Do you "Roll Call"?

[maxxedout2]

IMHO, longer than 7 day cruises have the best RCs.

 

Over a dozen cruises in the last two years has shown me

that M&Greets turnout on sail away is about 10% of the people

who post on the RCalls. Short cruises with only a few posters

can result in zero meet up.

 

Long cruise RCs which include Cabin Crawls, Poker Runs

had the most CCers attending as they were held next morning.

 

So, share info, chat it up, get psyched, daydream but in reality

people's schedules change on embark day and meet ups can be

a non-event...in spite of good intentions written here.

 

Just thought I'd share this research info.

 

:cool:

 

I should add that Roll Calls do give you a sense of being connected, so to speak,

with the ship as you walk on board. When meetups are a success, it can be

fun as you see people during the cruise and get updated on stuff.

 

Not sure if we will be so active on shorter cruises....but those 8 day trips

have enough time for meetups.

[Banditswife]

My current roll call is pretty slow, I am just about the only regular poster. Now my last roll call was very active & fun. We planned a few things together w/ a decent turn out. It was nice seeing a familiar face while onboard. I've tried to liven up my current 1 by posting roll call challenges (questions designed to get people chatting) but I get very few responses. I have all but given up.

[YankGA]

I have been on several cruises as a single parent, and I am somewhat shy. I have never really participated in Roll Calls before because they have usually been centered around couples doing things with other couples. But on my upcoming cruise, I am participating in the one for this cruise. We have a great variety of people on this roll call. We have a couple of m&gs going on, and I am looking forward to meeting new people!

I say check out the roll call for your cruise if there is one. If there isn't one, start one. See where it takes you. You are not obligated to share anything you aren't comfortable sharing. And if you decide not to meet anyone, that is cool, too. Its all about your cruise and what you want it to be. Just have fun with it.

 

Susie

 

I'm also participating in the same one as Susie, and I can not wait to see everyone on sail day, and then we have another M&G planned for the next day. It has been so much fun to share in the excitement of the cruise!

[richfret]

Roll Calls are a web get together to determine what you have in common with the other cruisers who will be doing the same future cruise. It can be excursions, a Meet & Greet, port descriptions, cruise pricing, etc. There will be some who view the contents daily while others could care less. And that's OK! You make it what you want it to be.

 

I really enjoy them and I try and participate as much as I can. In my last 3 cruises, I because the "unofficial Secretary" who maintained the records, established the Meet & Greet and did the "Welcomed Aboard" to the new comers. We had just under 22,000 views of the 3/24/12 Freedom Cruise Roll Call and I think that speaks for itself.

 

Personally, I enjoy the Meet & Greet and it helps to put a face on a Cruise Critic Name that you have been corresponding with for months. I always recommend the Meet & Greet be held on arrival day for an hour and a half prior to the ship drill. Yes it can be held the next day but it is impossible to pick a time that does not interfere with other ship activities (Especially on a 7 day cruise). I arrange for Carnival to set aside a lounge for us and they even assign a waiter to serve drinks to be paid for by those who order them. You can have "free drinks" but you need to collect monies in advance and you become responsible for the collection.

 

With that said, I will check my current Roll Call to determine if any Newbees are attending. We have 292 days to go and I look forward to doing the Roll Call until we cruise.

[kayhold]

Just like I don't like to post when I will be on vacation on Facebook, posting a Roll Call can be risky. I don't think I would want people to know my house is vacant for a certain period of time. Am I right?

 

If anyone on my FB knows where I live, I already trust them enough to know I'm not home. I don't have people I don't trust in my home, ever. And Im certainly not facebook friends with them.

[kayhold]

So far my roll call has been extremely helpful. We've found places to eat,stay, shared cheap things to do in ports others have been to before. We even have one Jax local who has given us TONS of info for those of us driving in the day before.

 

We will have a meet after muster. If we enjoy another couple or make a connection, great, we can hang out a few hours later. If not, no harm no foul. I really don't have anything to lose by going, and I might even make a friend out of it.

 

I also enjoy meeting people not from my area. I am born and raised here in the South. A lot of the people here are not the type of people I would prefer to spend time with. I know that sounds bad - there are a lot of WONDERFUL people in my area, but the a lot of them are racist, bigoted, or worse. I don't enjoy being around those types of people, and that greatly limits the amount of people I become good friends with.

[kayhold]

On my cruise last year I didn't participate other than online as I wanted a week to just my girlfriend. We are very social and met many wonder full people on the cruise but we didn't want to worry about meetings and stuff.

 

My upcoming cruise its all about our kids so we wont be doing any roll calls.

 

We might do them after but I don't think it would be wisel. I cant keep quiet when I see folks get bullied here by the fanatics so I am sure I pissed off a good number of folks by now. I should probably lay low.

 

Me too haha! My husband always jokes and calls me his "Social justice warrior"

I don't care what people think about me, I will never stop calling people out when they're being ignorant about a social or civil issue. I think so many of the worlds problems are caused by rudeness or people just not understanding something.

[OCruisers]

The best thing about Roll Calls is being able to discuss with others your upcoming cruise with others with whom you'll be cruising instead of boring your friends and family at home! :D

[Silent Penguin]

The best thing about Roll Calls is being able to discuss with others your upcoming cruise with others with whom you'll be cruising instead of boring your friends and family at home! :D

 

 

Two thumbs up! Who else is going to care when the countdown goes from triple digits to double to single?

[Mrs CruisinCritter]

I also enjoy meeting people not from my area. I am born and raised here in the South. A lot of the people here are not the type of people I would prefer to spend time with. I know that sounds bad - there are a lot of WONDERFUL people in my area, but the a lot of them are racist, bigoted, or worse. I don't enjoy being around those types of people, and that greatly limits the amount of people I become good friends with.

 

I know what you mean in regard to spending time with people in your area. I was born and raised in WV and most of the people around here act the same way. I can't stand it at all and my DH wonders why I don't have a lot of close friends. He was born and raised in PA for 17 years so all of his close friends are there. :rolleyes: He's the one who tells me how hard it was to adjust to things after he moved here yet he's the first one to wonder why I don't care for or put trust in most of the people we meet around here.

This is one thing I've come to love about cruising. I'm no social butterfly by any means, but I love to interact in such a diverse setting. There are so many people from different places and other walks of life. I love to hear their stories even though I may not say a lot so I take in a lot of the world around me. :) That's how I go about reading the boards here on CC too.

[Eeyoregon]

I usually join the roll-call for my cruise if there is one.

 

I'm a single mom and cruise with my sons and it's been awesome to "meet" some other families ahead of time and coordinate excursions with some of them. Safety in numbers when in port is my motto.

 

Plus, it's nice to meet other adults to visit with when my kids ditch me.

 

I don't go over board (no pun intended) on the roll-calls but I do usually attend if there is a meet-n-greet. I have stopped offering up too much personal info such as my cabin number, etc. after encountering a "creeper" on one of the cruises from our roll-call.

 

A friend of mine and her husband joined CC and the roll-call for their cruise at my suggestion and hit it off BIG time with another couple and now they cruise together once a year. I haven't made any big connections like that but would certainly welcome it. You can't have too many friends!

 

The best benefit yet has been having a lost item returned to me from the cruise critic folks that happened to be in my same cabin right after I debarked. They had stopped by my roll-call to ask some questions and we realized we had the exact same cabin (what are the odds?). I left them some welcome aboard gifts in the cabin and explained to the room steward that I "knew" the next guests so that he wouldn't throw the stuff out.

 

I accidentally left my brand new battery and camera charger under the bed so when the steward found them while cleaning, he gave them to my "friends" and asked that they return them to me. She contacted me after she got back asking if I was missing anything...I hadn't even realized it yet! Two days later it was in my mail box :D.

 

No wait! I might have two "best" benefits of roll-calls! One of the families got a call from the up-sell fairy just prior to cruising and moved from 2 balcony cabins to the grand garden villa. They were very gracious and allowed every one that showed up at the meet-n-greet to tour their palace at the top of the ship! Lord knows I would NEVER see the inside of that suite otherwise!! And, because they weren't big drinkers, they gave away their free daily bottles of champagne to the roll call peeps.

So, if you are shy, give it a try. You might make a new friend.

[maldenmusic]

During our last cruise, my daughter and I participated in the roll call and get together the 1st day. We met another mother-daughter who were cruising and ended up sharing a taxi and spending one of our port days together. We have kept in touch since then because we only live 2 hours away. However for our cruise in a few weeks, there has been almost no interest in the roll call.

[joeandaimeesmom]

I post on the roll calls.. I hope to meet them on our 2 cruises coming up.. Carnival Breeze and Miracle(going to Hawaii)..:D

[kayhold]

I know what you mean in regard to spending time with people in your area. I was born and raised in WV and most of the people around here act the same way. I can't stand it at all and my DH wonders why I don't have a lot of close friends. He was born and raised in PA for 17 years so all of his close friends are there. :rolleyes: He's the one who tells me how hard it was to adjust to things after he moved here yet he's the first one to wonder why I don't care for or put trust in most of the people we meet around here.

This is one thing I've come to love about cruising. I'm no social butterfly by any means, but I love to interact in such a diverse setting. There are so many people from different places and other walks of life. I love to hear their stories even though I may not say a lot so I take in a lot of the world around me. :) That's how I go about reading the boards here on CC too.

 

My mother came to my sons school for a performance, and she was making comments about how only 10 kids in his class were white, and I needed to find another school. I was so angry, we didn't speak for almost 6 months. My son won't be raised like I was - he doesn't see color. He loves everyone, and to him its just a way to tell people apart.

If I didn't love Atlanta so much, I would move somewhere much more liberal. Its just so stuffy here most of the time.

[wrigley80]

My current roll call is pretty slow, I am just about the only regular poster. Now my last roll call was very active & fun. We planned a few things together w/ a decent turn out. It was nice seeing a familiar face while onboard. I've tried to liven up my current 1 by posting roll call challenges (questions designed to get people chatting) but I get very few responses. I have all but given up.

 

Don't give up Annette......keep it going. I think we were spoiled during our cruise on the Legend with so many wonderful people

[wrigley80]

On our Legend cruise in December we had a very active roll call where we organized meet and greets, cabin crawls, and a poker run. Some of the ladies even went to afternoon tea together. :) It was a great way to meet people before the cruise. We even went on an excursion with some of the people that we met on the roll call.

Now for my last cruise on the Fantasy in March the roll call was quite slow with only 10 or so people posting but we had to make due with what we had :rolleyes:

[Banditswife]

Hi Wrigley80- yep our Legend roll call was great. My Dream roll call isn't dead, just a bit slow. Maybe I chat too much. I guess I am a motor mouth. LOL

[lady_cruiser]

We always try and make the roll calls.

[beshears]

Actually we have done a couple. Sometimes they are good, sometimes not. What I like about the roll calls is if you have questions "ahead" of time, some of the people on the roll call where you are going will answer them. This way you can plan on what to see/do, and also when you get together for the first time, you get to meet the ones you had been emailing back/forth too. Also you may pass them on the ship/island/port, and feel that you "know" them a tad.:) That doesn't mean you have to have a conversation with them each time you see them, but that you know who they are.

[kyrisong1]

Very well stated Interliner13. We also check in with the roll call and watch it more out of curiousity than any desire to get together with others on the ship. We travel as a family and really have the most fun as a family. We have met nice people on various cruises but it's always just a chance encounter. The one "CC Meet and Greet" we went to on te Dream was anything but friendly. If you weren't one of the regular clique who needed a drink in your hand at all times, there was no need to be there. We weren't even acknowledged and couldn't even really identify the ringleader.

I have been to two of those!!! Just terribly disappointing.

But I've been to one that I've made lifelong friends from, I think it depends on the whole topic of the roll call, you can tell which will be the alcohol soaked ones and which will be to share excursion and cruising info.

I will be sailing in September with a group of people we met during M and G's. Friends for life!!!

So even a few hours with alkies where you can tell you don't want to be is worth it to make those lifetime friends that share a passion for cruising that we do.

I do talk about drinking some. I might drink a whooping two or three one day and then non for a few days. Not a huge drinker, and don't drink to get drunk but I do enjoy a cocktail now and again, and wine with dinner (we like a "wet table":p

Carole

[tada]

I like to read and participate in the discussions on the roll calls, but have never been to a Meet & Mingle event. There is a lot of good information that can be gleaned from the discussions about hotels, excursions, airfare, etc.

[1trip&Ifell]

I didn't see one for our cruise coming up 6/7...So I started one...I had one reply ! It's ok though I just wanted somewhere to talk about my excitement so I wouldn't drive co-workers crazy with my cruise talk. :D

[teddybarehead]

If there are no roll calls start one. If you find yours participate in it. So far, my expirence is that there will always be one or two people in your rollcall that you will click with. It's a nice feeling to "Know" some people already onboard as soon as you hit the lido deck.