Greet & Meets on Cunard Q2 - Do they have them?

DH & I have gone to greet & meets on other cruise lines but wondered if they have them on the QM2? When I look at QM2 roll calls, there never seems to be many people signed up. When we previously sailed on QM2, my TA's travel company arranged their own meet & greet cocktail party for their customers (they have since discontinued this practice - bummer). We were not cruise critic members at that time, either.

DH & I have gone to greet & meets on other cruise lines but wondered if they have them on the QM2? When I look at QM2 roll calls, there never seems to be many people signed up. When we previously sailed on QM2, my TA's travel company arranged their own meet & greet cocktail party for their customers (they have since discontinued this practice - bummer). We were not cruise critic members at that time, either.

Luv2Crus40,

Cunard does accommodate Roll Calls on board but an Original CC'er must start the Roll Call. With contact with Cunard, they will make room for the Meet & Greets that is usually in the Commodore Club of the ship.

The Original CC'er must keep the welcoming and information flowing to make the group interested to participate with interaction.

Granted I have seen some sailings with low numbers of participates and some with quite a number of people. The number grows over the period of time while more book the sailing.

I have in the past ran a number of Roll Calls with an average of 23 to 40 people participating. Out of those, about 20 - 30 actually show up at a Meet & Greet usually during the first day at sea in the afternoon. Some people do forget or get caught up with the activities on the daily programme which can be expected and miss attending.

But the fun is the interaction during the countdown to the embarkation to say hello and exchange information, comments and ideas and answer questions especially to newcomers to Cunard and/or QM2.

Sign up for the Roll Call of your cruise and be an active participate.

Others may follow with other thoughts....

They're small on QM2 compared to the ones I've attended on other lines (on Carbbean Princess I was responsible for name tags for the M&G and needed to bring 100!). The QM2 meetups typically get 10-15 attendees on the Christmas Caribbean cruise (perhaps it's lower because so many passengers are perennial repeaters on that trip).

Unless persuaded otherwise, I've observed that Cunard tends to want to place the meetings in one of the Connexions rooms down under the planetarium with cookies and lemonade. Rather than have to deal with onboard staff I always advocate for the "flash mob" method where people just show up at a given time and place (typically near the piano at the port side of the Commodore Club). The group isn't big enough to impact bar service for attendees or there passengers. A group of 100 obviously would be a different matter. On Caribbean Princess they opened a bar area for the group's exclusive use during the event.

2 PM on the first sea day tends to be a popular time, but bear in mind that the first sea day often has an enrichment lecture that afternoon as well, so CC'ers have a choice to make.

They are less attended than with other lines and there is not much support by Cunard for them. And on crossings, without port calls - and therefore a lack of sign-ups for excursions, there's a bit less motivation as well.

On a crossing in 2016, I organized a roll call and there was quite a large group (50 or so) and on our roundtrip crossings last year, there were approximately 20-25 attendees. These were in May - and many attendees had done repositioning crossings on other lines and were crossing in the other direction and joined the Cunard roll calls as well as the more supported ones on the other lines.

Right now, we're on the eastbound leg of a round trip. There was no official roll call on this trip - although I "held down the fort" in the Commodore Club at 2 PM in case someone showed. On the return, I expect to see a small handful of people. In neither of these legs, has anyone (including myself) taken the initiative to manage the roll call and officially host the get-together.

So, while they are very much less of an event on Cunard, their popularity and occurrence is a factor of both the leadership but also the itinerary and time of year.