Reunions and group travel

Reunions and group travel

Whether you’re think­ing fam­ily re­union, or­ga­niz­ing a get­away for your church or col­lege group, or get­ting the foot­ball gang to­geth­er for some RR, cruise ships fit the bill be­cause they of­fer some­thing for ev­ery­one and are vir­tu­al­ly all-in­clu­sive. Ac­com­mo­da­tions, food, chil­dren’s pro­grams, en­ter­tain­ment, and ac­tiv­ities for all ages are all in­clud­ed in the cruise fare. The cruise lines al­so sweet­en the pot for large gath­er­ings with group in­cen­tives.

Group Dis­counts

Gen­er­al­ly a group is con­sid­ered 16 or more peo­ple oc­cu­py­ing eight or more cab­ins. Book that many cab­ins and you get a dis­count­ed fare, which some­times means a por­tion of the 16th fare for free. The gang can split the sav­ings or the or­ga­niz­er can reap the ben­efits. But poli­cies vary by cruise line and the dis­count is based on sup­ply and de­mand; if a par­tic­ular itinerary is high­ly pop­ular, there may be no group deal at all. Con­verse­ly, you may get an even bet­ter deal. For ex­am­ple, on se­lect Fam­ily Mem­ories cruis­es Crys­tal Cruis­es of­fers a free berth with 10 full-fare guests booked in five cab­ins (plus kids age 17 and un­der shar­ing a cab­in as a third berth cruise free).

Some­times there are ad­di­tion­al free­bies. For in­stance, on Hol­land Amer­ica, if you book eight or more cab­ins you get spe­cial group pric­ing plus a Foun­tain So­da pack­age (good for un­lim­it­ed soft drinks) for ev­ery fam­ily mem­ber, a fam­ily pho­to (one per state­room), and lunch for the en­tire fam­ily in the line’s Pin­na­cle Grill steak­house. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a Head-of-the-Fam­ily Re­ward kicks in, with one com­pli­men­ta­ry up­grade from an out­side cab­in to one with a ve­ran­dah. Crys­tal al­so sweet­ens the pot for fam­ilies with a $400 per cab­in ship­board cred­it (you can use for things like shore ex­cur­sions and spa treat­ments) if six guests pay the full fare for three cab­ins — plus they throw in a cou­ple of 8 x 10 pho­tos.

If your group is size­able enough you may be of­fered a free cock­tail par­ty one night and oth­er perks. It’s best to com­pare rates from var­ious lines to see what kind of dis­counts and perks you can get.

Fam­ily Re­unions

A grow­ing buz­zword in the world of trav­el, and in cruis­ing, too, is “multi­gen­er­ational.” Per­haps we are all just liv­ing such fast-paced lives we crave ex­tra time to­geth­er. Or maybe it’s just that grand­par­ents — who of­ten foot the bill — have de­cid­ed to spend their mon­ey on some­thing fun rather than sav­ing it for fu­ture gen­er­ations. What­ev­er the rea­son, more and more fam­ily re­unions are be­ing held on cruise ships. Some wealthy fam­ilies even book en­tire small ships or river­boats for them­selves (re­mem­ber, the lat­ter may car­ry as few as 12 pas­sen­gers). A few years ago in cel­ebra­tion of her birth­day, Oprah Win­frey rent­ed out the en­tire Nor­we­gian Gem so 1,700 of her friends, staffers and their fam­ilies could cruise for 10 days around the Mediter­ranean.

As a re­unions venue, cruise ships of­fer the ap­peal­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty to be to­geth­er, yet apart. Par­ents can put the kids in the chil­dren’s pro­grams and head to the spa or gym while Grand­pa Joe tries his luck in the casi­no and Aunt Ed­na suns in a lounge chair. Yet ev­ery­one can meet up at night for din­ner and a show.

Cruise ships take you to sev­er­al places, so you don’t have to choose, say, be­tween St. Thomas and St. Maarten. You get to go to both. As with ho­tel rooms, cab­ins are avail­able at var­ious price points, mean­ing a wealth­ier fam­ily mem­ber can splurge on a suite while those on a bud­get can fit four in an in­side cab­in, yet ev­ery­one can be on the same ship.

When plan­ning a re­union cruise, it’s im­por­tant to:

• Ap­point some­one as the group lead­er and have oth­ers as­sist with itinerary and bud­get plan­ning.
• Make sure ev­ery­one agrees on the cruise des­ti­na­tion and itinerary.
• Check ev­ery­one’s sched­ules to find a time slot for the cruise with­out any con­flicts.
• Book a block of cab­ins as far in ad­vance as you can. A year or more is prefer­able.
• Agree on a din­ing time and re­serve (ear­ly!) a large ta­ble or ad­ja­cent ta­bles in the din­ing room.
• Make sure ev­ery­one, in­clud­ing the kids, has a pass­port.
• Take ad­van­tage of the ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the cruise line’s group de­part­ment; all lines have them to cater to large par­ties.

Oth­er Stuff to Con­sid­er

If you’re plan­ning a re­union cruise or some oth­er large gath­er­ing, it pays to con­sult a trav­el agent, es­pe­cial­ly if air is in­volved. Among oth­er things, this will take pres­sure off the group lead­er in terms of get­ting ev­ery­thing co­or­di­nat­ed. If ev­ery­one is fly­ing to the cruise, con­sid­er hir­ing a pri­vate van ser­vice (the cruise line may be able to ar­range this for you) to get ev­ery­one from the air­port to the pier. Or con­sid­er driv­ing to the near­est home­port in a rental van or hired bus.

If your re­union re­volves around a spe­cial birth­day or an­niver­sary cel­ebra­tion, def­inite­ly con­sid­er book­ing the par­ty in one of the ship’s al­ter­na­tive restau­rants or pri­vate din­ing room, or book­ing treat­ments for the adults in your group at the same time in the spa. Just re­mem­ber that these types of reser­va­tions will al­so need to be made well in ad­vance.

Con­sid­er book­ing a pri­vate shore ex­cur­sion, too. The cruise line or trav­el agent can help with these ar­range­ments. Even if you book a stan­dard ex­cur­sion to­geth­er, it’s fun to get ev­ery­one of all ages in­volved in plan­ning port ac­tiv­ities.

Use so­cial me­dia: A great way to get ev­ery­one ex­cit­ed about the cruise — and to work out nec­es­sary lo­gis­tics — is via so­cial me­dia. You can set up a Face­book page for your re­union cruise. Or cre­ate a free fam­ily page at the web­site Fam­ily Re­union.

Join­ing a group: Just be­cause you’re not part of a group doesn’t mean you can’t join one. It’s even pos­si­ble to be part of a group on a cruise and not know it. A large agen­cy might re­serve a block of cab­ins on a giv­en ship well in ad­vance at a dis­count­ed group rate with agents pass­ing at least some of the sav­ings on­to clients. Ask if you can pig­gy­back on group rates (this doesn’t mean you need to meet the oth­ers in your group) when talk­ing to your trav­el agent.

–Fran Golden is the Experience Cruise expert blogger and a contributing editor of Porthole Magazine. She is the co-author of Frommer’s Alaska Cruises and Ports of Call.