman approached me at the entrance to our "Private Party" section, carrying a familiar square of paper--it was one of the "reminder" notes that I'd printed out at home before the cruise and brought to distribute to cabin mailboxes on embarkation day. We had a really good response to the request for cabin numbers and cruise2rejuv (David) had kept up with the assignments for me since I was already on board the Eurodam when most of the Roll Call got their cabin assignments. Lots of reminders got dropped into cabin mailboxes that day! (I find it easier to just do this than make a list for the front desk and pay them to do it.)

 

So this nice gentleman held out the slip and said, "I have no idea what group this is, but it was in our mailbox when we arrived on the ship so probably whoever it was for is here. I asked if he'd gotten his cabin assignment very close to sailing and he said that he'd gotten it upon their arrival at the terminal. So I was pretty sure that someone in our group had gotten a last-minute upgrade and explained this.

 

The gentleman was fine with that, but why he'd really come is that also waiting in the cabin was a nice bottle of wine, addressed to (insert name here!) and that isn't him. He'd inquired about it but was told it was for him. He knew it wasn't; that it must belong to the person named on the gift card.

 

So over the laughter and conversation (and it was loud!) I shouted out the name on the card and sure enough, a CC'er separated himself from the crowd and came over. He recognized the donor of the wine and the bottle was handed over.

 

The honest gentleman who brought the wine up to see if the owner could be found left quickly and I didn't even have a chance to thank him.

 

The upshot of this story is that there's more than one good reason to have a Meet/Greet. It can be a venue for connecting lost bottles of wine with their rightful owners!

[IRL_Joanie]

...most especially the bottle of wine:)

 

Good to have you home my friend!!

 

Joanie

[LAFFNVEGAS]

Marney, Great Story and great pictures!!! Thanks for sharing these with us :)

[hpf]

Thanks Marney, i especially liked the wine bottle story and nice pictures as well.

Another note to self, take camera to our M&G for photos.

Helen

[erewhon]

Thank you for sharing your photos and the great story of the wine.

[andeesue]

Wow! You are a Meet and Greet extraordinaire! What a wonderful turnout of both passengers and officers. And, bless the guy who found the rightful owner of the wine by way of your invite! Great story!

On our holiday cruise to Hawaii this past December, there was a flower arrangement in our cabin... and we weren't upgraded or in a guarantee. The stewards were able to find the rightful owner. We should have had a bottle of wine from our travel agent, but that never got to us. Still, a wonderful cruise.

[Bippie]

Thanks again for arranging the M&G. I was on the May 22 cruise and was suprised/happy that so many officers joined us and really wanted to talk with us. The captain at the M&G was a hoot - what a sense of humor. When they switched captains towards the end of the cruise, I really missed the "useless trivia" during the captain's announcement.

[kazu]

Marney your pictures are as great as you 'live' reports :D Loved the wine story. Thanks for sharing your incredible adventure with this and your marvelous photos:D:D Welcome home - hope you are not suffering from too much cruise withdrawal

[cruise2rejuv]

Marney,

Thanks for all the work you provided and the wonderful communication by way of words and photos. Hope to see you and George again sometime on another exciting cruise. :)

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Thank you, thank you! We did have a good officer turnout, didn't we? I think there are a couple of factors that can make that happen at M/G's, some in our control, others not. First, the time has to not conflict with any staff meetings and it really helps to have lucked into a Cruise Director who enjoys CC gatherings. Both of those are pretty much a matter of luck.

 

If the CC organizer prints up some simple invites at home and brings them to the ship the Front Office will distribute them and it really seems to improve officer attendance. Beverage managers have told me that M/G events go out on the master calendar that the officers get, but like the rest of us I suspect they are swamped with e-mail. Having to handle a piece of paper may be getting us more notice!

 

Regardless, when they can come having the officers available for conversation is a real plus, I think. They have always been gracious, generous with their time and pleasant to talk to.

 

And thanks again to cruise2rejuv, nnoonan, and bippie who helped out so much! We had big groups, we booked late for the May cruise and I wasn't as e-mail available to the June group because I was already on the ship; these folks really helped me organize the lists which ran 80-90 people in each group.

 

In other news I nearly have George's photos organized and into the blog that I pretty much managed to keep current while the cruise was going on. I'll have it up soon; I just need to organize the St. Petersburg photos--the largest group.

 

Meanwhile George just sent me over a very cute picture from the Dover mid-cruise day that I think you'll enjoy; I'll post that in a separate thread because it has nothing to do with the Meet/Greet.