Are folks losing interest in Meet & Mingle Roll Calls?

[island lady]

I am not on FB, the bird thing, You Tube...etc. I still prefer this old style of communication.

;)

 

I don't mind if someone calls me by my avatar. I like it anyway. Names are sometimes hard to remember since we tend to look at the avatar name first thing anyway.

 

I post on all of my cruise sail date roll calls, and if I can't find one for my cruise...I start one myself.

 

I try to help out where I can by answering questions if I know the answer, am willing to help organize events, and also have hosted many cabin crawls. I always go to the meet and mingle, and so does the DH. We have never missed one.

 

It still works for us. ;)

[setsail]

Because it takes people away from CC and they don't want that. We've already lost a lot of people to fb that would have been on CC's roll calls and message boards.

 

What, who cares what sites people visit or where they post. No one has control over that. I haven't lost a thing to fb and my answer was for another poster

[WeighAnchor]

I have been sailing on RCCL since 2005. The Meet & Mingles used to be in the afternoons and include alcohol. I think many quite going when they changed to the morning and took away the booze.

[BillOh]

....since you "never heard anyone" means it never happened? :rolleyes: let'stake a look at that statement...............

 

It certainly doesn't happen everytime. I've never had it happen, but I can usually guage how it will go by the posts up to sailaway.

[BillOh]

Our group had a blast on the cabin crawl! I only went to one cabin with them though as its too tough following along in my wheelchair. I was able to see a new deck 12 Panoramic OV cabin on Freedom and they were really nice.

 

On the other hand, the majority of our group was very thankful I volunteered my accessible Promenade cabin for the crawl. Even the most seasoned cruisers of the group really didnt seem to know about the extra space and features that makes cruising easier for us and mine was the only Promenade in the crawl.

 

I've only been on one cabin crawl, and if you are ever only going to do one an Oasis class is a good one with so many types of cabins that aren't on other ships. While we had no wheel chair members, we had a couple of cane/walker people so we arranged the cabin order in a progression that moved up the ship and made for the shortest amount of travel. The Arizona cruisers did a good job of organizing that one on our Allure 2013 cruise.

[BillOh]

I don't know if people are losing interest or not but I think a huge factor in the timing of the meet and mingle. It seems that are scheduled during a port day - most people are off the ship then. On my Vision cruise in January, on CC it started tiime/place to be announced - never saw anything nor did I get any invitation in my cabin.

 

I am going to assume you are basing this off the one cruise in your signature? The only time I have seen this happen was on the same ship. On that itinerary the only Sea Day is the last day of the cruise and that is somewhat counter intuitive of the reason for the meet and mingle. All of the other ones excluding Jewel on the southern itinerary were sea day mornings.

[BillOh]

Since fb came along, more and more people are setting up pages for particular cruises and we are losing roll call members to that.

 

 

You maybe right, but I don't see it. The few that I look at have virtually no activity and I definitely won't participate in a group that puts my name and so much information on the screen announcing when I will be away from home.

[Biker19]

I am not on the bird thing,

Am I the only one that busted out LOL at this one?

 

Biker, who donated a prize to be won at the last M&M.

[BillOh]

RCCL does them in areas where there is no mingling. Its at a theatre or a other seated venue. Everyone comes and sits down, waits for the raffle and leaves.

When they held them in bars with everyone milling around, you mingled.

The roll call have gone down bc you can see real identities and pictures of people on that other platform and those groups aren't quite as nasty to each other. Not because they're nicer, because they're not anonymous.

 

I've never had a roll call in a theater, they have all been in open lounges. While I have had anonymous people being nasty in the main forum pages, never in a roll call.

[BillOh]

You would need to put in your sailing date and/or ship's name. Someone would have to set up the page and then direct people to it. Usually someone will hint at it in the roll call on CC. It is against CC's rules to actually mention a roll call page on fb, but people still do.

 

Are you sure you have that right? CC doesn't want you advertising Facebook groups on cruise critic, but why would they care if you link a cruise critic roll call on facebook? They don't want traffic driven away from CC. I think they would want you to drive traffic here and Facebook certainly doesn't care.

[sasha96]

I think the popularity of CC in general has decreased in the last few years. There are so many social media platforms out there and I think it has diluted the CC base. too bad!:(

 

BILL

 

I agree, I think social media has changed the shape of socialization online in so many ways. I think all "message boards" in general aren't as popular as they were 10 years ago. Social media is a format where replies, though not anonymous, all for more of a direct connection and fast, more flowing conversations. Plus, people are often there more frequently, causing responses to be more readily provided.

[BillOh]

OK I hold my hands up, I am one of those lurkers.

I visit CC on a almost daily basis and love reading most of the threads. I am fairly new to cruising and only been on 3 before with my next one being on IOS in June this year.

Anne

 

I am very proflic in most roll calls and I have had several people come up to me on the ship and say they got lots of information from the roll call and were thankful for it. I value them as much as regular participants.

[BillOh]

I always believe that the more people input into the roll call the more active it has the potential to become. I start participating relatively soon after I join a roll call. A roll call can't get interesting just because it is listed.

 

Good point, with the decline in roll call participation I have found that sometime early on I am talking with myself. Take a look at my next roll call. I booked this one 500 days ahead and it took about 140 days for several more people to book. But I posted several observations and questions trying to stir things up when people did come. Maybe this is a sign I need an intervention.

 

It was kind of the same way for my Freedom 15 cruise. But once it got going they were both great.

[BillOh]

 

I don't mind if someone calls me by my avatar. I like it anyway. Names are sometimes hard to remember since we tend to look at the avatar name first thing anyway.

 

I agree. I had heard people talk about roll call being cliquish. I think sometimes people see others referring to each other by first names and they assume they have all cruised before and are not welcoming.

 

On my current roll call there are 3 users I have been talking with for months and I'll occasionally call someone by their first name, but I'm also quick to acknowledge new visitors. One guy I always call by his user name, because I like calling him Grumpus. :D

[Paulette3028]

Good point, with the decline in roll call participation I have found that sometime early on I am talking with myself. Take a look at my next roll call. I booked this one 500 days ahead and it took about 140 days for several more people to book. But I posted several observations and questions trying to stir things up when people did come. Maybe this is a sign I need an intervention.

 

It was kind of the same way for my Freedom 15 cruise. But once it got going they were both great.

 

My DH would say I 'talk to myself' a lot anyway, not always expecting an answer. I probably would never join a roll call 500 days out.....but I agree that often it can feel like a conversation with yourself. I find that if I engage in threads about the ships I will be sailing on, it might encourage people who are on my sailing (and I mention in my posts when I am sailing on that ship) to join the roll call....if yes, good; if no, can't help it.

 

Sometimes I try to be "Curious George" in a roll call....just asking questions for others to answer. If it boosts participation, its all good. I hope it does, better for me, is my feeling.

[Paulette3028]

I don't know if people are losing interest or not but I think a huge factor in the timing of the meet and mingle. It seems that are scheduled during a port day - most people are off the ship then. On my Vision cruise in January, on CC it started tiime/place to be announced - never saw anything nor did I get any invitation in my cabin.

 

I am going to assume you are basing this off the one cruise in your signature? The only time I have seen this happen was on the same ship. On that itinerary the only Sea Day is the last day of the cruise and that is somewhat counter intuitive of the reason for the meet and mingle. All of the other ones excluding Jewel on the southern itinerary were sea day mornings.

 

 

When we sailed on Jewel doing the S. Caribbean, if they waited for a sea day it would have been day 6 to have the M&M, so it was on Day 2. Yet people were there, and those that were there had a great time. On that one, it had finger snacks and not very interesting drinks.....and coffee and tea. But it really wasn't the food that got people there, it was the curiosity about WHO we had been chatting with, and meeting them. A few raffle drawings and fun for 30-45 minutes....it wasn't a huge amount of time to take from my day. I realize if I had an excursion in port that conflicted with it, I might feel differently.

[Albertacruisers55]

My 2 cents just came off b2b serenade of the seas and the first one was well attended but very little participation from RCCL Staff.It has become very apparent that they are getting away from it more,very few snacks and getting a cocktail was next to impossible.

Second trip cards were in the room but were left blank.Yes I know where guest relations is located but the info should have been on the card.Its the little things like that will see this event removed from ship activities.

We have booked the 24 day Explorer South Pacific in October this year so will see what happens there.

 

Gerald

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

It's rather amusing... if Royal is indeed starting to scale back, here comes Carnival (late to the game as always) and they're just now starting to have official Meet-n-Greets !!

 

Tom

[JulieRose]

Our last one for anthem was quite popular. We nearly filled the music hall and had a fair few well attended events.

[ptf2009]

We are Diamond and have never been to an M & M. When I tried to sign up, CC wanted all of my personal information, even though RCCL has it. Why does CC need anything more that my confirmation #, our last name, ship name and date? So I guess no M & M's for us...but that's okay, we like to just be with each other. We just check out CC for information and ideas to receive and share. Unfortunately, our roll call for our next cruise is the most inactive than any of our other roll calls.

 

Happy Cruising!

[critterchick]

We are Diamond and have never been to an M & M. When I tried to sign up, CC wanted all of my personal information, even though RCCL has it. Why does CC need anything more that my confirmation #, our last name, ship name and date? So I guess no M & M's for us...but that's okay, we like to just be with each other. We just check out CC for information and ideas to receive and share. Unfortunately, our roll call for our next cruise is the most inactive than any of our other roll calls.

 

Happy Cruising!

 

You register for the M&M on the Royal Caribbean website; CC is just providing a link. The better question is why RCI doesn't populate the form with information it should have from your reservation (everything but your CC name).

 

I always sign up for the M&M, but our attendance is spotty. We haven't been to a really good one in a few years now and when it's held at an inconvenient time (we had one scheduled for 10:00 while the ship was docked in Nawilwili Harbor on Kauai), we don't go.

[sisocialworker]

no activity on my upcoming one..I have been to some great ones...maybe it will get active..still have time

[BadBoysDriveAudi]

................black kettle lives matter!!!!!!....................no meet and mingle .. no peace..................

 

Please stop. Please...just...stop. :D

[Disneycruisers]

I agree, I think social media has changed the shape of socialization online in so many ways. I think all "message boards" in general aren't as popular as they were 10 years ago. Social media is a format where replies, though not anonymous, all for more of a direct connection and fast, more flowing conversations. Plus, people are often there more frequently, causing responses to be more readily provided.

 

Exactly! (Count me as one who loved the old message boards, but now love the new social media formats even more.)

[island lady]

Am I the only one that busted out LOL at this one?

 

Biker, who donated a prize to be won at the last M&M.

 

Thanks....my attempt at humor was not lost on you. ;)

 

Though I am definitely a dinosaur in this high tech age. :p