Frustrated about "new" cruise meet groups VS "the olden days"

[elvispursley]

I'm a member of the DIS and FB groups for this cruise. I don't know the etiquette, but my husband and I are not drinkers so a lot of the "activities" don't appeal to us. Is it acceptable to be a member just to stay up to date on everything even if we choose not to participate? I don't want anyone to think we're snooty or anything!

That's my husband and me! We don't drink and don't even know what "mixology" is and how it pertains to meet-n-greets (I just thought they were classes in how to make beverages). My husband and I are fairly introverted people and belonged to a disney running group years ago when we were training for some of the disney races. Long story short, we "met" up with some of the people from the forum and it was SO awkward that we kinda just said hi and bye. But towards the end of my race, when it was really hard to do the last 2-3 miles, the owner of the boards ended up running next to me and we talked until we crossed the finish line. It was nice in a one-on-one situation. I never would've seen anyone from our forum if it wasn't for wearing these obnoxious orange-colored shirts that totally stood out from everyone else! My point is you may run into someone accidentally and have a good time without having to a big meet-up

 

[elvispursley]

Yes, there are Fish Extender groups that set some pretty lengthy rules. I've seen: specific delivery dates; you must buy individual gifts for everyone; minimum price for gifts; names must be attached.

Added to that is the pretty long list of information some groups want included in the list: full names; ages; favorite color; favorite character; favorite snacks; email addresses; even how tall each kid is.

Goodness!! Here I used to think you hung your little FE out and you kinda were thankful for anything that "showed up" and you truly just dropped miscellaneous gifts off at random FE you encountered. But that may have been something I read when they first started doing them

 

[ratt1345]

I want to put my two cents on this. I want to agree with a PP on page 1, I think Eva. My upcoming cruise has a meet, obviously. However, it is only 5 or 6 pages. Yes, I checked it 3 or 4 days ago. We have less than 3 months to go. Back about 5 years ago, this meet would have been at 20 or more pages with activity on there every day of about 10 posts per day.

 

[2Bnºoºt2B]

The good ol' days ... unfortunately that's where they remain ... in the past. Having witnessed how groups are organized (on the Fantasy cruise we went on last year vs the B2B a few years previously), it is sad that there are restrictions in place restricting ways people can best use the various social media platforms to help organize activities like the FE's. Change is inevitable ... there is no "one way" to do things now ... I am not a fan of "social media" sites but if that is the way that FE's are organized, then that is the future. I do miss how the FE's were organized before ... it wasn't perfect ... but the "new way" offers its pluses (and minuses) also. How many people now are lamenting the fact that instead of using the postal service, we now text and email ... that we no longer stand in line at banks but do on-line banking ... we don't phone and talk but use emoji's and Snapchat ...

The individuals who did not make participating in FE's fun anymore were just as present here as on the other social media site ... you get the "bad with the good" ... when I discovered FE's, they were a fun way of getting to know other Disney fans and participating in a fun optional event organized by the cruisers themselves. The autocratic style of leadership in some groups ignores the fact that group activities are a collaborative effort.

There is likely a loss of leadership ... but there is also a lack of respect for experience ... and of people's opinions. We may lament how the younger generation think that they "know" it all ... but the example set by the "older" generation is appallingly lacking also. When you have the type of cyber-bullying occurring in mainstream media TODAY, with the name-calling, denigrating of others who do not "share" your view and then brushing off the criticisms as if you didn't do anything wrong (the end justifies the means), HOW then how do we expect others and young people to live up to our expectations. Appealing to baser emotions and fanning the flames is much easier than being constructive and collaborative. It is noticeable nowadays in websites where organizing events like FE's is made less enjoyable ... and where posting your opinion or review will likely garner more criticism and dismissal (as being biased) than positive feedback. Freedom of speech is one thing ... being rude, ignorant, dismissive, the lack of respect, etc is another.

We have been fortunate that all the FE's we have participated in have been successful and fun. It is something that we enjoy as part of cruising with DCL ... an "optional" activity. For us, it is the fun in giving ... in seeing how other people enjoy crafting for others and in sharing their love of all things Disney ... in participating in a "Disney themed" experience ...

 

[Churchladychurchlady]

That's my husband and me! We don't drink and don't even know what "mixology" is and how it pertains to meet-n-greets (I just thought they were classes in how to make beverages). My husband and I are fairly introverted people and belonged to a disney running group years ago when we were training for some of the disney races. Long story short, we "met" up with some of the people from the forum and it was SO awkward that we kinda just said hi and bye. But towards the end of my race, when it was really hard to do the last 2-3 miles, the owner of the boards ended up running next to me and we talked until we crossed the finish line. It was nice in a one-on-one situation. I never would've seen anyone from our forum if it wasn't for wearing these obnoxious orange-colored shirts that totally stood out from everyone else! My point is you may run into someone accidentally and have a good time without having to a big meet-up

I'm kindof hoping that's how it works out for us with our cruise meet. My DD and I are at the VERY high end of the introvert scale - I usually tell folks I'm allergic to crowds. But I'd be totally fine chance meeting up once in a while, or waving across the pool. Hubby is more of a "joiner" and has no problem chatting with anyone. The big debate right now is whether or not to ask for a private table, since small talk is really not my forte.

I'm also relieved to see that there are a few folks who are like me when it comes to not drinking. Not judging to be sure, but it's just an activity we've never really enjoyed - now that's not to say an occasional beer for the hubby and a Midori colada for me is unheard of... but I'd be lost in a "mixology" type class!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I'm kindof hoping that's how it works out for us with our cruise meet. My DD and I are at the VERY high end of the introvert scale - I usually tell folks I'm allergic to crowds. But I'd be totally fine chance meeting up once in a while, or waving across the pool. Hubby is more of a "joiner" and has no problem chatting with anyone. The big debate right now is whether or not to ask for a private table, since small talk is really not my forte.

I'm also relieved to see that there are a few folks who are like me when it comes to not drinking. Not judging to be sure, but it's just an activity we've never really enjoyed - now that's not to say an occasional beer for the hubby and a Midori colada for me is unheard of... but I'd be lost in a "mixology" type class!

Actually, both my husband and I don't drink much. Maybe one or two drinks during a whole cruise. Maybe. But we really enjoyed the mixology class.

 

[Churchladychurchlady]

Actually, both my husband and I don't drink much. Maybe one or two drinks during a whole cruise. Maybe. But we really enjoyed the mixology class.

Good to know! Maybe we'll try one!
I'm really weird, it's not the principle of the thing, I just can't stand the "alcohol" feeling/smell right as you take a drink - I've tried to describe it, rather unsuccessfully... that's why I can do a colada or a Kahlua and cream, but give me a long island iced tea or a cosmo and I gag (for real).

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Good to know! Maybe we'll try one!
I'm really weird, it's not the principle of the thing, I just can't stand the "alcohol" feeling/smell right as you take a drink - I've tried to describe it, rather unsuccessfully... that's why I can do a colada or a Kahlua and cream, but give me a long island iced tea or a cosmo and I gag (for real).

Kahlua and cream - that's my drink. At the mixology I did take a sip of all the drinks that were made, but only really liked one of them.

 

[AquaDame]

YES! I got my hand slapped recently on a DCL enthusiast page on a social media site for providing a link to another DCL enthusiast site with helpful information. I know the same is true here on the DIS. I assume this is because they're all competing for clicks. Feels petty. This is what I like about the social media cruise meets. We can link to whatever we want in them. Or at least in the few I've participated in.

Not sure if its about 'clicks'... All I've been told is its due to unscrupulous TAs and others securing and using people's personal information. The forum is more private in that you have to explicitly choose when and where to post your info vs. the exponential default sharing that exists on some other sites.

I think there is something to say for each format. I found here on the dis it was often hard to follow. You would have a post about FE's and then 27 million posts between Janet and Joan about having their children hook up. Then a post about setting up a tasting and 27 million more posts about magnets. Then, when you wanted the information about FE's, you had to go back through tons of pages to try and find it. With FB its a lot easier to keep things organized. Janet and Joan can do their talking in one conversation and the FE's can be in another.
What I liked about dis was it was as anonymous as you wanted it to be where as on FB your information is out their. Its great to feel the excitement everyone has leading up to the cruise however I like to mostly sit in the background and occasionally pop in but its harder outside of the dis.
So you see, in my eyes, each has a plus and a minus.

ETA-I have had good an bad admins in both formats. If the person is pushy than they are going to be pushy here or there.

Wholeheartedly agree on following a conversation thread..! I end up using command+F while clicking through pages a LOT on here!

There are a couple of people on FB who start cruise groups as soon as the dates are announced as an attempt to sell their own FE. We've dealt with it before, even going so far as to start a second group one time that got rid of all the drama and left her out. People are people. There are whiners and complainers everywhere. That said, all of our BSM site groups have been fantastic once the control freaks are weeded out.

...really? Yikes... I luckily haven't encountered that one yet!

In all fairness, DIS was the one who started giving people infractions for mentioning other sites and didn't want to 'share' the FE. That ultimatum resulted in people having to pick one or the other ---- and in this case, the OTHER kinda won.

We certainly started giving infractions although I don't agree that it was about "sharing" FEs. It was about the use of other's personal info in ways that they didn't have complete control over from what I was told by the webmasters. Anything else is speculation. If the boards had experienced a full and outright failure and mass exodus we wouldn't still be here chatting. Obviously Facebook as an entity couldn't care less - the DIS is small fry compared to them! You'll see the same depending on the admin of the Facebook group - mention the DIS and you're booted, which is harsher than points that expire IMO.

That's unfortunate and only pushes people away.

#CantWeAllJustGetAlong ???

I like the DIS, and I'm fairly new to the site. But like other social media sites, the DIS is a community, and tool, for research about Disney stuff. and like other sites, there is drama!

Every. Day. We assign points for a whole slew of things yet the social media rule is absolutely the one most often ignored or challenged.

I personally like social media better than Dis these days for groups. I am not looking to participate in FE but I do like to chit chat with others who are cruising. I have never had a good Dis group to do that in. I have had some awesome social media ones and some crappy ones. I feel Dis is to restrictive, but again if you get a Nazi leader on social media then it could be no better.

That is a shame... I've had fun on some of the groups here but agree they seem to be slowing down. Once I'm back from Alaska I am going to really try and engage with my next DCL group here - see if I can find something that works to spark conversation so I can recommend it to those who want to spice theirs up. Fingers crossed!

I am skeptical that this is the only reason mentioning one of the biggest social media sites on the planet was banned. People don't need forum admins to be their nanny.

I am equally skeptical of Cruise Critic's explanations for some of their rules, but they are far more aggressive in trying to make sure no one but them ever gets a dime of TA booking or affiliate money, going so far as to prevent people from even PM'ing each other.

I only see this type of forum behavior on travel-related sites. I'm on a lot of 'traditional' forums (the kind that still allow Tapatalk use).

I understand people have to make money off their sites, but don't make up reasons to try to 'ban' mentions of the outside world. Making adults speak in code (as one must do on Cruise Critic when trying to clue people in to the existence of Costco, for example) is absurd in 2016.

In the bigger picture--I think people are realizing how awful many people become when they are behind a computer screen, and the online landscape is getting uglier and uglier every day. I think people will start withdrawing more from sites like this, and from social media sites with high levels of personal exposure (like Facebook).

I like twitter. >.>

I disagree... even if you enjoy arguing with people online there are many many many who don't. Cyber bullying is very real and without mods in some capacity things can get quickly out of hand. As I said above if there are other reasons for the ban on social media links and redirects I haven't been made privy to them. This site IS partnered with DU and so naturally there are other financial concerns to our well being and rules that apply due to that, but as you said I feel like the DIS is pretty generous in some regards. They don't block ALL TAs other than them, they don't scour each comment looking for something to get uppity about and allow conversations about Google Docs and Facebook etc. We just don't want explicit redirects and links due to privacy concerns. Or else this whole thread would have been toast.

I'm kindof hoping that's how it works out for us with our cruise meet. My DD and I are at the VERY high end of the introvert scale - I usually tell folks I'm allergic to crowds. But I'd be totally fine chance meeting up once in a while, or waving across the pool. Hubby is more of a "joiner" and has no problem chatting with anyone. The big debate right now is whether or not to ask for a private table, since small talk is really not my forte.

I'm also relieved to see that there are a few folks who are like me when it comes to not drinking. Not judging to be sure, but it's just an activity we've never really enjoyed - now that's not to say an occasional beer for the hubby and a Midori colada for me is unheard of... but I'd be lost in a "mixology" type class!

Ditto here..! I am not sure how introverted you are, but I relish my alone time and we don't enjoy sharing the table with others at all. Even my husband who is super friendly and chatty didn't like it - vacation for us is about being together and enjoying ourselves without having to devote 90 minutes or so each day to connect with strangers. I'll engage in small talk all over the ship with any and everyone who wants to without blinking an eye, but something about the constant dinner company just isn't fun for me. I feel like I have to be "on" that whole time. You may be the opposite though - maybe having the same people to talk to every day will allow you to move past the 'small talk' portion quickly and you can get to know each other enough that you would enjoy it?

Mixology is a LOT of alcohol. I like going to the local tiki bar and can have a couple of strong drinks from time to time mind you, but that was way too much for me, and I left a lot in the glasses of the ones I didn't like! We did it a second time and I went just for the lesson portion - not to drink. Well, there was one I really liked...

 

[PrincessShmoo]

due to scrupulous TAs

UNscrupulous?

 

[AquaDame]

UNscrupulous?

Oh my word... YES. Nice catch!

 

[elvispursley]

I'm kindof hoping that's how it works out for us with our cruise meet. My DD and I are at the VERY high end of the introvert scale - I usually tell folks I'm allergic to crowds. But I'd be totally fine chance meeting up once in a while, or waving across the pool. Hubby is more of a "joiner" and has no problem chatting with anyone. The big debate right now is whether or not to ask for a private table, since small talk is really not my forte.

I'm also relieved to see that there are a few folks who are like me when it comes to not drinking. Not judging to be sure, but it's just an activity we've never really enjoyed - now that's not to say an occasional beer for the hubby and a Midori colada for me is unheard of... but I'd be lost in a "mixology" type class!

I normally am like you and prefer my own table where I don't have to sit at a table with anyone other than my family. On our Disney cruise, there were 5 of us and I thought to myself, 'there's no way they'll stick anyone at our table, we'll likely be sitting by ourselves...yay"! Oh how wrong I was. So they sat a very nice family--mom & dad and 8 or 9 yr-old little girl...from Argentina...who spoke NO ENGLISH and wanted to practice their ENGLISH! I about died because 1) it's hard enough for me to get myself going with small talk (once I know you after night one, I'll likely be fine and can carry on a good conversation. but 2) it has been 20+ years that I took high school Spanish and I only know medical phrases in Spanish!!! OMG, talk about awkward! My DH and my mom are all struggling to come up with ridiculous kindergarten phrases about weather, combined with English and weird guess-tures (my mom is also introverted--don't ask why both of us joined the medical profession where we are forced to interact with people ) So on the 2nd night, they didn't show up and we were all kinda relieved that we could relax and have a stress-free dinner, until they showed after we order appetizers, so when they came we all felt incredibly rude eating in from of them--do we eat and be rude or be polite and let our food go cold, who knows since we can't communicate! Anyway, we struggled through the rest of the week with one of our servers "serving" as interpreter when he could.

But I did have positive time when I sailed with my mom on a Princess cruise. We met 2 lovely sisters from B.C.--one a teacher (very shy as well) and the other a flight attendant who had such interesting stories and was just so easy to talk to. We actually had a great time at dinner and enjoyed ourselves. There was no pressure to "hang out" with them. We just took our time with dinner, enjoying each others company and telling each other about our day's activities. Now if I could be guaranteed that... then I would have no problem sitting at a "group" table

 

[DisMommyTX]

I have researched my family's travel and vacations for years, including almost 20 cruises. I'm usually more 'in the know' than most, but trying to find the 'right' place to join a group for our first Disney cruise was like trying to decode an ancient cypher. Most of our cruises we join Meet and Greet (or Mix and Mingle depending on the line) groups, but our particular sailing was not listed on cruise critic, the one and only place to go for every one of our previous cruises. I searched long and hard here finding only a 1 page thread with few participants and even less info before finally finding a cryptic reference to FB. By the time I found our cruise group and requested permission to enter, I felt like I had completed a quest. It would be helpful if 'we' could all get along well enough to send people to the right group without requiring that they figure out the secret hand shake. I wonder how many people just give up.