Joga Bonito Storify
Great presentation! I think the most effective part of your presentation was showing how social media has the ability to spread so quickly and reach so many different people! It’s truly amazing!
I thought it was really cool that an advertisement can have such an impact on peoples lives. Even to the point of creating a new style of soccer. It was a great presentation and I learned something new!
The DISney Cruise Line Message Board: How being a user alters the cruising experience
Frequent users of the Disney Cruise Line Message board (also referred to as: DIS Board) http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9 know that it is a great place to turn to for Disney Cruise Line travel advice. However, to them it is much more than that. It’s a place to converse, trade tips, and make friends. The active message board offers an atmosphere where a community can be sustained and can grow. For users who do not log on to the message board as often as regular users, it is easy to forget just how much the DIS Boards can impact their Disney Cruise experience. As a member of the DIS board community a user is exposed to the opportunity to change their cruising experience in a way that is not possible through any other means.
First and foremost the Disney Cruise Line Message Board is a place to turn for travel advice and tips. Loyal users or moderators are eager to help anyone with a question. Most of the questions revolve around planning for an upcoming cruise. People in the planning stage of their cruise often come up empty handed and frustrated after trying to navigate the Official Disney Website. It can be a daunting task to make many choices and then pay $5,000+ without even knowing if it’s a good deal or if you made the right choices. By doing a quick Google search, most will find the DIS Boards and anyone searching can have most of their questions answered and more. Once a person reaches the DIS Board and gets their questions answered, they are ready to make an informed reservation for their cruise. They now can explore the other opportunities they have as a member to help enhance their cruise experience.
One of the opportunities available is the meet and greet section of the DIS Boards. The meet and greet section is a place for future cruisers to get to know other travelers who will be on the same cruise as they will be. It offers a place to share in the enjoyment of planning a cruise. It also offers a place for future cruisers to get excited with others who have the same feeling. Ravensilverlight reflects on her experience, as she claims that, “I have already been able to talk to people who will be on my cruise, so rather than exchanging those awkward smiles with other cruisers at random; I can go to our meet and already have some friends on board.” It doesn’t just stop with adults; teens also have their own threads to talk with other kids their age. Kathryn Cashner offers this different perspective from her daughter’s experience, “In the 11-14 year old cruise experience it was great for her to “meet” other kids on line before cruising. It wasn’t unusual for her to make other friends after boarding and to not really end up hanging out with those she’d met on line, but the fact that she knew someone in advance made it much more comfortable to enter the programming. She was going to meet a “friend,” not walking into a room of strangers. It no longer mattered if one was the fat kid, the skinny kid, the kid with zits, or whatever; you were meeting up with a friend.” The meet and greet thread also offers a place to plan face to face events and fun activities to add to the already activity filled cruise.
Another opportunity users have, is to participate in a “Fish Extender Exchange.” This event is completely planned out online as an extension of the Meet and Greet thread. Before the cruise, information about ages and staterooms are given. At this point the planning begins for what to give and how to pack the gifts. Outside of every state room is a decorative fish with a clip used to give official messages to cruisers throughout their trip. A fish extender is a homemade hanging extension of the decorative fish. They have pockets for each member in the state room and are often heavily decorated. Throughout the cruise participants secretly go around and pass out their gifts. Upon returning to their state room cruisers are greeted by fun treats and gifts. This can add a little extra magic on a cruise for young children and even for adults; it can even be educational and teach children the joy of giving. This experience can be extremely beneficial to a child’s (and adults) experience on the cruise and adds a nice touch of anticipation, surprise, and magic to an already wonderful vacation. The DIS Board community offers a nice opportunity for a touch of fun outside of the structured activities on the Cruise. The opportunity to participate, however, is only available to members of the forum community.
As the cruise comes to an end, most depart with suitcases filled with souvenirs, too many pictures to count, and countless memories. Cruisers soon return to their normal lives and once again become secretaries, doctors, nurses, psychologists, and lawyers instead of “cruisers.” Yet some return to their lives with new, lifelong friends online. All of these opportunities would not be possible if it were not for the willing community that is ready to help make a cruise better for themselves and others.
Storify Presentation-DIS Boards
I found this quite interesting. I was aware that there is a lot of online research that goes on for travel planning and such. However, I was wondering… Would you happen to know anything about the Disney Cruise Lines forum demographics? Or what the majority of their user-base is like?
Sorry for not replying sooner but I was trying to find some information. there is no official data but what I can gather it is a pretty diverse online community. It includes men and woman from teenagers to a user that mentioned going on a cruise for her 80th Birthday. There are also people form all around the world that contribute. There also seems to be a variety in class too. From people who go on 5 cruises a year ( a feet considering the average cruise for a family of 4 costs around $7,000) to people who are on just to collect advice and someday but it to good use when they save up enough money.
ltulgren:My cousin worked on a Disney Cruise. She was Snow White. I was not aware that you cannot be pregnant on a cruise. Why is this? do you know how far into the pregnancy onecan be in order to go on a cruise?
ltulgren:
I found it very funny when you were describing the different advice people asked relating to Disney Cruises (i.e. clothing/pregnancy). From your presentation it seemed like it would be very simple to get honest and valuable advice if people were members of the community you described. Have you ever participated on the community you described?
I have not participated in this community for the purpose of travel advise, but because of the active and open community I was able to ask them questions for this specific assignment. I started a thread asking people to share what the message board meant to them and I got 17 very detailed responses. One user even gave me her e-mail and had me e-mail her so she could share more personal stories and share even more information. I loved how generous everyone was. If I ever co on a cruise and have a question this would be the place I would turn too.
That’s really cool that your cousin worked on the ship. I think it would be a fun but vary different experience. From what I have gathered after reading through posts, is that you can go on a cruise until you are 24 week pregnant. This is a standard rule across all cruise line companies. You also have to provide a doctor’s note stating that you can cruise and are under 24 week. I believe this is due to a liability issue for the cruise line and the safety of the mother and child. It has been proven that an infant can survive under the proper care, out side of the womb at 24 weeks. Before than it has an vary low chance of survival. Because of this Cruise lines do not want a pregnant mother traveling at the chance that something were to go wrong. The likelihood that the mother and child would reach proper medical care in time is low.
This was a really great presentation! I liked how yours and Maria’s presentations really differed. I noted that you said some people come on the forums and just say hello and ask random questions, and I was wondering, how do the very serious people feel about these “randoms”? With the way you talked about it, it seemed to me that some people probably wouldn’t be very happy with this. But I really enjoyed your presentation and learning about that - especially the fish extenders! Love that idea.
There actually have been some threads started just to be sarcastic. this usually revolves around people who are lurkers( people who only look but never contribute) and people who only join to ask one question, but the answer can easily be found. S I would say that most people are fine with giving advise but sometimes loyal users do get a little upset.
Storify Presentation-DIS Boards
ltulgren:
I found it very funny when you were describing the different advice people asked relating to Disney Cruises (i.e. clothing/pregnancy). From your presentation it seemed like it would be very simple to get honest and valuable advice if people were members of the community you described. Have you ever participated on the community you described?
I have not participated in this community for the purpose of travel advise, but because of the active and open community I was able to ask them questions for this specific assignment. I started a thread asking people to share what the message board meant to them and I got 17 very detailed responses. One user even gave me her e-mail and had me e-mail her so she could share more personal stories and share even more information. I loved how generous everyone was. If I ever co on a cruise and have a question this would be the place I would turn too.
Storify Presentation-DIS Boards
The pattern of people who identify as not social media users frequenting these forums is really interesting to me. What is it about this community or site that creates this exception?
I believe what makes people think that they are not users of social media is the message board format and community. When they ask questions or have discussion they usually get a response fairly quickly. I think it gives a sense that you are talking to someone not just to the abyss, a feeling that you can sometimes get with Facebook, Twitter, and blogging.
This is a video about some new feachers the Twitter is planing on releasing. It looks like they are listing to there users, some of the changes fix some of the complaints we have talk about in class.
Storify Presentation-DIS Boards
I thought it was extremely interesting that people connected online and organized extravagant cruise events such as delivering gifts to each other on specific days! It’s a really fun idea, although it would be a little weird to be receiving gifts from a stranger. I also thought it was kind of funny that people who have never been on a cruise and don’t plan it were participating in the message boards simply for a community aspect in their life! How did you decide on this particular topic?
A few years ago my family was exploring differnet ideas for trips we could take. I am the family planner so I still had most of this information still bookmarked on my computer. however we ended up going to Disney World and not on a Disney Cruise as it was triple the price. When I was brain storming ideas for my topic I decided to back and look at all of the different message boards I still had book marked but don’t frequent anymore. I came across the Disney Cruise Line message board and I remembered that it was an active community that was very helpful. I watched it for a couple of days and loved how active it was. So I decided to focus my paper on the activity of the one message board instead of focusing on the social media around one topic.
The Office Storify
I loved your approach the the presentation. I learned a lot about the community and their interactions.
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