M&G Door Prize Ideas

[SpainAlien]

I wonder if anyone could help me? I have volunteered to be the M&G Coordinator for our Transatlantic on Getaway. I want it to be a good event for everyone so I want to get together some door prizes but I have no ideas where to start, how many prizes I should have and what value I should spend on each one.

 

Also we are having a gift swap, how is that done?

 

Thank you all for your help

 

Gail x

 

[SpainAlien]

I was thinking travel mugs, sand proof beach towels, lanyards, does that sound alright or should I be thinking more expensive?

[hladygirl]

All of those sound great. I always bring a large travel coffee mug. It is amazing how many people don’t and stop to ask me where I got it. It beats those tiny cups in buffet.

[havanadaydreaming]

last M&G we attended there was a white elephant gift exchange, where each gift could be swiped up to 3x.  I think there were almost 75 participants and it took forever.  I had one of the last choices and I refused to steal anything in order to do my part to help move things along.  There were several, how do I say, LARGE personalities who kinda made the event exhausting. 

 

My recommendation is to set a floor price for any gift bag cruisers bring, perhaps $15?  I know we personally spent 2x our limit to hopefully ensure whomever selected ours wasn't devastated.  there were quite a few coffee mugs, only, that went over like lead balloons. 

 

good luck on the door prizes.  I think any sane person would appreciate the effort and thoughtfulness no matter what they receive. 

[luvincruising]

    We did a raffle on our last NCL cruise.  Suggest a price range - $10 - $20, $15 - $25 - to the group.  Whatever the majority are ok with, stick with that range.  A white elephant is a lot of fun but does take time.  If time will be an issue, a raffle goes pretty quick.  Put all the wrapped gifts on a table, each person that brings a gift gets a number, the host pulls a gift and pulls a number from a hat, the person with the corresponding number wins the gift, and so on.

 

  Some gifts that we had were bottles of wine/ champagne, themed gifts from your hometown - a magnet, t-shirt & baseball cap from the local team, aromatherapy oils, travel blanket, night eye mask and neck pillow, etc..

 

Have a great cruise.

 

[Beer Belly]

Maybe once on board, head to the gift shop and grab something specific to the ship or cruise, raffle it off at the M&M.

[mking8288]

Keep it simple, you don't need/have to made it complicated.  Ask and see if others on the Roll Call might want to donate & offer to bring some prizes - spend as little as you can/or none at all, especialy if you are traveling to the embarkation port and/or will be flying, or take time to "shop" & collect them prior to the M&G.  Enlist the help of other volunteers from the Roll Call.  It can be nice, cute & useful items on any cruise, i.e.  lanyard & holder for those key cards, luggage tag holders for those NCL tags, sparkling wine and/or bottle of wine (from those that don't drink or got "extras" to give away) ... or, even bottles of water (as much as I hate to suggest this, at NCL's inflated prices ... it will be onboard & in your stateroom, no need to worry about carrying them, etc.) extra NCL ship pins from the old days or even those old ship photos, etc. 

[copper004]

I have only organized one M&G and it was this past December. I personally would not bring gift/prizes. My main reason being luggage space and cost. Check with NCL, they might donate a bottle of wine for a prize. IMHO, the key to a good M&G is getting people to mingle with the other attendees. I passed out the sheet below and was happy to see everyone mix & mingling to find correct matches. I thought it worked well! Good luck!

[SpainAlien]

ThI was thinking travel mugs, sand proof beach towels, lanyards, does that sound alright or should I be thinking more expensive?

[SpainAlien]

Thank you everyone for the ideas and thank you Copper004 for the people bingo game 🙂

 

[Georgia_Peaches]

Was just on a cruise where the M&G coordinator organized a gift swap.  All those participating put their gift on a main table.  Then every one who brought a gift drew a number out of a hat.  People selected a gift from the table in numerical order.

 

While a very nice sentiment and gesture, the expense of purchasing door prizes from your own pocket can add up.  JMO 

[Sauer-kraut]

On our Transatlantic we had a gift exchange, limit of $10 or $15 (I can' t remember)  the organizer had duplicate number pads such as these:

 

So that one went to the person who is giving a gift and the other half went into a hat/bag to be drawn.  The gifts were wrapped so we didn't know what was what.   It was quite fun, I brought a picture calendar of Chicago and it was easy to pack, nice and flat and didn't take up much space.  The gifts were themed to the state or town where you came from.

I also did a little trivia game before our Roll Call lunch we had arranged.  While we were waiting for the MDR to open I had a  few questions, "The person who came the farthest", "Who has sailed the most" things along those lines.  I had purchased some very inexpensive things like little notebooks and pens.  I think I had about 5 questions, it was fun to do and it made the wait for the MDR go a little quicker.

[debenson0723]

8 hours ago, copper004 said:

I have only organized one M&G and it was this past December. I personally would not bring gift/prizes. My main reason being luggage space and cost. Check with NCL, they might donate a bottle of wine for a prize. IMHO, the key to a good M&G is getting people to mingle with the other attendees. I passed out the sheet below and was happy to see everyone mix & mingling to find correct matches. I thought it worked well! Good luck!

This is an excellent idea!  I will be using it for my next M&G.

[purpleally]

Thank you copper004 for the icebreaker!