Cruise with no passengers?

[Tampa Girl]

1 hour ago, caribill said:

 

From the HAL viewpoint, the cruise contract says "You shall not solicit other Guests for commercial purposes or advertise goods or services without Carrier's prior written permission. You may be disembarked without liability for refund, payment, compensation or credit of any kind if You or any Guest for whom You are responsible violate any of these requirements, and agree to assume and/or reimburse Carrier for any expenses or fines that may be incurred as a result of such noncompliance."

 

 

So trying to get additional people to join a private tour is against the HAL rules as would be collecting money for those already on a tour you arranged.

 

Talking about an independent tour that you are already a part of is not against any HAL policy.

 

Thank you.  So there is a basis for M&G leaders to caution about trying to arrange independent tours.  I thought that it was just common courtesy, analogized to house guests raving about a recent party at someone else's home.  Good to know that there actually is a HAL rule.  Every time I have ever cautioned about this, the response was to shrug it off:  "Everyone does it!"

[cowmilker]

I don't see anything that says you can't collect money from somebody for a tour that was prearranged.  If Susie owes me money and we agree to settle up on board, that is pretty much none of HAL's business. That is neither solicitation or advertising.

[cowmilker]

In fact, I already did that once. The person wanted me to settle with him on board because he was British, and he needed some US dollars.  Doing so meant he got US dollars without an exchange fee of any kind.  It was a win-win situation. 

 

[sail7seas]

7 hours ago, cowmilker said:

 

Finding private tours at a reasonable cost is, for me, the main attraction of the whole roll call thing.  Not only do we save money by doing this, we also get a better tour (smaller), and we meet people. On longer cruises, sometimes we're on multiple tours with the same people.  

I have never felt badgered or pressured to participate in any private tour. If I'm not interested (for instance, if we're electing to simply DIY in some port), I just ignore those posts.  Nobody begs. They just post the information and you're free to join a tour or not.

 

I'm looking at the possibility of doing exactly that right now.  Honestly, it makes little difference to me if anyone joins us or not. If they do, that's great. If they don't, well, that's okay too.  But I put the option out there because there could easily be, for example, a single traveler who really would like to visit A, but doesn't feel comfortable doing it on their own.

In my personal opinion, this one thing (the ability to find other passengers way ahead of time and make plans for these private excursions) is one of the major benefits of Cruise Critic, right up there at the top.

The 'referenced single traveler' has   the option to tour with ships's excursions,  or not.. same as all guests.    

 

There are options.....

 

 

[sail7seas]

38 minutes ago, cowmilker said:

In fact, I already did that once. The person wanted me to settle with him on board because he was British, and he needed some US dollars.  Doing so meant he got US dollars without an exchange fee of any kind.  It was a win-win situation. 

 

How many  CC'ers    were  part o f that   tour group? 

[cowmilker]

16 minutes ago, sail7seas said:

How many  CC'ers    were  part o f that   tour group? 

 

Everyone.

[cowmilker]

25 minutes ago, sail7seas said:

The 'referenced single traveler' has   the option to tour with ships's excursions,  or not.. same as all guests.    

 

There are options.....

 

 

 

Of course there are.  So what?

[Moriah]

23 hours ago, sail7seas said:

Without doubt, after dinner shows and entertainment are  quite important to some people  but not all of us.

 

 

Through the years, we 

 

did enjoy some shows  on HAL ships but not all that many.

 

One that stands out in my mind   is the Elton John impersonator.  I enjoyed his show.

 

That was some years go but I still remember him

 

 

 

 

 

Joel Mason.  I miss him too.  He's on another line and thriving.

[bcummin]

I also remember when ship officers and staff attended Cruise Critic Meet & Greets.  We enjoyed hearing from them.  That ended after too many private tour leaders took over M & G's advertising their tours and collecting money during the meetings.  Common courtesy does not do this during the meeting with refreshments that have been provided by HAL.

Within the last few weeks I have read about a ship's officer or staff member attending two M & G's, probably invited and enticed by skillful Roll Call leaders.  It feels less rare than it was.  I have hopes that good Roll Call leaders can improve the Roll Calls and the M & G's.  It takes dedication and hard work.  The rather recent spreadsheets covering countless details really impress me.  It takes Roll Call members who are willing to work together, not just show up for dessert.

Barbara    

[sail7seas]

3 hours ago, cowmilker said:

 

Of course there are.  So what?

 

So what?

 

 

I t  was suggested above that the roll call   tours are the answer   for  the solo traveler who may  not  wish to tour alone.  One could possibly take that  to suggest it is that   solo traveler's only choice.

 

My post was a reminder  there is another choice.

 

 

 

 

 

sail.noordam@gmail.com

Edited June 22, 2019 by sail7seas

[CJcruzer]

I have organized many meet and greets in the past.   When the ship’s officers did not attend, I asked the CD one time why not.  The CD answered that since there are Q&A morning coffee chats with many of the staff scheduled during the cruise,  they decided it was not “necessary”.  Also this CD mentioned it was felt that by officers attending, it took away from the mingling  of “meeting and greeting” among the guests themselves.

 

In fact, talk of private tours, monies exchanged actually never occurred at my meet and greets -  if there was an announcement of some matter to bring up, it was always once the officers had left.

 

I think the private tours discussions emerged BECAUSE there were no staff present at the M&G’s.

 

I believe the last time a CD was at a meet and greet I attended was Eurodam 2014 Viking passage. 

[sail7seas]

5 minutes ago, CJcruzer said:

I have organized many meet and greets in the past.   When the ship’s officers did not attend, I asked the CD one time why not.  The CD answered that since there are Q&A morning coffee chats with many of the staff scheduled during the cruise,  they decided it was not “necessary”.  Also this CD mentioned it was felt that by officers attending, it took away from the mingling  of “meeting and greeting” among the guests themselves.

 

In fact, talk of private tours, monies exchanged actually never occurred at my meet and greets -  if there was an announcement of some matter to bring up, it was always once the officers had left.

 

I think the private tours discussions emerged BECAUSE there were no staff present at the M&G’s.

 

I believe the last time a CD was at a meet and greet I attended was Eurodam 2014 Viking passage. 

   Good post,  very helpfu,l   it Says  A  Lot  IMO

[CJcruzer]

13 minutes ago, sail7seas said:

   Good post,  very helpfu,l   it Says  A  Lot  IMO

 

Thank you Sail....

 

In addition, I never collect monies ahead of time for private tours, I do not want to be responsible for other people’s monies...then I have to cover if the money is lost, stolen or misplaced.  Bad enough when I have a lot of currencies on hand for multi-country cruises for my own use,

 

I also do not want to collect monies in a public place on the ship - things get noticed.  I have seen people set up in the Lido during the afternoon and ask participants to come between the hours of let’s say, 2-3 PM.....   Not my style.I would rather collect on the bus or else during a lunch stop, I have the tour operator go around with me (I have the list of names/checklist) to settle up accounts, Then the money is quickly handed off.

 

A good tour organizer should send emails to participants,  stating any parameters, meeting time and place, monies required, and any pertinent info.  When I go on the cruise, it is my vacation also, so I have all my homework done beforehand,

 

Edited June 23, 2019 by CJcruzer

[CJcruzer]

Funny, an incident just came back to me....  Celebrity Adriatic cruise, 2012....

 

Nice meet and greet, attendance from some staff officers .... and one lady had copies of advertised tours she needed to fill - leaflets plastered all around the refreshment table.🙄.   Think multi-colored xerox papers!   

 

And not  just one copy, many many copies to hand out, leave on tables, etc.  She actually taped some to the walls around the seating arrangement area!   

 

Now, THAT is tacky.   The officers turned a blind eye, even though I know they saw (and probably read) these leaflets. 

 

 

[sail7seas]

4 hours ago, cowmilker said:

 

Everyone   .Everyone was how many?

 

 

 

[cowmilker]

I don't remember. It's been several years ago.

It was one of those typical private tours, so my guess would be 8 or 10 people.  What difference does that make?

Edited June 23, 2019 by cowmilker

[caribill]

5 hours ago, CJcruzer said:

I have organized many meet and greets in the past.   When the ship’s officers did not attend, I asked the CD one time why not.  The CD answered that since there are Q&A morning coffee chats with many of the staff scheduled during the cruise,  they decided it was not “necessary”.  Also this CD mentioned it was felt that by officers attending, it took away from the mingling  of “meeting and greeting” among the guests themselves.

 

 

On Royal Caribbean, the official Meet & Mingle events are basically run by RCCL staff. They have little games to essentially force the attendees to actually meet and greet the other people on their roll call. About 3/4 of the meeting time is over before RCCL staff hand the meting over to the roll call participants.

[Tampa Girl]

19 hours ago, cowmilker said:

In fact, I already did that once. The person wanted me to settle with him on board because he was British, and he needed some US dollars.  Doing so meant he got US dollars without an exchange fee of any kind.  It was a win-win situation. 

 

 

That was not the scenario, however.  The HAL provision referred to was being applied to the context of a M&G, where people were actively pushing for fellow passengers to join their cruises.  That is being done publicly in a HAL hosted venue.  What you appear to be referring to is a private, non-public exhange of money or independent tour info.