The Ins & Outs of Great Roll Call Activities

[Kenlorz]

I was doing some research for fun Roll Call activities and came across quite a few. The problem is, I don't know how one goes about organizing some of them and others I just don't understand. I thought I would share some of the fun ideas I have found, as well ask questions about the ones I don't understand. If you know the answers or the how-to's please jump in. If you have other ideas that have been successful with your roll calls, please throw them in the pool, too :D

 

1. Vote on a Team Name for your Roll Call. Everyone get a shirt with that name on it and wear it and a hawaiian lei and gather for Sail Away party and pictures. I saw one idea that said if you meet at a certain bar, the shirt says "I got Lei'd at the Schooner Bar". My questions: Where and How do you get all these shirts to match????

 

2. Pub Crawl & Poker Run: Everyone pays $5 upfront and wears a funny party hat to identify the group. Each bar you stop at, you draw a card. You meet at a determined location at the end of the crawl and the best and worst hands split the pot. My questions: How do you determine how many decks you will need and how do you handle the cards at each location? Alternatives I've heard of: Buy a RCL T-Shirt and have each bartender sign the shirt with the bar name, their name, and where they're from. Give that away as a prize for the worst hand, instead of splitting the pot.

 

3. Mardi Gras Party: Everyone wears Mardi Gras Mask and a predetermined amount of Mardi Gras Beads (6-12). Once you know how many people have attended the event and are wearing beads, you count out that amount of playing cards. In that pile of cards are 2 jokers and 2 kings. You gather in a large circle and while music plays, you pass the cards around the circle as fast as you can. Everyone must have one card in their hands at ALL times. When the music stops, if you are holding a joker, you must give one set of beads to a person holding a king. If you run out of beads, you are out. Just like Mardi Gras, the object is to try and get as many pairs of beads as possible. Question: How do you get music? And how do you get it to start and stop? Where do you hold such an event?

 

4. Photo Scavenger Hunt: A list of hilarious items to try and get pictures of is handed out either at the start of the hunt or pre-boarding on your roll call. Items can include things like: Drunkest Person, Tiniest Bathing Suit, etc. Questions: How does one go about sharing this info???? Do you pass your cameras around the group? My teens do Photo Scavenger Hunts all the time, I can't understand how to make one work on a ship????

 

5. Slot Pulls: I have NO idea how to do these other than everyone puts in a certain amount of money and gets a certain amount of pulls.

 

6. Cabin Crawls: Don't know how these work, either

 

So how about it, do you have more great group activities? Do you know how some of these mentioned activities work? Have you been to some great ones and have a funny story to share?

[crookedhalo]

Can't answer all of your questions, but can address a few:D

 

#1 - for tee shirts our group spent a bit of time designing and voting on various designs before arriving at a final design. We were doing the designing and pricing through customink.com. There are also other companies (vistaprint is one I believe) that we looked at, but for our design custom ink had the best price. Your price is dependant on the type of tee (long or short sleeve), the number of colors in the design (we stuck with one color it was cheapest) and how many. We had enough shirts so that we wound up paying about $16 for a long sleeve tee (we were sailing from NJ in December).

 

#2 - You've got the idea:)

 

#5 - Work with the Casino Manager to select a day, time and machine. Make sure if the machine takes coins, bills or tokens. On our trip we each got $5 in tokens and everyone signed in and went in the order signed in. We let the winnings ride and in the end would have split whatever was left, but we all decided to just let it ride (in case you couldn't tell, the winnings weren't too terribly much:p).

 

#6 - Cabin crawl - anyone who wants to volunteer their cabin for the crawl indicates it on your roll call. Someone then organizes the cabins into a logical order for 'visiting' and posts the starting location, date and time in the roll call. You should try for one cabin from as many different types as you can get (i.e. inside, promenade, OV, E1 balcony, D1 balcony and suites).

 

#7 - (not on your list) Gift Exchange during M&M. Some groups do it where you bring one small gift and after the M&M everyone who is participating puts the gifts in a pile and you do a pollyanna gift exchange (i.e. you have the choice to take a new gift or take someone elses previously opened gift you like). Some just draw names from a bag and get the gift from that person. What we did was each person who wanted to participate went to zazzle.com and designed a postcard with a picture from their locale (or a prominent local landmark) and then put a local favorite recipe on the back of the postcard (like for me it would be Maryland Crab Cakes). We all had about 25 cards printed (cost around $25) and then wandered around before the M&M chatting and exchanging the postcards. I wound up with about 15 really great recipes from all over the place (Canada, Ireland and more states than I can remember):) It was fun and not too expensive and a heck of a lot easier than trying to bring an actual gift bag through your luggage (not to mention getting whatever home).

 

Hope this helps:D I'll load a picture of the tees we designed to give you an idea (sorry, it'll be front only, but we had the ports of call listed on the back).

[SamFritz]

On my last cruise we linked reservations with a couple with whom we seemed to share a lot of interests and experiences, based on our roll call chat. While we didn't link the whole roll call, it turned out to be a wonderful experience to share dinner every night with CC friends that we had met right here.

[megr1125]

I was doing some research for fun Roll Call activities and came across quite a few. The problem is, I don't know how one goes about organizing some of them and others I just don't understand. I thought I would share some of the fun ideas I have found, as well ask questions about the ones I don't understand. If you know the answers or the how-to's please jump in. If you have other ideas that have been successful with your roll calls, please throw them in the pool, too :D

 

1. Vote on a Team Name for your Roll Call. Everyone get a shirt with that name on it and wear it and a hawaiian lei and gather for Sail Away party and pictures. I saw one idea that said if you meet at a certain bar, the shirt says "I got Lei'd at the Schooner Bar". My questions: Where and How do you get all these shirts to match????

 

Check out the internet...there is a site cafepress.com and they do custom stuff that individuals can order..that way you aren't stuck laying out cash...we did it for our EX cruise....Waterman Funari (a CCER) set it up...

 

2. Pub Crawl & Poker Run: Everyone pays $5 upfront and wears a funny party hat to identify the group. Each bar you stop at, you draw a card. You meet at a determined location at the end of the crawl and the best and worst hands split the pot. My questions: How do you determine how many decks you will need and how do you handle the cards at each location? Alternatives I've heard of: Buy a RCL T-Shirt and have each bartender sign the shirt with the bar name, their name, and where they're from. Give that away as a prize for the worst hand, instead of splitting the pot.

 

Where is MedicKen when you need him???? he arranged our poker run....and he (or Mrs MedicKen) handed out the cards....i will see if he can stop by and help!

 

3. Mardi Gras Party: Everyone wears Mardi Gras Mask and a predetermined amount of Mardi Gras Beads (6-12). Once you know how many people have attended the event and are wearing beads, you count out that amount of playing cards. In that pile of cards are 2 jokers and 2 kings. You gather in a large circle and while music plays, you pass the cards around the circle as fast as you can. Everyone must have one card in their hands at ALL times. When the music stops, if you are holding a joker, you must give one set of beads to a person holding a king. If you run out of beads, you are out. Just like Mardi Gras, the object is to try and get as many pairs of beads as possible. Question: How do you get music? And how do you get it to start and stop? Where do you hold such an event?

 

not a clue..sorry

 

4. Photo Scavenger Hunt: A list of hilarious items to try and get pictures of is handed out either at the start of the hunt or pre-boarding on your roll call. Items can include things like: Drunkest Person, Tiniest Bathing Suit, etc. Questions: How does one go about sharing this info???? Do you pass your cameras around the group? My teens do Photo Scavenger Hunts all the time, I can't understand how to make one work on a ship????

 

kind of helps to know the ship first...then maybe make a list of stuff to find..like the photo of the godmother, certain photos-like there are pix of Springsteen on EX..so maybe that....i guess you'd have a couple judges who would look at the pix. .. Often the ship actually has this as an event on sea days

 

5. Slot Pulls: I have NO idea how to do these other than everyone puts in a certain amount of money and gets a certain amount of pulls.

Easy..get a sign up.....meet at whatever time you want....choose a machine (we usually pick a wheel of fortune.) Each player puts in, say 15 bucks (so they get 5 spins at 3 bucks each..) Whomever is in charge has a list..you put the money in, then hit max bet or whatever it is called...spin the wheel. Any money you win stays IN...that's why you have to count spins...when all are done...cash out, then divide up the winnings. You can get change from the cashier. I haven't ever arranged it thru the casino...we usually pick like 11 AM on a sea day...

 

6. Cabin Crawls: Don't know how these work, either

 

ask who in the group wants to show cabins.....then make up a list.....try to get 1 of each kind. then at the appointed time, when ever you want....the group gathers and goes and looks. On EX..again, the Funari family had the last cabin and nicely arranged for a toast at the end....that was super nice of them!! The people showing cabins should tell the stateroom attendant so that the cabin can be done early. Just TRY to be quiet..so as to not disturb those in cabins who might be resting. try to keep it in smaller groups....maybe send half one way and half the other, then all can meet at the end..

 

So how about it, do you have more great group activities? Do you know how some of these mentioned activities work? Have you been to some great ones and have a funny story to share?

 

We also did a mini golf tournament.....i bought a bunch of trophies and ribbons at the dollar store. you CAN do it playing funny shots..like backwards, like croquet, hit like you're playing pool.....but it is USUALLY windy and that makes playing normally a challenge.

 

You can set up teams....and give out little prizes

 

After that we all went to the MDR for lunch...we split up into a couple tables..

 

we really had fun!

 

(see other info above--in green text)

 

we have also done several gift exchanges...we generally say to bring something from your hometown....or cruise related...or even better, both! Last time we handed out tickets then pulled tickets and people chose a bag....(we just did the tickets to keep it orderly)

 

generally the person who comes from the ship to the M&M will give up the microphone to someone from the group..(me?? ken?? heehee...guess we both talk a LOT!)

 

this last m&m was really well organized...Sue did a super job....and we all took an event and were 'in charge'

 

ALSO...i think all ships have a message board by guest relations.(OLD SCHOOL...paper and pencil...) We used that to update/add/change events as needed....we just made sure everyone knew to look there....

 

The members were encouraged to do any, all or none of the activities..even if people didn't want to commit up front, it's easy enough to add someone to the slot pull or golf as needed.....and sometimes, people popped by to say hi even if they didn't want to stick around....some like to really cut themselves off from everything while on vacation-we just wanted everyone to know that they could crash any time!!

[Kenlorz]

Thanks for the responses so far! I LOVE the recipe cards! I also really Love the putt-putt golf tournament now that you've explained it, LOL! I saw that as an option on another post, but thought a bunch of adults playing a round of mini-golf sounded like a bit of a yawn. Now that you've added all that FLAIR to it with the funny shots to it, now it sounds like fun! I guess if you REALLY wanted to ramp it up, you can even add REAL shots to the mix... say, if you make the shot, everyone drinks a shot :eek: