George and Lori competing with RTC GGC?

Eileen Garland wrote:

The respect and warm feelings are mutual, Jay.

If this is a non-issue, it shouldn't stir up anything. It just seems to
me that the same pool of people might be interested in both cruises and
that if the George and Lori cruise were an "official" (of course, there
IS no such thing) GGC, then there wouldn't be a conflict on the part of
those people who were interested in doing both.

Hey baby,

If you can take a flame from your guy, I personally do think that you
were just stirring up ****. You know damn well that the only way we
would ever do another GGC (once was enough) is if the price were
noticeably better than what we could get on our own.

Howard

OcnGypZ wrote:

Subject: George and Lori competing with RTC GGC?


Hi Eileen:

While groups can be fun... frankly, the allure has worn off.. especially since
the cruiselines aren't being as generous with group rates vs FIT rates as they
once were.

I don't know what FIT rates are, Babette, and I don't know about the
cruiselines group rates, but from what I've seen, group rates are no
bargain.

There haven't been any group rates whether they be GGC.. or any other such
group that I haven't been able to beat booking independently (FIT) through my
own agent.

I'm with you on that!

And then, of course... you know how I work the "system" once I'm on board..
LOL....

I do too - I just have to cruise right after you do!

If you are into the "group" dynamics.. sobeit.....but I'd rather not pay for
them... nor give up the tc's to have the agent accompany the group.

I believe the tc's are distributed to the group in RTC group cruises, or
at least have been in the past. To me, 10 or 12 people is a nice amount
of people for anything social; much more than that overwhelms me. I am
not pining to go on a group cruise!

Eileen

This is true, of course - in fact, we found you on the Galaxy, Charles,
as a result of a Cruise Critic group meeting. (But those Cruise Critic
postings are not my idea of fun - I don't care whether a cruise I'm
going on makes it to page one, whatever that means!)

Eileen

Charles wrote:


And these days if you are into group dynamics you can be part of a
group without booking as a group, by hooking up with others who have
booked. The roll calls on Cruise Critic, Cruise Addict and Cruisemates
are a way to hook up. I have seen the group dynamics work out quite
well from those type of online hook ups that are not done through a TA.

This is a different viewpoint, Judy! What would be new and exciting?

If the surveys were stopped, wouldn't it just be a group put together by
a TA, like many other group cruises? To my mind, what makes an rtc
group cruise special is that the details are decided by the newsgroup
participants.

What restrictions on the bidding TAs would you eliminate, and why?

Eileen

Judy wrote:

The GGC group has declined each year due to so many group cruises
being available. Cruise Critic alone has 21 group cruises from
11/21/03 to 1/2/05. And that's just one internet site. I think the
GGC's will be quite small groups from now on unless future committee
members can eliminate the restrictions on bidding TA's. Give the TA's
some leeway and let them come up with something new and exciting.
Stop all the surveys, and surprise everyone.

There are a number of reasons that GGC's may have become a bit "same
old, same old".

There seems to be a large, powerful, Florida contingent that doesn't
want to sail from anywhere else but Florida. People have not warmed up
to the idea of spending more money to fly to places like San Juan, PR or
California. And it seems like they've tried to keep pricing down.

What you basically end up with are the different options each winter for
either Eastern or Western Caribbean out of Florida.

The bigger (not-same old, same old) variations seemed to start coming
out of the summer groups. Alaska was done as an alternative to Bermuda.
A Europe EGC was being planned at one point. We're doing Europe this
coming summer with a mini group, but we didn't do any of the voting or
TA bidding so it's not really an r.t.c. group thing.

Jim (Robo) was considering a Tahiti group that I was initially
interested in. That was for the fall when it was first planned.

But in the winter, it's basically the Caribbean. And if you want to
sail from Florida... it's either Eastern or Western. On either
Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, Celebrity, Princess or Holland
American. After this many years... it's same old, same old. It seems
that the attraction has become sailing with the same group of friends,
not the particular cruise.

--Tom

Judy wrote:

The GGC group has declined each year due to so many group cruises
being available. Cruise Critic alone has 21 group cruises from
11/21/03 to 1/2/05. And that's just one internet site. I think the
GGC's will be quite small groups from now on unless future committee
members can eliminate the restrictions on bidding TA's. Give the TA's
some leeway and let them come up with something new and exciting.
Stop all the surveys, and surprise everyone.

Judy ---getting bored with the "same-old, same-old cruise"

I see that George and Lori are running a group cruise (MOAGC) in
January
2005. As rec.travel.cruises Great Group Cruise is generally held in
January each year, it seems like this is in direct competition with the
RTC GGC
I wonder why they are doing this instead of attempting to win the bid
for next year's ggc. I wonder what rtc'ers think about this.

"Eileen Garland" wrote in message
...

I wonder why they are doing this instead of attempting to win the bid
for next year's ggc. I wonder what rtc'ers think about this.

Eileen, I think it just gives us more of a variety to choose from. We will
probably have two different cruise ships, itineraries and times of the month
in January to choose from. There will probably be some people who will
welcome the opportunity to book in early January as opposed to late January,
depending on their schedules~unless the vote goes to February by the GGC2005
people.
Guess we will have to see what is offered to decide. I've been on a MGC,
SGC, and am looking forward to my first GGC this January.

--Jean

In article , Eileen Garland
wrote:

This is true, of course - in fact, we found you on the Galaxy, Charles,
as a result of a Cruise Critic group meeting. (But those Cruise Critic
postings are not my idea of fun - I don't care whether a cruise I'm
going on makes it to page one, whatever that means!)

I don't care much for the web boards but they are good for roll calls
since they have seperate areas for each cruise line. Roll calls don't
that work well on a general, all encompasing, cruise discusion group
like r.t.c. I just take a look at the roll call a couple of times a
week after I book a cruise. The roll call for the cruise I am going on
next weekend is not like the roll call for the cruise we went on. No
one is posting just for the purpose of bumping it back on to page one.
Also some of the roll calls like for Celebrity have been moved to a
seperate section on Cruise Critic which should mean less postings just
for "bumping".

--
Charles

"Charles" wrote in message
d...

Gee. This may be a new first for r.t.c.

-- Charles

Charles, you brought a mile to my face with your subtleness!

--Jean ;-)

Howard Garland wrote:

Eileen Garland wrote:

The respect and warm feelings are mutual, Jay.

If this is a non-issue, it shouldn't stir up anything. It just seems to
me that the same pool of people might be interested in both cruises and
that if the George and Lori cruise were an "official" (of course, there
IS no such thing) GGC, then there wouldn't be a conflict on the part of
those people who were interested in doing both.

Hey baby,

If you can take a flame from your guy, I personally do think that you
were just stirring up ****. You know damn well that the only way we
would ever do another GGC (once was enough) is if the price were
noticeably better than what we could get on our own.

Howard

I wouldn't think that low price was a driver for booking a group. At
least not for me.

I've gotten low pricing by being part of a TA's group that I just tagged
along with (not even knowing anyone else on board), but the whole idea
of being with a group of people that I new is for things like parties
and get togethers, which have to be funded. That would mean that
pricing would be higher than "minimum".

--Tom

Sheez. My own HUSBAND is flaming me!

That's it. I'm going home.

Wait: that won't help!

Eileen

Charles wrote:

Gee. This may be a new first for r.t.c.