A review of the Eurodam is up on cruisecritic

http://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/review_page2.cfm?ShipID=405

It's not stellar but not bad by a long shot. I would say if anything this is an honest review. Two main points: there is no wall dividing the Explorations Cafe and the Crows Nest. I assume this means the Cafe is also closed during our ceremony. Also, they have added drawers under the bed for more storage which is good. There is always plenty of closet space but it hard to store underwear on a shelf.

My Event Coordinator

is technically me. But today I have been working with Brenna. She is the Onboard Event Services Coordinator for the Eurodam.
Today we scheduled the Pool Fiesta Party for our group. We are also currently working on group seating for the 5 star Pinnacle Grill for our final evening aboard.

The bad news I have is that the only shore excursion that Krissy actually wanted to do, the Bacardi Rum Factory tour, is not operating because January 6th is a Puerto Rican national holiday. I am going to make it up to her by buying her all the rum drinks she can handle on that day.

Google Documents will do it for you

This isn't the first group trip I have put together. One of the hardest things was getting every one's name and birth date correct. In the case of our wedding group, I also need to collect immigration information such as passport number, emergency contact, etc. I thought I was going to have to send out a form for everyone to return then hassle them about getting it to me on time. What if I couldn't read the handwriting?
Well, to make things easier I used Google Documents. You set up a spreadsheet with all the headers and Google creates a form and e-mail it out. As guest fill in the blanks and hit submit the spreadsheet auto-populates. No laborious typing.
I am so excited I found this new feature. It is going to very useful for a lot of reasons.

Let the favors begin

Doing favors for a DW is hard. You can't really bring lots of edible things on a hot plane (or in my parents hot car where my luggage will be riding). So I am doing several small favors along the way.

It's no secret I love etsy. Why not get something handmade and promote small businesses. Everyone gets gifts from etsy from now on. So yesterday I ordered 20 of these awesome luggage tags.

I need to collect personal info from all our guests to put together the immigration sheets. This includes passport number and place of birth, etc. I am going to make an easy fill in the blank sheet and mail it out with one of these awesome tags. Everyone will have something bright to spot their bags. I think it is cool way to say thanks for coming to our wedding and thanks for being patient and letting me collect enough personal info to take over your identity.

Of course I picked the greenest cruiseline

Check out this post from Portovert, on green crusing.

Location, Location, Location

Here are the first pics of The Crow's Nest. I can't wait to see the view behind our ceremony.

Why a cruise wedding?

With Chris's parents being in New Zealand, it was hard to imagine a wedding were we would all

get to spend lots of time together. Unless it came before the wedding and no one wanted the disaster (I am a bridezilla waiting to happen).

We were talking about where we would get married a long time ago and I joked about Hawaii being half way to New Zealand. Well, one thing led to another and the idea of the cruise wedding was born.

My mom is like me. We do things all or nothing. Well, my cousin had an all out huge wedding and I remember in the car on the way home my mom looked at me and said, "Imagine the most lavish wedding I could afford for you. I will give you that money to elope."

We both see the stress that a wedding can become and neither one of us wants that for me. With a destination wedding of this sort a lot of the details are taken care of. This does mean that you give up a lot of the decision making and control but for me it is worth it. I want this to be a stress free day that I always remember.