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Well, I called Royal Caribbean today...

EchoSix

By EchoSix,
in Royal Caribbean International

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kidless

kidless

Posted
Posted
This idea of combining groups could work great!

With a little innovative pairing they could convert the ice-skating rink into an octagon and put on X-treme Cage Fighting every night, and allow gambling!

 

Sunday:

National Cattlemen's Association

PETA

 

Monday:

Greenpeace

Exxon

 

Tuesday:

National Basketball Association

Little People of America

 

Wednesday:

National Timber Association

Spotted Owl League

 

Thursday:

Cruise Critics

International Cruiseline Owners Association

 

Friday:

Good decent people

Supporters of Hillary

(oops that was a typo ;-))

 

Saturday:

Policeman's Benevolent Association

NORML (late dining requested and.. dude, late dining requested.)

 

These would sell out faster than the Ice shows!

 

Oh lordy that is so funny...I'd buy tickets for that!!! Thanks for the laugh! :D ....:D I especially like Friday even if it was a Typo

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PhoenixCruiser

PhoenixCruiser

Posted
Posted
Do you know what any of these policies are or where I can find them? I looked on their site and couldn't find any mention of "behavior" policies or codes of conduct. Perhaps they are listed somewhere in our cruise contracts.

 

Jimmers:)

 

Hey Jimmers!

 

http://www.royalcaribbean.com/content/pdf/Guest_Vacation_Policy.pdf

 

###

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cindyscruise

cindyscruise

Posted
Posted

if you are concerned about large groups on your sailing I would suggest that you email or call to complain. That is what I did. I am sure I will receive a standard email back stating they cannot tell me about groups. But if enough people contact RCI then it might make a difference. I suggested that groups of a certain size be required to book the entire ship. so if a group is 900 they need a smaller ship. I do not see where it violates any privacy to state if a ship has a large group. we are not talking a group who books 8 or 9 cabins but rather groups who take about half the ship.

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Darkwolfe

Darkwolfe

Posted
Posted

Echo- Good discussion started on this one, nice job.

 

By and large I don't worry about groups too much. I have a few friends who have alternative lifestyles and they would have been mortally embarrassed by the garbage we've heard about from the Jewel cruise.

 

Still, not a bad thought to list groups on a site somewhere. RCI could turn that into something useful by providing a group cruises page on their site. That way passengers could avoid the groups they don't want to be around. They could also join a cruise with a group they might be interested in learning about.

 

RCI wouldn't even have to do much work. They could simply offer to post a link for the group and the group in question could set up the page on their own site. Win/Win for everybody.

 

Things that make you go hmmmm....

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TPKeller Excellent Advice! Rare

TPKeller

Posted
Posted
Win/Win for everybody.

 

Things that make you go hmmmm....

I wish it were the case, but I really don't think it is. Here are the thoughts I posted last night on a related thread about this:

Well this poor horse has been beat to death several times over.

 

I think we are all severely over-analyzing the situation.

 

The "social issues" card will always play a small part of the debate, and that's because humans are social creatures. There will always be social issues when humans interact. The "social issues" card is a distraction, and has very little to do with the real issue. [Now as a side note, how RCCL handles problems with certain "social issues" is a whole other discussion entirely, here I'm only addressing the prior knowledge of large groups on a cruise.]

 

To me, this whole "group cruise issue" is quite a bit simpler. The "big guy" (and that would be the cruise line, any cruise line, any big company that arranges accommodations for large numbers of people) is taking advantage of the "small guy" (the individual traveler), as is always the case, simply because they can do so.

 

This is how it has always been, and this is how it will be for the foreseeable future.

 

A fact that is difficult to dispute is that on a cruise, when you have a group of sufficient size, it does have a negative impact on the cruise experience of an individual person or family. Whether it's a change in the overall atmosphere (socially, musically, ethnically, anything), reserving certain public areas for exclusive use, or even just something as simple as a prevalence of certain colors or items of clothing (Red Hats!:)), to some degree, the "small guy's" cruise will be affected by a large group.

 

The "big guy" obviously knows this, and unless they are prepared to accept empty cabins that would otherwise be filled by the "small guys" (they are not!), it is absolutely in their financial interest to keep the existence of large groups secret. They can hide behind whatever labels they want (privacy, etc,) but they're never going to let it out, because they don't want half empty cruise ships.

 

Is this fair to the "small guys"? Not even remotely. Stated harshly, in the worst cases, the "big guy" is stealing (fraud? deceptive advertising?) some of the value of the cruise product from the "small guy", by providing an experience that is below the expectation that the "small guy" has been reasonably allowed to assume they are buying.

 

How often are individuals treated fairly by big corporations in any segment of society? Rarely! (Have you read your cruise contract lately?) Is there any recourse? None that I am aware of, other than abstaining from the offending product or provider.

 

It's simple economics. It will always be a problem, and there is very little that anyone can do about it.

 

Poor horse... RIP... :)

I don't see a practical solution anytime soon.

 

Theron

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2DesertGuys

2DesertGuys

Posted
Posted

Having been a travel agent for a number of years and booking groups, I can say group clients do pay a premimum for their cabins and put up their money far in advance of the sailing date. Some groups have even been charged for exculsive use of a room and charged for food. The cruise lines look at the the bottom line and aggressively court group business, it is big business for them. Groups are good business and very profitable however that doesn't mean that the line shouldn't alert the rest of the cruise members to their "special" guests. I think it's called "respect or courtesy". In this day of computers, they know well in advance of any groups that are on board and could let the other members know well in adance of the sailing date.

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Merion_Mom

Merion_Mom

Posted
Posted
Doesn't the Cruise Critic Web site (not boards, the rest of the site) have a page that lists many groups that are cruising and when/what ship? It doesn't list them all, of course, but when I saw it before the list was pretty long (encompassing all cruiselines).

 

Those are Cruise Critic group cruises. :)

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Merion_Mom

Merion_Mom

Posted
Posted
I have a question for anyone who might know....there is a Carnival Wiki that lists many of the groups traveling on Carnival ships.

http://unofficialcarnivalwiki.com/wiki/Group_Cruises

 

So I guess no one has started one for RCCL? How would one start something like this? Might be a good idea. :)

 

Please excuse this commercial interruption: ;)

 

Michele: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE email me ASAP.

 

I need your professional expertise!

 

I'm on aol (dot) com, just use Merion and Mom without the space.

 

Many thanks.

 

Carol

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Pumbaamd

Pumbaamd

Posted
Posted
Having been a travel agent for a number of years and booking groups, I can say group clients do pay a premimum for their cabins and put up their money far in advance of the sailing date. Some groups have even been charged for exculsive use of a room and charged for food. The cruise lines look at the the bottom line and aggressively court group business, it is big business for them. Groups are good business and very profitable however that doesn't mean that the line shouldn't alert the rest of the cruise members to their "special" guests. I think it's called "respect or courtesy". In this day of computers, they know well in advance of any groups that are on board and could let the other members know well in adance of the sailing date.

You got it right! Maybe it could be posted in a "weekly e-mail newsletter" sent to all RCCL guests on their e-mail list. It could be posted as "RCCL welcomes the XYZ Group on May 1st"! Hey, here's another idea! RCCL, why not send a weekly newsletter, with a coupon and the current news and bargains? And a contest of some kind? RCCL, are you listening?

We are current RCCL Diamond member fans. Love RCCL, but we have received more e-mail advertising from NCL, who we sailed a while ago, then we do RCCL. RCCL, don't become complacent with your C&A members. Other cruise lines are trying to steal us away ftom you.

Rick and Deirdra

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willysgrandma

willysgrandma

Posted
Posted
You got it right! Maybe it could be posted in a "weekly e-mail newsletter" sent to all RCCL guests on their e-mail list. It could be posted as "RCCL welcomes the XYZ Group on May 1st"! Hey, here's another idea! RCCL, why not send a weekly newsletter, with a coupon and the current news and bargains? And a contest of some kind? RCCL, are you listening?

We are current RCCL Diamond member fans. Love RCCL, but we have received more e-mail advertising from NCL, who we sailed a while ago, then we do RCCL. RCCL, don't become complacent with your C&A members. Other cruise lines are trying to steal us away ftom you.

Rick and Deirdra

 

Will never happen. That would discourage others from booking the cruise.

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Quampapetet

Quampapetet

Posted
Posted
Ok, I'm confused. Is this the page you were looking at? http://www.cruisecritic.com/interests/groupcruise.cfm

 

Nope, that wasn't it. It was a very long list of all sorts of different groups and the ships they were going on (I think it was sorted by date, such as in X month these groups are going on X ship on X date). I haven't had time to look for it myself, but I will try to do so.

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NancyB84

NancyB84

Posted
Posted
Nope, that wasn't it. It was a very long list of all sorts of different groups and the ships they were going on (I think it was sorted by date, such as in X month these groups are going on X ship on X date). I haven't had time to look for it myself, but I will try to do so.

 

Was this it? (then click on round up of theme cruises etc)?

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/cruisestyles/area.cfm?area=37

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Quampapetet

Quampapetet

Posted
Posted
Was this it? (then click on round up of theme cruises etc)?

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/cruisestyles/area.cfm?area=37

 

Hmm, yes, I think that might have been it. Was it set up a bit differently previously, more of a list than descriptions? Even if it wasn't, that's a nice little list of some group cruises (certainly not all of them that exist, of course). Thanks for finding that!

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NancyB84

NancyB84

Posted
Posted
Hmm, yes, I think that might have been it. Was it set up a bit differently previously, more of a list than descriptions? Even if it wasn't, that's a nice little list of some group cruises (certainly not all of them that exist, of course). Thanks for finding that!

 

 

I think the page has been changed recently. But, if you click through it, I believe that all the same information is there... it is just grouped differently.

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Quampapetet

Quampapetet

Posted
Posted

Yeah, it is a nice list - pretty helpful if ppl are looking for a group to go with! (Or, like with this thread, ppl want to know what group will be on their ship [remember that not all groups are listed here - I remember checking a while back and the group I'm going with wasn't on there].)

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cindyscruise

cindyscruise

Posted
Posted

I for one, would like to be told if a large group is on my sailing. So if anyone knows of one on the 6/14/08 sailing on Liberty please share your info. This is not the same as "would you tell your best friend her husband is cheating." Information is power and with information you can make an informed choise. Some may not care one way or the other about a large group and others may. By informing one of a large group on their sailing is not telling them not to go so I do not see the harm.

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