Purpose of a Meet and Greet

[caribill]

The Meet and Mingles on RCI (their equivalent of M&Gs) are run by RCI, not by roll call members.

 

To help getting people to actually meet each other there is a 10 minute period at the start where "People Bingo" (see below) is played. Can't use the same person for more than one answer.

 

[Skai]

I've often wondered why someone would volunteer to organize these tours, spending time and money, making overseas phone calls and doing the paperwork. Do they get a commission on the sales or a free tour?

 

As someone that has always organized (solo & shared) private tours for every cruise, I feel qualified to provide you an answer.

 

In my personal experience, the flexibility, intimacy, price and overall quality of private tours blows away anything offered through the ship.

 

However, to achieve this better value, the booking of many private tours often requires fellow pax to share in the costs. The main reason that I've taken the time to diligently research, organize and set-up these shared tours is because I enjoy it -- Cruise Critic's port/tour reviews(among other travel websites) has been an invaluable resource for this.

 

Considering that booking some of the tours alone would be cost prohibitive, I look at the extra effort in getting others to join being worth it for the opportunity to take the fantastic tours that we really want to experience for the day that we're in port.

 

While I understand why people make the choice to only take ship sponsored tours, I often think to myself how many cruisers (that have never taken a shared private tour) may be missing out on much more unique and memorable port experiences.

 

As for M&Gs, I usually avoid them and I arrange for private tour details to be worked out on the Roll Call boards before sailing.

[Lovetocruiseprincess]

The Meet and Mingles on RCI (their equivalent of M&Gs) are run by RCI, not by roll call members.

 

To help getting people to actually meet each other there is a 10 minute period at the start where "People Bingo" (see below) is played. Can't use the same person for more than one answer.

 

 

I've never been to a Meet and Mingle on RCI. How do they view people getting together to arrange private tours? I don't suppose they're overjoyed about losing business to groups doing their own thing especially when they've hosted the get-to-gether in the first place.

[Aboat1]

I've never been to a Meet and Mingle on RCI. How do they view people getting together to arrange private tours? I don't suppose they're overjoyed about losing business to groups doing their own thing especially when they've hosted the get-to-gether in the first place.

 

I have seen first hand their feelings!

 

On a recent cruise a guest was seen exchanging money for private tours. She was told if any further transactions "like that" were seen, she would be put off the ship at the next port! AND a person from Security was suddenly "mingle-ing" with us!

[Cindy]

I'm sorry to hear there have been problems. I've been to "Meet & Greets" on 4 different cruise lines (not Carnival), and although some have been better than others, I've fortunately never experienced widespread selling of independent tours. I've organized a lot of things...I've done quite a few Cabin Crawls, and I've helped set up Slot Pulls. Last summer on Celebrity in the Baltics I set up a website that we used to arrange tours and find people to share tours with. The most important thing is I've met people that have enriched my cruise experience, and some have become friends. That, to me, is the purpose of a Meet & Greet.

 

 

What a difference between cruise lines!!

 

We normally cruise with Celebrity and recently with Azamara.

 

Both of those cruise lines arrange the M&Gs for cruise critic members. Many officers attend and introduce themselves.

 

The biggest difference is that there is normally an announcement by one of the officers regarding whether anyone is looking for anyone else specifically, including Roll Call members wanting to meet the people who have signed up for their private tours. Those cruise lines have no problem with people arranging their own private tours. Nevertheless, I have never witnessed anyone abusing that opportunity by either trying to fill vacancies on their tours or collecting money at the M&Gs.

 

I have heard about the difference in attitude toward private tours on Princess ships. I see from the prior comments on this thread that Princess cruisers have no problem with the Princess attitude towards private tours. Personally, I much prefer the relaxed attitude about private tours on Celebrity and Azamara.

 

Flame away!

 

 

Not a flame, but I disagree somewhat. While I have had the same experience of the cruise line (RC & Celebrity for me) helping attendees find people they're looking for, I also know for a fact that they don't allow the solicitation of people to fill vacancies or the exchange of money at their official gatherings. Not only have I heard it stated by staff, there was a huge uproar last summer on one of the Constellation sailings right after mine when the CD addressed the issue at the M&M. I can't imagine he took it upon himself to comment.

 

Maybe the difference is you've never had someone soliciting or collecting at the official meeting. I've seen it, and I don't have a problem with Princess or anyone else prohibiting this. The cruise lines are facilitating people getting together, but it's their ship...not a competitive market place. IMO, tours can be arranged ahead of time and if money needs to be collected the people on the tour should arrange to do that at a time and location other than a Meet and Greet. We had a ton of independent tours organized through our roll call last summer. We used the official Connections Party and our unofficial meetings to meet and identify each other, but all the arrangements were made ahead of time and as far as I know everybody paid their own way during the tours.

 

I've met some wonderful people over the years at both official and unofficial CC meets. I'd hate to see the cruise lines put an end to it because people won't respect their policies.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Cindy

[Corfe Mixture]

All the private tours we have been on have required each passenger to pay the tour provider themselves.

 

I have 'organised', private tours on Princess, Seabourn and P&O, though it would be more correct to say I have actually done nothing more than share information on my own plans which others then picked up on.

 

Other than the fact that the price was a function of number of participants I received no benefit, but we all paid the same price and all benefitted from the volume related reduction.

 

On the last private tour I was involved with, we had two 14 passenger air-conditioned minibuses, but with a limit of 12 passengers per minibus. Everyone booked direct with the tour provider, who used the 'first organisers' name as a reference to identify the members of the first group and once that minibus was fully booked a second minibus was started using the 'second organisers' name to identify members of the second group.

 

Everyone paid the tour operator on the day and had the second group been a partial group then members of that group, who booked later, would have paid more than the first group. In other words both groups were, to all intent and purpose, 'independently' organised.

 

The tours were organised on Roll Calls, but not always CC. No money changed hands, either before or during the cruise, and the first time most of us were able to put faces to names was when we met at the meet and greet, or in the case of the Seabourn tour, on the dockside.

 

We did not, however, discuss the matter at the meet and greet other than agree that we should all meet up on the morning of the tour and disembark together.

 

To the best of my knowledge no-one tried to use the meet and greet to get folks to join groups. We had four/five officers at the meet and greet. They did not feel the need to remind us that we should not use the meet and greet to organise / market private tours.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Corfe Mixture

[Mommypig]

To my knowledge I have never participated in a private tour where the organizer received a commission. And I have never personally tried to make money off of organizing a tour.

 

My main reason for preferring private tours is that I don't like crowds. Small group tours, or self guided tours are just more pleasant.

 

I have enjoyed some Princess excursions, and do review them just to see if there is anything we would enjoy. The whale watching zodiac tour in Cabo, the beach motu picnic in Huahine, the sunset cruise in Riatia (sp), But huge multi-bus tours with no narration during long extended bus rides are not for us. So we look for our own tours, or even just get off the ship and see what we can find at dockside if there is nothing appealing on the Princess list. Also, Princess tours get sold out. So if there are no tours for you to take you can essentially lose 1-2 hours of time in port because you can't get off the ship until the Princess tours are off. It was very frustrating in Nicaragua to have to wait for 1300 tour passengers to catch tenders before anyone else could disembark. We will be Elite after the world cruise next year so hopefully we won't have too much problem with that in the future.

[Kenswing]

I've organized several private tours and never expected anything. We split the total cost by how many people were on the tour. I have gone to requiring payment about 30 days in advance of the cruise though for the more expensive tours, I think I've only done this in Tahiti and Boston and will probably do it for some of the more expensive tours on our British Isles tours.

 

I know it's a leap of faith to send money to someone you've only met on the internet but it sucks if you're counting on 6 people for a tour and only 4 show up.. That raises the price for those remaining. So far it's worked out well..

Edited April 11, 2015 by Kenswing

[caribill]

I've never been to a Meet and Mingle on RCI. How do they view people getting together to arrange private tours? I don't suppose they're overjoyed about losing business to groups doing their own thing especially when they've hosted the get-to-gether in the first place.

 

They do not want it discussed at the M&M any more than Princess wants it discussed at the M&G. Ditto the exchange of $$$ at the M&M.

[caribill]

It was very frustrating in Nicaragua to have to wait for 1300 tour passengers to catch tenders before anyone else could disembark.

 

We were on one Princess cruise where our private tour was able to arrange with Princess to have one of the first tenders assigned to our group (40 people) and then other Princess passengers filled up the tender.

[paul929207]

Normally, Princess takes some non-ship excursion passengers on each tender. They fill up any available space. Often there are a couple of tender runs before the first ship's tour goes off. So if you are early and get a good number, you can get off early

[west coast cruiser]

We were on one Princess cruise where our private tour was able to arrange with Princess to have one of the first tenders assigned to our group (40 people) and then other Princess passengers filled up the tender.

 

I think I might have been on that cruise. 28 day Round trip L.A. to Tahiti ?

[caribill]

I think I might have been on that cruise. 28 day Round trip L.A. to Tahiti ?

 

Nope. Diamond. Singapore to Tokyo

[JF - retired RRT]

The Meet and Mingles on RCI (their equivalent of M&Gs) are run by RCI, not by roll call members.

 

To help getting people to actually meet each other there is a 10 minute period at the start where "People Bingo" (see below) is played. Can't use the same person for more than one answer.

 

How is this played? It sounds like it might be fun.:D

[rdsqrl]

How is this played? It sounds like it might be fun.:D

It's a very common icebreaker activity here on campus; I've played it dozens of times. Everyone has a copy of the above sheet and you simply wander aound to everyone else in the room and ask them if they have brown eyes or any sisters or whatever. One person per square (so if I have brown eyes and one sister, you can only use me for one of those squares).

 

I did play one version which disallowed direct questions: you couldn't ask someone straight out if they were an only child but had to ask roundabout questions to get the answer. In that case, there was a pedagogically relevant reason for playing that way; on a vacation, no need to complicate the game!

 

It's great fun and I think it's a fantastic idea for a meet and greet. Much more fun than listening to the M&G organizer blather on or do stilted one-person-at-a-time introductions. It forces the more introverted/shy/solo travelers amongst us to interact and be interacted with. Gonna suggest for this on my next roll call for sure.

[west coast cruiser]

Nope. Diamond. Singapore to Tokyo

 

They did the same thing for us on the other cruise. I was surprised that they did it.

[caribill]

How is this played? It sounds like it might be fun.:D

In teams of about four, you roam around the room and interact with the other passengers there asking if the ones you meet fit any of the squares. If someone does, you write his/her first name in the box.

 

When the mingling was over, the RCI host would call up a rep from teams that had a completed card. To prove you did not just make stuff up, you would be asked, for example, to point to the person who you said was born in August. First team, to successfully do that won a really, really cheap prize.

[Brisbanelionsfan]

The first meet and greet that I attended was on the Celebrity Solstice and it was fantastic. It was very informal and we all just gathered at a bar, about 40 people attended. We just mingled and got to meet a lot of very interesting people. I think we were there for about 2 hours. It was such a great group of people, we had a cabin crawl and some great pub lunches.

The next one was on Royal Princess in the Med and it started out OK and about half an hour in some people came and took over, talking very loudly and wanting to collect money for private tours. That ruined the whole atmosphere, and we left quickly. Didn't really speak to any of the people again the whole cruise. Such a pity.

I must say I can't really understand why invites to the captain and officers are necessary. I would rather put faces to the people I have been chatting to on the roll call.

[baconlover1]

I have done many M & G. If you email me at trbarton743@aol.com I will send you the letters that I use to invite officers, my flyer that I send to CC members, my name card template and the table that use to keep people's info.

 

I have been told by another CC member that I know that when they contacted Princess recently they were told that they no longer do this. So what I would do is to make up labels with the title of the officer and affix to to the envelop with your letter.

 

Any other questions please ask.

 

Tom:D

 

Hi Tom,

 

I sent you an email but haven't heard back. Thought maybe it went in your junk mail?

 

Thank you,

Donna

[trbarton]

Hi Tom,

 

I sent you an email but haven't heard back. Thought maybe it went in your junk mail?

 

Thank you,

Donna

 

Donna: I see an email thanking me for my information from a Donna and I assumed that you had it and was thanking me. I will send you what I have.

 

Tom:)

Edited April 16, 2015 by trbarton

[baconlover1]

Donna: I see an email thanking me for my information from a Donna and I assumed that you had it and was thanking me. I will send you what I have.

 

Tom:)

 

I got it that time, lol. Thank you so much!

[Roses2]

Over the years we have organized several M&Gs. They used to be interesting meetings where ideas and experiences were exchanged. They no longer are and we no longer organize M&Gs.

 

To us, they have grown too large and lost their meaning. The last few we have attended had well over 100 attendees and provided no real opportunity to either meet or greet.

 

We continue to organize private tours and join other private tours. We use CC for that purpose. We never collect any money in advance for the tours we organize and do not expect to pay in advance for those that others organize.

 

The OP alluded to the recent 17 day TA M&G. We were on that cruise and it was made very clear by several posters on CC that the M&G should not be used to discuss private tours and collecting money was not allowed by Princess. Yet there were those that did.

 

We have found that a simple exchange of names and cabin numbers on CC give ample opportunity to set up a communication means to set up private meetings to complete tour arrangements.

[baconlover1]

I guess we are fortunate in that for our upcoming M&G we only have 27 attending. :)

[Bogof1]

On our cruise in June the roll call members are just turning up wearing beads at a bar at sail away! Your choice or not to attend and easy to walk away if not for you. With nearly a 100 of us on the roll call it could be a raucous sail away!

[Terre]

We've been to a lot of M&Gs over the years and have never encountered what the OP has. All of ours have been our roll call getting together to meet each other; after all, we've been "e-talking" for months and it's time to meet. We do seek out others who are on the same excursions as ours, whether ship's or private, and decide to go together, but have never actually "sold" private tours to others at the M&G and no one has tried to sell us one. That happens on the roll call itself.

 

If that continues, the OP is correct in thinking that ones organized through the ship will not continue.

Edited April 17, 2015 by Terre