Tell us about your Meet & Mingle!

[Pat in NC]

Our Meet & Mingle Group is really looking forward to our party! (Explorer of the Seas, October 23rd)

We would love to hear what other groups have done to make their parties special and an unforgettable experience.

Did you wear anything special on board to help members of the group recognize each other?

Did you pre-plan any activities to help the members of your group "mix & mingle"?

Did anyone come up with a unique way for members to introduce themselves?

Look forward to hearing from all the talented and imaginitive people on this great board!

Everyone have a safe and happy holiday week-end.

Pat

[Guest cruzr44]

We had one member who was responsible for posting everyone's picture on webshots. I felt like I knew everyone before we even got there. We set a time to meet poolside the afternoon of embarkation. Another member kept a list of names and made name tags to hand out at the pool. We had a great group and also bought a horse for the horse race. We had discussed who was going on what excursion so we were able to book the same times. It is so much fun meeting everyone if you are active on the boards.

[4merlurker]

Congratulations on your successful M&M~ I look forward to hearing everyones ideas......

 

We have 30+ signed up so we have a confirmed M&M but the majority are my group of 30 who don't visit CC at all. We are still trying (10 months now) to get ours Roll Call thread moving :( We have 3 "major" posters on our thread and 2 or 3 stragglers. It's very frustrating. *sigh* Wish more CC'rs were cruising with us. :rolleyes: My friends are sick of "cruise talk".

 

Oh well, we leave in a little over 2 months!!!! That's something to smile about! :D Right?

[nascarfans_wny]

We're going to be with Pat, and I'm looking forward to meeting our fellow "Explorer" CCers. Most of our group from WNY haven't been anywhere near CC (for the most part that includes Kathy), and won't be at the M & M (but I guess I'll bring the wife ;) ). I think I heard somewhere that along with a number of "small" raffle prizes, they give away a dinner at the Captain's table, so it doesn't bother me to increase our chances :D .

 

I'd love to hear more about what the M & M is like, and where they host it on EOS.

[Honey's Gal]

We have a great group going. We are on the 9/12 Jewel sailing out of Boston and we are all meeting at 3PM at the pool bar on the 12th. We are currently in the process of making up a new drink (we already have the name), we are finalizing the incredients and we will all order it at the bar.....As we said, who knows it may catch on.

 

Most of us have also planned an excursion together in St. Maarten thanks to one of our guys, and it will be so much fun.

 

We already have our M&M date and time and we will already have met by then.

[star of county down]

:D I went to one on the Grandeur on 8/20. It was very nice. Not everyone showed up, so, please go if you sign up. But it was very nice. I guess we were in there for maybe 30 mins., maybe longer. I don't want to spoil it for you. But it was a very nice little get together. You meet some of the cruise director's staff, which in our case, was very fun. He called himself the Crazy Cajun and now, I just hope that he's doing ok and his family, etc. The idea is to go around and introduce yourself to each other. You identify yourself by your username and that's fun because you recognize the name and you meet the person and you say, "Oh, yeah, I know you!" I ran into the Cajun many more times. He was great. Anyway, go. It's very nice and when you run into people from the party on the ship, it's cool to be able to say hi and see a familiar face.

[digital_curator]

On our first cruise, on the Navigator, we decided to meet just before the Muster Drill in the pub, with our life jackets- made the group pretty easy to spot:D

 

It was nice, because by the M&M party the next day, we all kinda knew each other. After the M&M party we went to the Windjammer and had lunch together.

 

I loved the roll call too. One couple decided to join us on an excursion which was nice.

 

It was also just great running into people you "knew" on the ship. We often had breakfast or lunch with someone we ran into at the Windjammer and would often meet people at the "changing of the guard" at dinner (we were some of the only ones with Late Dining).

 

We also ran into one family at the pier in San Jan and managed to share a cab.

 

One of our group was in the Karaoke Idol so it was fun to cheer him on and we sat with his friends and family while we watched.

 

The roll calls and M&M really helped to personalize our experience. We are by nature private people and we had requested a table for 2 (which we got) but I liked getting to know people before hand and then getting to meet them onboard:)

 

We already have an active roll call for our Nov/06 sailing on the Explorer!

 

Cheers,

[takeabreath3]

i've been on several cruises and all but 1 had the M & M party! they are great fun. they serve great snacks (i can't spell the other word for it...ha ha) they will have an cash bar for those who wish to drink and also serve free drinks! not sure what the free ones were as i hung at the cash bar. you pretty much meet and talk and laugh and then they have a drawing and give away a few prizes.

 

on our roll calls i tell everyone that i'll be at the schooner bar (my favorite spot on the ship) with my life vest in one hand and a drink in the other about 45 minutes before muster and for all my new pals to join me! they usally do! ha ha i have made some great friends during my cruises some lasted only until the end of the cruise and some will be life long friends.

 

so go to the m & m and plan a before sail away meeting and any other get togethers you can. they are always tons of fun.

 

have a great time and hope to sea ya all sometime on the sea! judy

[lanabanana]

We have someone who has designed a pin for our repo cruise on the Jewel in Nov. It is so pretty. We will get together at sailaway and distribute them. We can wear them all week and people will be jealous!

[Na2PtCl4]

We werre on the Brillance for a Partial Transit Canal Cruise in Jan. '05. There were two things that we did that were special to this M & M

 

1) Several of us brought refrigerator magnets from our home state to exchange with the other M $ M er's.

2) Someone brought Chocolate Martinis to out 11:45 M & M (but forgot to pass them out)

[demodawn]

We were on the rhapsody last Jan and we had a blast, we met day 1 after must at the pool bar, day 2 had a wine tasting where we each brought wine from our areas of the country(I think 10 bottles were drunk that day:p, then we meet several informal times to play dominos by the pool,then last by the pool finished the wine and several other interesting drinks. We all saw each other many times and most afternoons we were all by the pool, last day we had a great hottub party! The official m&m was the one that was kinda dull but our cruise director left alot to be desired. We however made our own fun we had about 20 of us that keep getting together!

[texancruzer]

Didnt even know about Cruisecritic or Meet & Mingle for our first cruise.

 

We now have 47 people signed up for our M&M on the Nov. 26 sailing of the Serenade out of San Juan. New people have been signing up every day lately so feel pretty sure we will have more by sail date!

 

We are tossing around different ideas, 1 is for everyone to bring a small item representing where they are from and we will number each and draw for giveaway... like chocolate from Hershey PA or something like that. Also talking about t-shirts...maybe pins (they have kits at craft stores to make unique to your needs) etc... etc.. There are lots of things you can do (with maybe a few other of the M&M'ers) to make it more fun... just use your imagination.

[PTarbay]

I love the idea of a small gift from each area to raffle.I think I'll suggest it when we get more people on our roll call.We had a piano player in our group last year that played for us.There was a raffle and I won the RCCL computer mouse and someone else won a bottle of champagne.They served lemonade and iced tea.

[4merlurker]

It's nice to hear everyones M&M experiences! Anyone else care to share??:)

[4merlurker]

We're going to be with Pat, and I'm looking forward to meeting our fellow "Explorer" CCers. Most of our group from WNY haven't been anywhere near CC (for the most part that includes Kathy), and won't be at the M & M (but I guess I'll bring the wife ;) ). I think I heard somewhere that along with a number of "small" raffle prizes, they give away a dinner at the Captain's table, so it doesn't bother me to increase our chances :D .

 

 

I'd love to hear more about what the M & M is like, and where they host it on EOS.[/QUOTE]

 

Nascar, according to the "confirmed M&M" list on RCCL's website it looks like PORTIFINOS is where they hold Explorer's M&Ms. :D

[Murphy]

We did a gift exchange with each other. Everyone brought a $5 max gift. It was supposed to be either a cruise related item or something representing out home towns. The gifts were nice, but because of the exchange, I felt I got to know more about each of the people. We each got a "ticket" when we put our gift on the exchange table. We pulled one of the tickets out of a bowl and that person got to pick a gift from the table, but first addressed the group telling us the CC name, where they were from and a little about themselves. Then they pulled the next # out of the bowl and the next "winner" did the same. It took a little longer than I wanted to sit there as our mingle was at 11:00am and I was anxious to get back to the sun, but it was a great mingle. Thanks to Tuggers who was our organizer and set this great experience up.

[gillmom2]

Well I am no sure what it iwill be like yet. We have 26 people signed up for our November 20 Thanksgiving cruise on the Radiance out of Miami. We have ordered these funny flashing turkeys and are making plans for sail away and other things. I have to say that this is a wonderful idea and I am thankful to have met some wonderful people already. I like that idea about a gift from your hometown. That would be really interesting. Have a great day!!

[nerak]

I've only participated in one M&M. We all wore yellow ribbons as we boarded the ship, then met at the pool bar area as we departed. We spotted yellow ribbons there, at the elevators, in the halls, etc. I do wish at our M&M we had each taken time to each introduce ourselves to the whole group, but we did have a group pic taken. BTW...I like the idea of each person bringing something from their hometown to swap with another person. Good memories...maybe a hometown postcard even?

[LuvMyVette]

Hi:

 

For the Voyager cruise that took place on July 15, we had several people at the M&M party. Great thing is that we all became friends on CC prior to the cruise.

 

On the thread, I came up with a group name (Crazy Cruzers) that everyone liked so that was us. (Some of us were pretty crazy, that's for sure!). I started to keep a spreadsheet of everyone's handle, first name, name of spouse, late/early seating, cabin or deck number, traveling with family/friends, what state they are from, celebrating birthday/anniversary/etc., kids names/ages, etc. Members liked that so I started emailing it. Once we were rolling on that, we did the picture swap and I was the main contact at first and started emailing pictures to everyone that participated. Everything we did was kept amongst us and did the pictures/spreadsheet via email. It was wonderful seeing pictures of everyone.

 

Due to the above, I was promoted to the "Captain" on the thread but since we were going on Voyager it fit (Any Star Trek fans out there?). Due to being a Captain I needed an Executive Officer so I elected Howard to be "Number One" (DH was not jealous...). Howard was wonderful and he created a website to post the spreadsheet of everyone's information and the pictures so that saved me a lot of work. The topper for his promotion was the scavenger hunt that him and his wife went on to obtain the Mardi Gras beads (more below on that). While reading his post I was ROTFLMAO. My decision was made... Howard was promoted and he did a wonderful job taking care of Captain Crazy Cruzer.

 

John (another thread member) came up with us wearing Mardi Gras beads to identify ourselves on the ship (especially for those that didn't exchange pictures).

 

Our thread leader was not able to go on the cruise so we all discussed of having a toast in the beginning of the cruise to thank her for bringing us all together. After we went under the bridge, we headed up to the Viking Crown wearing our beads. It was fantastic meeting everyone and we had a blast. I made the toast to our dear friend who could not be with us and it was very nice.

 

What was really cool wearing the beads/exchanging pictures is that we bumped into each other in port or on the ship. It was so much fun finally seeing each other for the first time.

 

Many people signed up for the M&M party but only the close members on the thread showed up. We received our Lanyards, played trivia, obtained gifts for those that won, had a group picture taken and had some snacks to munch on. For those that couldn't meet up with us at the Viking Crown on departure day we met them at the M&M and it was great.

 

Many members and their spouses joined my DH/I during our 10 year vow renewal. Due to the friendships that I made since January 2005, we asked them to join us on our special day and most of them attended.

 

So that's what we did and it was great. DH/I met some wonderful people, built new friendships and had a fantastic cruise.

[Pat in NC]

Thank you for all the great ideas! Look forward to other members sharing what they did at their parties!

Pat

[szdiver]

We had about 65 last year on the Summit. We had exchanged names, etc. on a spreadsheet also and had it available. I made out nametags for everyone with:

"You know me as:

Now meet me as: "

 

They went over big, and a lot of us wore them for a few days. We met up with each other all over the ship and also chartered a catamaran for 10 of us for a day on St. Lucia. It was awesome.....

 

We exchanged regional gifts at our party and had a group shot taken, which they ran out of at the photo shop and had to make more. We even made it into the video of the trip - we had met the first day before muster on the top deck, with all our orange shirts on......it was hilarious.

 

We called ourselves "summit like it Hotters" and one of the group made up a door sign with our name on it for everyone to hang if they wanted to. We had several drink parties in various rooms, and generally had a great time.

[cruise'n]

Murphy, I thought the description of the "meet and mingle" sounded familiar!

 

We were on the Horizon with you and Tuggers and we really enjoyed meeting everyone, too. This was the best M&M get together we have gone to because we got to hear a little about each other and it made remembering people much easier. I felt like I got to really met EVERYONE instead of just a few people. Thanks, Tuggers!

 

We found out another couple was going to be on our connecting flight out of Ft. Lauderdale so we wore rubber bands on our wrists when we got to the flight to make it easy to recognize each other. :) We got to meet in FLL before we even arrived in San Juan where we started the cruise.

[Murphy]

Hi Cruise'n! How are you! Yes, Tuggers should be the dedicated M & M organizer for all cruises! :) I"m not sure she would agree!