Cruise Critic Group Activities such as Slot Pull, Cabin Crawl...... Ideas please

I have been on cruises where members of our cruise critic group did some fun activities (just for our group) Does anyone have activity ideas to share? Thanks

Sailaway gathering on the topmost deck with a good view.

Bar meets on sea days. I am not a fan of bar crawls because these problems happen:

- understaffed bar takes forever to get a drink for everyone when you arrive

- activity at or near bar makes it awkward

- bar too busy and gets really slow to get drinks

- people arrive late and can't find you

So I like to just pick one place to meet and talk and pick a bar and time likely not to be too busy.

Photo scavenger hunt. Make a long list of things both shipboard and in ports to capture cell phone photos of. Meet toward the end of the cruise and go through the list together, checking off who got what. Person with the most from the list wins. You can make the "hunt" items funny or just random, but be creative and not too easy.

Sailaway gathering on the topmost deck with a good view.

 

Bar meets on sea days. I am not a fan of bar crawls because these problems happen:

- understaffed bar takes forever to get a drink for everyone when you arrive

- activity at or near bar makes it awkward

- bar too busy and gets really slow to get drinks

- people arrive late and can't find you

 

So I like to just pick one place to meet and talk and pick a bar and time likely not to be too busy.

Thanks, food for thought! or should I say.......think about drink!

Photo scavenger hunt. Make a long list of things both shipboard and in ports to capture cell phone photos of. Meet toward the end of the cruise and go through the list together, checking off who got what. Person with the most from the list wins. You can make the "hunt" items funny or just random, but be creative and not too easy.

I was thinking of a scavenger hunt. Great variation.

Poker Crawl. Five decks of cards at various places around the ship. Everyone draws one card and moves on to the next deck of cards. At the end, highest hand wins. Not exactly real poker, but will kill some time on a sea day.

Combinable with a pub crawl or cabin crawl.

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You will all need (5) fridge magnets to hold important documents on the cabin walls. Have an exchange at the M&G

I have been on cruises where members of our cruise critic group did some fun activities (just for our group) Does anyone have activity ideas to share? Thanks

The activities that seem the most popular, other than the standard Meet and Greet are: slot pull: informal get together for drinks the day of sailing and the gift exchange. We have been on a few cruises, especially the longer ones when a get together the last night, maybe for drinks or dinner has been successful. I know we hear a lot about cabin crawl, but I don't think any of our group has done this or even had much desire to do one. That is just my opinion. I am sure others have other ideas. :halo:I am also not fond of the bar crawl. I have seen too many people blasted out of their minds.

I have organized cabin crawls, sail a ways and Murder Mysteries. The Murder Mysteries take a lot of work, and there is no play, just people with roles that have guidance, not a script. They are fun, but you have to purchase the MM package. I got one for about $60. It is great for a transatlantic cruise.

Rather than a slot pull which can be kind of boring for the majority of participants who can't see what's going on, consider a group roulette spin. Everyone puts in $15 for five $3 chips. For each spin of the wheel, five people each place a bet on specific numbers (only number bets, no odd/even, red/black, etc.). A winning bet will pay $105 to the group. You keep going until everyone has exhausted their chips. It only takes a few winning bets for the group to come out ahead (ie., with 30 participants, you'd have 150 total bets over 30 spins of the wheel. You'd need to win 5 of those 150 bets to come out ahead).

The big advantage of this over a slot pull is that everyone can gather around the roulette table and see the action.

The fast alternative to a standard Slot Pull is to have all the participants meet at a predetermined time, and as a group, throw your money into the sea.

Unfortunately, this is not legal.

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LCR dice game tournament.

$3/person instead of using the chips provided

How happy are cruise lines with people doing "Private" gambling for cash in a public place?

I have been on cruises where members of our cruise critic group did some fun activities (just for our group) Does anyone have activity ideas to share? Thanks

Cabin Crawl and Slot Pull are most enjoyable to me.

Sailaway gathering on the topmost deck with a good view.

 

Bar meets on sea days. I am not a fan of bar crawls because these problems happen:

- understaffed bar takes forever to get a drink for everyone when you arrive

- activity at or near bar makes it awkward

- bar too busy and gets really slow to get drinks

- people arrive late and can't find you

 

So I like to just pick one place to meet and talk and pick a bar and time likely not to be too busy.

I have been cruising for many years and not once has there been a successful sail away party.

I have been cruising for many years and not once has there been a successful sail away party.

Wow, that's a shame. We have had several with at least 30-40 people.

Define "successful" in 250 words or less. :D

I have been cruising for many years and not once has there been a successful sail away party.

and we have had several. Maybe not a huge turnout but enough to get things going and a great way to meet those sailing with us: it is less formal than the official M&G.

I've had a good deal of fun participating in a slot pull (everyone walked away $25 richer) and a cabin crawl. Both were a smaller group than the full roll call and need to be well communicated and well organized to be fun. If people don't know where they're going or what to expect (and what they need to do to participate), it will fail.

Thanks everyone for your input so far. I have decided at my age that fun is where you make it. Finding new friends and having fun is the best. When I am on a cruise, just about everyone is a stranger to me, and its so nice to make new friends from these strangers. I have done the gift exchange on one of our cruises and it was so much fun, just seeing the different surprise gifts and the fun of getting that special item, an item that could be taken from you in a few seconds. We laughed and we cheered and had some good fun. So, I know this is a great activity. I still think I may try the scavenger hunt, either with real items, or pictures, or both. I hope I get some more good ideas before we sail away.

My favorite cruise critic activity on a ship was the Horse Race. But this takes a few dedicated people to pull it off and is usually only done on a long cruise with many sea days and with a large roll call. The last one I attended was on the Norwegian Star on a 14 day repo in 2012. It was great.

For an interesting gift exchange, ask everyone to bring a gift that reflects their home (city, state, country.) We had one that was also a white elephant exchange and everyone wanted the Canadian maple syrup!

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All great ideas!

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Other than just getting together and meeting new people, I think my favorite is the gift exchange and bringing a gift that does represent your home region. My big problem with planning more than one extra or maybe 2 activities is the timing, depending on how many sea days there are. I know we are cruising the So Caribbean in Feb with only 1 sea day out of 10. I am guessing we will not have a lot of organized roll call events.

Its hard to fit 30 people around a roulette table. It is tight with anything over 10.

We fit 25 with no problem. It also helps that the winning number is displayed on the digital board where it's easy to see.