Meet and Greet - will the cruise line help?

[luckynumber6]

We are planning a meet and greet with our roll call on the Carnival Destiny out of San Juan in June on Carnival. Does anyone know if Carnival will set a place aside in one of the bars or give us free drinks or something :) for cruisecritic members.... Does anyone know if they do anything like this?

 

Thanks in advance!

[paul929207]

I know Princess will arrange a meet & greet if someone requests it. We had several during our recent time on the Star Princess. They put out some snacks. One was hosted by a member of the cruise directors staff. Sorry, no free drinks.

 

They also arranged (at our request) two luncheons for us. We all sat in one section of the dining room and ordered off the normal menu. They gave us champaign at the first one.

[ssantow]

Royal Caribbean will arrange a meet and greet once 25 people have signed up for it. The meet and greet is hosted by one of the cruise directors staff and they pass out some small trinkets like key chains or document holders. There are some snacks and coffee and tea but no free booze.

[paul929207]

I forgot to mention that for our luncheons (see above), the guy that organized them gave Princess a list of all the people from our roll call. Princess set us each an invitation to the lunch.

[Krazy Kruizers]

On HAL, usually someone will contact ship services and arrange for a meet and greet. They supply everyone's name. All we have ever gotten is coffee, tea, water and cookies.

[Bruin Steve]

For Royal Caribbean and Celebrity, there is a link to a sign-up page on the Roll Call boards...

RCCL/Celebrity sets up a room, brings in food, gives out prizes and party favors, assigns an assistant CD to host, etc. They send invitations to your cabin...

 

Carnival does nothing...You are on your own to agree on a place and time and get the word out to your roll call...

[2Cruise4Ever]

The last M&G we attended on Carnival Victory, we just met at a bar at a certain time. But, for NCL, I've been in contact with the ship coordinator and she set aside a time and place for our M&G. NCL usually provides snacks and drinks (non alcoholic - like juice, coffee, and tea). So, for our cruise next week, we have space at the Star Bar at a specific time. I don't know who to contact at Carnival. Maybe your PVP can help.

[GORDONCHICK]

I had high hopes for someone from the Celebirty staff to join us for our Celebrity Connections (they named it) party, but no one came. They did send out invitations and set aside a meeting place with cookies, tea, and coffee. We had a pretty good turn out of CC people, but I was disappointed that Celebrity didn't place an importance on it.

 

On Carnival, we did our own thing. We set up a couple of times to meet, once was at the pool bar at sail away. We had a large group, but because we didn't have a specified meeting place later, we missed several people. And sail away is a hard time if it's close to your dining time.

 

My best experience was on the Grand Princess. We had two official meetings, and it was even in the Patters. The CD and ACD both came and sat and chatted with us. The CD had a book that he had all of us sign plus add our screen names. He asked our opinions of different things and what our impressions were when we first boarded and later in the week. He seemed sincere in that he really wanted to know. He even took our group photo for us. This was also the most active roll call I'd been a part of.

[lady_cruiser]

.............

 

My best experience was on the Grand Princess. We had two official meetings, and it was even in the Patters. The CD and ACD both came and sat and chatted with us. The CD had a book that he had all of us sign plus add our screen names. He asked our opinions of different things and what our impressions were when we first boarded and later in the week. He seemed sincere in that he really wanted to know. He even took our group photo for us. This was also the most active roll call I'd been a part of.

 

Just joking BUT I wonder if he wanted your names/screen names because he wanted to monitor what was said about his cruise line. I keep thinking back to the couple who always gave a bad review about their RCL cruises even though they kept sailing on her. They complainted so much that RCL finally ask them to find another line to cruise on.

 

IS BIG BROTHER REALLY WATCHING OUR BOARDS :p !

[GORDONCHICK]

Just joking BUT I wonder if he wanted your names/screen names because he wanted to monitor what was said about his cruise line. I keep thinking back to the couple who always gave a bad review about their RCL cruises even though they kept sailing on her. They complainted so much that RCL finally ask them to find another line to cruise on.

 

IS BIG BROTHER REALLY WATCHING OUR BOARDS :p !

 

Of course that's why he wanted them. That's only a very smart CD to do that, and a very pro-acctive one at that. It is very smart for people employed by the cruiselines to be very aware of what people think - especially people who cruise as much and are passionate about it. And most of them aren't looking for stuff like with the RCL couple who were banned. They genuinely want to improve their product for competition sake. People who are in any service type of industry should pay attention to such things to make their business better. There will always be some people that cannot be pleased, no matter what, but that is not what you find here for the most part.

[mav39]

Cruised on the Pride in March and got advice from other members here on CC for conducting a meet and greet.

 

Go to John Heald's blog. Email him with the date of your cruise, the size of your group, and the day and time you would like to meet. He will contact the CD for your cruise and set up a space for you. Continue to read his blog and he will eventually let you know where your meeting can be held. It took about a week for our group to get a reply.

 

BTW...we had about 20 people show up for our meet and greet out of 40 on our roll call. We had it in the piano bar, early afternoon of the first day at sea.