DVC Cruise Reception Question

[donald@home]

I will be cruising on points in April (13-20). Can anyone tell me a little about the DVC Reception. It sounds fun.

Thanks.

 

[wdw1972]

The reception used to be really nice - back in 2000. When we cruised again last month, I was shocked at how it had been downgraded (cheapened). They used to have a nice buffet (not full meal, just cocktail party food), ice carvings, etc. This time the food consisted of a bowl on each table - some had pretzels, some had mixed nuts....very tacky. They did pass out free drinks - I forget whether wine was included or not. We did the Castaway Club reception the day after, and it was so much nicer in comparison - while last year they were equally nice.

If you go expecting nothing but pretzels you won't be disappointed. They play a trivia game where everyone ends up winning something - mostly old & discontinued dvc promotional merchandise (I say this because the stuff that listed the dvc resorts only had the first 4...no mention of VWL). Each family got a couple of dvc baseball caps as well.

 

[Towncrier]

I had no idea that the DVC reception had gotten so much better than it was on the inaugural cruise. What wdw1972 describes pretty well sums up the very first DVC reception. So it looks like it got better after the first cruise....then reverted back to the same old thing that was there on the inaugural cruise. Still, free drinks and all the pretzels you can eat in an hour isn't half bad.

I'm looking forward to the Castway Club reception (now that we are members).

 

[danicaw]

We were on the Magic last week and enjoyed the DVC Reception.
They passes out name tags with your state name rather than your actual name to see what type of representation they had in the crowd. It was held in Rockin Bar-D and pretzels and tropical drinks were free.
The program consisted of some poll type questions: Who is cruising on points, who joined in the beginning, who are new members, etc.
Then they play the trivia game, in a Jepordy format: answer in the form of a question. And they help with they answers, heck the whole group helps - so for our cruise if you got called on you were assured the prize cause they would help until you got it right. We were all yelling out the answers to help each other. Then at the end they handed out really nice baseball caps. Ours our White with some navy accents on the bill and the DVC logo on the front, they also say member on the back - all embrodered.
I noticed that the DVC desk was passing out buttons to DVC members during the cruise. The round type that pin on and they had ribbons hanging down that said member, several people had picked them up. So between that and the hat some of the DVCers were hard to miss.
I would go it you have the time. It was fun.

 

[donald@home]

Thanks everyone. I will be there. I will also check out the Castaway Cay Club Reception since this will be our second cruise. They weren't holding either the DVC or the Castaway reception on the first cruise we went on so I am now looking forward to them.