Solo Travel and Meetups

[SeaSirenVoyager]

Hi Everyone, quick question for you all, are all Norwegian cruise ships have Solo meetups and activities? Even the ones with no solo/studio cabins?

[shof515]

yes. the meetup is in the freestyle daily at a bar or lounge somewhere on the ship

[vswan]

They did a great job with the solo program in January on the Jade and they have no solo studio. Meet ups were generally scheduled nightly in one of the bars before dinner time. The bar did change a couple times because of events, but the location was always listed in the freestyle daily. Enjoy!

[Asawi]

As others say: Solo meetups even on ships with no studios. Spirit, Star and Gem are the ones I travelled last year. If I recall correctly somwhere between 5-7 pm every day. Listed in the dailies.

[idocdlw]

7 hours ago, shaunmostashari said:

Hi Everyone, quick question for you all, are all Norwegian cruise ships have Solo meetups and activities? Even the ones with no solo/studio cabins?

Have an awesome solo cruise!

[BirdTravels]

8 hours ago, shaunmostashari said:

Hi Everyone, quick question for you all, are all Norwegian cruise ships have Solo meetups and activities? Even the ones with no solo/studio cabins?

Yes. There are solo meet ups every night. The "quality" of the meet up is 100% dependent upon the people who attend. So, if you make an effort to make it a good meet up, then it will be good throughout the cruise. 

 

Have a fun time!

[SeaSirenVoyager]

Thank y'all so much for answering my post!!

 

As a follow up to my question, do these ships with no solo cabins have a solo lounge for the solo cruisers?

Edited March 2 by shaunmostashari

[hallux]

6 minutes ago, shaunmostashari said:

do these ships with no solo cabins have a solo lounge for the solo cruisers?

It was kind of implied in the replies you received, but there is NOT a dedicated lounge if there are no Studio cabins.

 

ALL ships now have 'solo' cabins, but many lack the Studio cabins that also have the lounge.

[vswan]

The one suggestion that I would have is to go to the first night meet up. This seemed to be the best attended with so many people doing specialty dining on different nights. On our cruise about three tables for 8 then went to dinner together with reservations made through the NCL solo organizer. Gave us a chance to talk a bit and get to know some of the people a bit better. Was nice to see a friendly face while out and about.

 

I was on the Jade. No studio cabins or lounge, but they had just changed to offering solo inside, oceanview and balcony cabins - it's my understanding that these are available on all sailing now, even on ships with solo studio cabins. I'm not sure if there were solos in the cabins near me, never really saw anybody coming and going. Do know that the people I met were not all on the same floor.

[yakcruiser]

If you're interested at all in trivia try to get a team of solos together. We once had a team of 6 from various backgrounds and interests and were pretty darn good. We would have won most nights if the table next to us didn't have a living breathing Encyclopedia Brittanica on their team.

[zombiehunter]

My friend and I went to one of those meet ups and it was ran really poorly. The person running it basically had it set up like an AA meeting and we rolled out halfway through. Hopefully you'll have better experiences but I've always found it pretty easy to talk to strangers at group activities and after a few of those I've usually walked away with new vacation friends. So definitely seek out those group interactive activities and have fun! Hope that helps

[UKstages]

i agree that the solo meetups are often poorly run. and their success as an "event" depends heavily on the staff member entrusted to run it. but what's great about the meetups is the pre-qualification.. everybody there is presumably a solo traveler.  i've made plenty of new cruise friends around the ship, but they are invariably couples, and not inclined to do an activity or show or share a platinum meal with me.

[hallux]

1 hour ago, zombiehunter said:

The person running it basically had it set up like an AA meeting

Yeah, the one on my last cruise got that way.  I went to 2 or 3 and then just found a group of solos that were of the same mindset and we did our own thing.

[reeinaz]

The first night does usually involve some sort of introductory exercise, wear a name tag and go around and introduce yourself. I'm happy to have an involved solo host as some are MIA on any given night or not engaged with the group in any way. I had one who was able to dine with us a couple of times (I think he was most excited about us sliding him a drink or 2)

[yakcruiser]

I must be lucky. I've only had one bad solos host and she was replaced on the third night of a 19 day cruise.

[zombiehunter]

I'm sorry, I should have also pointed out that my sample size was ONE haha. So I'm VERY glad to hear others have had better luck 🙂

[SeaSirenVoyager]

32 minutes ago, zombiehunter said:

I'm sorry, I should have also pointed out that my sample size was ONE haha. So I'm VERY glad to hear others have had better luck 🙂

I have a different question for you, out of curiosity, how many Zombies have you hunted so far?🧟‍♂️😁

[Dakotahblu]

On 3/2/2024 at 6:13 PM, yakcruiser said:

If you're interested at all in trivia try to get a team of solos together. We once had a team of 6 from various backgrounds and interests and were pretty darn good. We would have won most nights if the table next to us didn't have a living breathing Encyclopedia Brittanica on their team.

Ok, I just saw your message, wanna set up a solo traveler trivia team with me?

I soooo want to do that.

Maybe I'll post and try to set it up? 😃 

[Chocolate Teapot]

I find the solo gathering really depends on the attendees. I did the Epic Mediterranean cruise for several years, and sometimes there would be a regular group of people who went for dinner every night, other times the solo lounge would be almost deserted.

 

There was one Epic cruise where I went to the first night Solo traveller gathering and the lounge was packed. I had never seen it so full before. However, it became clear that all the people were part of existing friend groups travelling together and were not interested in meeting new people.