Group cruise activities besides the wedding?

[jenbear25]

For married cruise wedding brides...what was your experience like with group activities?  Did your guests enjoy spending time with you?  Or did they end up doing their own thing?  Any feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

 

We were thinking of keeping cruise wedding group activities to a minimum so our guests could fully enjoy their cruise vacation.  Our events are broken down into "wedding events" and "optional events".  We want our guests to have the option to hang out with us if they want to or just go off on their own and enjoy the cruise vacation.

 

Wedding events

Rehearsal dinner for immediate family only (specialty restaurant onboard)

Ceremony on the beach (morning)

Cake & champagne reception (immediately following ceremony)

Cocktail reception (later that afternoon)

 

Optional events

Pre-cruise dinner meet & greet (out of state guests are flying in the day prior)

Bachelor/Bachelorette parties (on board first night of cruise)

Breakfast in Nassau (to mingle before exploring)

Breakfast in Port Canaveral (to mingle before debarkation)

[dai69]

We kept 'all' non wedding activities to 'come if you wish'. However, our guest all opted to hang with us at various times throughout the cruise. One of the things that guest seem to really enjoy was dinner together at the end of each day. It gave us an opportunity to talk about what we did during the day, especially if someone didn't do things with anyone in the group. Since the majority of our guest had never cruised before I think that is why we were also successful at having such large outings in each port that we docked. I wouldn't change a thing!