Super Quiet Cruise Meet Group?

[kerryk74]

Hi!

We are sailing on the Dream June 6, 2012...our cruise meet group has been super quiet! Anyone know of any other places on the web that I might find other cruise meets for our dates? I tried cruise critic, but I couldn't find anything there either. It looks like our cruise is close to full, so I'm just surprised!

Thanks!
Kerry

 

[MelissaE1]

I am on the June 9th Fantasy and ours is the same. I really miss having an active group to chat with, it increases the pre-cruise excitement. Ours does have a facebook group mentioned, not sure if everyone is hanging out there as I haven't asked for an invite. I noticed CC is asking for people not to form FB groups for their cruises so I'm wondering if it's drawing people off the boards?

I'm hoping ours gets busier as the date draws nearer!

 

[mkmommy]

I think it is a combination of faceboard meets drawing people from the DIS meet threads and also with more ships it is splitting the dis members over more cruises. With 2 ships you may have had 100 members divided by 2 ships, but now it is divided by 4, so the groups are smaller.

 

[nzdisneymom]

The one time we sailed on a 3-night on the Wonder, I think we had a total of 6 DISers who participated. As it turned out, one DISer and her DD were seated at our dinner table. Another DISer (Deb T.) was sailing on her own that trip and we became fast friends and have since sailed with her and her DH on the Baltic.

So even if there's not an overly active group, still plan a quick meet-and-greet!

 

[Trischa]

Hi!

We are sailing on the Dream June 6, 2012...our cruise meet group has been super quiet! Anyone know of any other places on the web that I might find other cruise meets for our dates? I tried cruise critic, but I couldn't find anything there either. It looks like our cruise is close to full, so I'm just surprised!

Thanks!
Kerry

Thank Goodness!!!! I thought it was just me! I have a friend going on the Wonder 2 weeks before I go on the same cruise YOU are going on Kerry... and they have over 30 pages of postings on their cruise. I thought ours was going to be silent!

My sister and her family... 11 of us in all with 4 state rooms will be joining on on the June 6th Dream cruise! We can hardly wait!!!

 

[ranidayz]

I am on the June 9th Fantasy and ours is the same. I really miss having an active group to chat with, it increases the pre-cruise excitement. Ours does have a facebook group mentioned, not sure if everyone is hanging out there as I haven't asked for an invite. I noticed CC is asking for people not to form FB groups for their cruises so I'm wondering if it's drawing people off the boards?

I'm hoping ours gets busier as the date draws nearer!

Ours just got really hopping about three or four weeks ago -----

Personally, I like the FB meets much, much better becaues they're private. I had a strange experience on my first cruise meet on the DIS- we had about 100 pages going when about a month before the cruise, a bunch of lurkers came out and said they'd been reading all of our posts for months!!! We'd gotten really comfortable and were really uncomfortable thinking people had been watching us and not participating....so the FB is much more privatized. Just my two cents...

 

[cctimmom]

I'm going on the Dream on 7/27 and it's the same... I think we have 6 families total so far. Our last cruise on the Dream last October had probably 30 families by this time. It's so different.

We made a FB page for the last October sailing, but that was well after there was quite a few families on the roll call.

 

[cctimmom]

ps... how can you tell how full your sailing is?

 

[BigRed1]

Lots of cruise threads also have a Facebook page. There are a lot of people on our cruise who don't use Facebook, so we decided not to start a Facebook page for our next cruise. It happened on a past thread and several people did not participate because most everyone stayed on Facebook. Not to mention the difficulty in keeping a cruise or FE list together!! I know a very slow thread is rather boring, but try keeping up with a thread that puts up 15 to 20 pages a day!!

 

[LynneyPooh]

okay, so it's not just my cruise week then?! I was wondering as we sail June 18th and there's been a total of 44 post as of last night. I did not do this on my last cruise as it was also my first, and I was still lurking on the boards and didn't really learn all the ropes.
I was really hoping for an FE that week. I thought it'd be a new way to add excitement for DD9 as she's starting to suspect that Mickey isn't really real. and mom is just as nutty as Chip and Dales winter storage

If there's any June 18 Wonder to Alaska folks out there, please stop by and say hi!

 

[kerryk74]

Glad to know it's not just our group...maybe they will pick up as we get closer!

 

[mkmommy]

Ours just got really hopping about three or four weeks ago -----

Personally, I like the FB meets much, much better becaues they're private. I had a strange experience on my first cruise meet on the DIS- we had about 100 pages going when about a month before the cruise, a bunch of lurkers came out and said they'd been reading all of our posts for months!!! We'd gotten really comfortable and were really uncomfortable thinking people had been watching us and not participating....so the FB is much more privatized. Just my two cents...

I figure there are lots of lurkers on the meet threads, so that is no surprise, but on a FB group we had someone say they did not know what the DIS was and had just found the FB page and asked to join

 

[Stimpy]

Our April one is kind of quiet too...surprising since it's Easter week. Our FE is 5 families. Should be quick to deliver

How do you find out if there is a facebook group? No one mentioned one on our thread. Do you just do a search?

In comparison, the one for the Med 2013 cruise we are taking past the length of the entire April cruise thread in the first hour it started!

 

[lbgraves]

I figure there are lots of lurkers on the meet threads, so that is no surprise, but on a FB group we had someone say they did not know what the DIS was and had just found the FB page and asked to join

We have a FB group for the MV cruise and before anyone is approved to join the group, they have to either send a pm on the DIS giving their info or someone already in the group has to vouch for them being in thier travel party. Many have been denied. Some are just trying to get MV merchandise.

 

[mom2brooke76]

It's the same with my cruise meet group. We're on the 5/3 Dream cruise, and except for a few other posters for the most part the board remains with very little activity. I guess I'm just too used to my past cruises and having activity most days.

 

[LivingtheWDWdream]

My Cruise is a busy thread but to be honest I find it hard to get involved because so many of them have cruised together on another sailing and know each other really well that I guess I feel I don't fit in the group.

So I rather a small group who is quiet the a large group you can't keep up with, or feel excluded from because of prior friendships. Its intimidating at times.

 

[TempusFugit]

While it may be a little dull, smaller groups aren't all bad. This is especially true for newer DISers. Massive groups can be intimidating. Plus don't forget there's a great opportunity to recruit new board members while on board.

 

[sorul82?]

Even though I'm on facebook everyday, I didn't like when our group moved over there. I felt like a lot of folks didn't get info and were left out. In fact, there were two cabins on our cruise with FE's that we knew nothing about. Nobody in our group had them on their spreadsheet.

 

[ranidayz]

Even though I'm on facebook everyday, I didn't like when our group moved over there. I felt like a lot of folks didn't get info and were left out. In fact, there were two cabins on our cruise with FE's that we knew nothing about. Nobody in our group had them on their spreadsheet.

There were probably more than two cabins with FE that you weren't aware of. Frequently there are other groups besides DISsers doing FE. On our last cruise, the group had about 40 cabins of FE that were'nt part of ours...it was a little confusing to deliver as we had to make sure that we got the exact right room number.

 

[ranidayz]

I figure there are lots of lurkers on the meet threads, so that is no surprise, but on a FB group we had someone say they did not know what the DIS was and had just found the FB page and asked to join

That's the beauty of having a closed or secret group -- you can only find out about it through the DIS or if someone brings you in as a friend.

I can scare you more ---- last cruise on the DIS, we has someone pop in and say that their friend was cruising and wanted to join the FE group. Twenty minutes later we got a post from someone making their first post saying they wanted to join the FE, could someone please send them the list.

It seemed strange to us that it would happen so fast with no introductions or participation so we held off. Upon further investigation, we found that the first poster had make about 10+ other posts to other meets saying something similar and those were the only posts they'd ever made on the DIS. Neither ever posted again.

We suspected something strange. Remember that on public boards - especially where you identify yourself, ANYONE can see who you are and when you are going to be away from your house -- especially in a meet group. When FE info is posted on the public board, basically you have no idea who now has the information about you, your kids names and ages and possibly where you live. That's putting a lot of faith in the general populus.

Privacy is a big deal. We are very lucky in that our FE person keeps the information on the DIS board, but only posts info in the private FB group.

I guess it just depends what you prefer.