Advice for group cruising

[pkay414]

I am in the EARLY planning stages of organizing a cruise for my high school reunion -- 30 years :D I've sent out a pre-planning survey and there seems to be interest enough to start researching.

 

Since this will be in 2018 it's way too early to talk specific itineraries; however, we will be leaving out of Galveston or Houston and doing a Caribbean cruise.

 

What advice can you give me? I have a TA who is knowledgable on group cruising so that's good. The consensus of everyone is they wanted limited organized activities -- mainly eating dinner as a group and doing the rest of the trip on our own. But some have expressed interest in some limited social functions -- I'm thinking a cocktail hour or something maybe the first/second night of the cruise so everyone can see each other.

 

Any other ideas or pitfalls I need to know about organizing this? One of the great things is everyone's on their own to book so that takes some of the pressure off.

[Essiesmom]

What time of year are you thinking of? Anything between the end of April and early Nov. will have to be out of Galveston, because the ships out of Houston through 2017 go off to Europe or Alaska in the summer. EM

[spookwife]

if you have large enough group, you can see about organizing a private function in a lounge or something on a sea day. this can be as simple as asking for an otherwise empty( read, not open) lounge as a meeting space, to a full on social gathering with bartender( choosing to have everyone buy their own drinks or paying a fee to have the usual freebies passed around) with or without nibbles. sometimes an Officer will stop by and chat, or the AD will organize a raffle.

 

on our last cruise( NAV out of Galveston..it will be Liberty next year) there was a LARGE group of Santa's on board and they took over the VCL( top deck) right after our Meet N Mingle through Cruise Critic.

[pkay414]

Good to know about the Houston port. We are looking at spring or summer. Once the itineraries are posted, I plan to do a spring cruise and a summer cruise pro/con with generalized pricing info -- knowing that rates will not be firmed up until a cruise is actually chosen and booked. They will then vote and the winner will determine what we do.

 

Other than the con for the summer time frame obviously being hurricane season -- and we've already had one reunion derailed by Hurricane Ike several years ago -- any other pros/cons you can think of for both time periods? I know Princess and Norweigan go out of Houston and Royal Caribbean and Carnival go out of Galveston. So any input you can give me to put on the pros/cons list will be very helpful -- be brutally honest about likes/dislikes of each -- especially if you've done a group cruise before.

 

No information will be unwanted.

[cb at sea]

I think the idea of "eat together" but do all other stuff on your own is a good one!!! If you want to have a special "function"...then go ahead, but I would bet some won't attend....just the nature of folks on vacation!!!

[CPT Trips]

How do you plan to use the "cash" rebate that comes with the group booking? Each cruise line has its own perks for groups, so you would be wise to discuss this with your TA. Also, some TAs will sweeten the deal providing extras out of their commission. You might want to use some of the "cash" for an open bar welcome aboard party. An hour is not that expensive per person.

[pkay414]

How do you plan to use the "cash" rebate that comes with the group booking? Each cruise line has its own perks for groups, so you would be wise to discuss this with your TA. Also, some TAs will sweeten the deal providing extras out of their commission. You might want to use some of the "cash" for an open bar welcome aboard party. An hour is not that expensive per person.

 

Thank you -- that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Keep them coming.

[cruisead]

We did a college group cruise and since we had a group of 100+, they set aside part of the dining room for our group. While the tables were set aside for us, we didn't have assigned seats so that let everyone move among tables on a nightly basis.

 

We had two group cocktail hours, one on the first night and one on night 5. It was two hours long and for our group only. But after that, it was everyone on their own. One smaller sub group did arrange a couple of tours for just our members, but those were not very well attended as most just wanted to go off on their own on the islands.

 

We did use the money back to pay for the cocktail hours.

[Sixtytwo]

Sounds like a fun way to have a reunion! If you have a good many of your classmates who have never cruised, I would suggest having a travel agent arrange to come and speak to the group on things like the embarkation process, how things "work" on board like dining, shows, things to do, etc. They could also cover the ports you are visiting and provide information on what there is to see and do, either as a group or as individual adventures. For a reunion, you would probably also want to have some time during the day to meet and mingle to discuss what folks did and how things have gone so far.

 

We organized and chaperoned a high school graduation class cruise several years ago and I can speak from first hand experience, don't try to organize and handle the booking yourself! Get a pro involved because it is a lot of work and trying to get folks to be on time with payments can get a bit testy! :)

 

If you put it together I bet it will be a great experience and a really fun time!

[Cruisin' Chick]

Definitely have the TA handle each person's bookings. Give the contact info, rates, a deadline to contact the TA. You can also have occasional emails with info such as port info (or links to tourism sites) so that everyone can plan their own time in port or get together with others in the group for tours.

 

And I agree about not expecting everyone glued to the hip with the others. Have get together times, but don't make anything mandatory.

[iahawkize]

I am sure you'll be doing this but consider having a T-shirt designed for your group. Once a design is settled on have people send you the money to pay for the shirts along with the sizes they want to order. Hand them out at your sail-away Meet & Greet unless you want to mail them to them prior to the cruise so they can wear them right away..

 

I had an Avery Label made up for name tags with our Group name and the Carnival Logo on part of it as well. Someone who knows enough about graphics can do this for you. Bring retractable fine point Sharpies to use to put their names on the nametags. Give each member 2 or 3 so they can use them if theirs gets lost or unusable.

 

One group I was with made sure that we set up our Main Dining room tables close together so the participants can mingle better. Contact the Maitre'd if you don't have your TA set it up.

 

Their is a group coordinator available prior to the cruise who can reserve one of the lounges during the day for your "free" cocktail party. Our TA used part of her commission for that. We just got stock rum punch like we normally get at the Past Guest Parties on Carnival

 

Hope this helps Ken Group Organizer for "Fritos Banditos" and others