Planning group cruises and meetings at sea has always been a relatively simple task. This is largely due to the ease of planning that comes with all-inclusive pricing and the convenience of organizing lodging, meeting space, food and beverage, entertainment and décor in one simple process. However, Seasite.com has now made it even easier to plan corporate cruises and meetings on cruise ships with the introduction of their user-friendly planner guides.

These new cruise planning guides go well beyond the typical ship information available to travel planners and include the information that you really need to know when planning functions at sea. These easy-to-use guides include previously unpublished information, such as:

• Capacity of function rooms
• Information about outdoor function venues
• Meeting space grids
• Information about group dining options

This meeting-specific information that is critical to meeting planners and corporate travel planners has never before been made easily available, until now.

Check out Seasite.com’s cruise planning guides the next time you need to plan a meeting or event at sea, and you will see just how simple these online cruise planning tools are to use.

Follow these simple steps to easily access ship information for your next event:

1. Go to Seasite.com.
2. From the home page, click on Meeting Venues.
3. Select a ship from the A-Z ship directory.
4. When the ship details appear, click on Planner’s Guide.

If you plan meetings and events for the SMERF (social, military, educational, religious, fraternal) market, you may want to consider adding self-catering accommodation options to the lodgings available for your events. While this is clearly a non-issue if your meeting or event is taking place on a cruise ship or if you are hosting your event at a hotel and offering on-site lodgings, this can be a rather appealing option for other situations. For example, if you are planning a meeting to be held at a community hall or a conference at a convention center, you may want to consider adding self-catering options to the list of lodging possibilities for out-of-town attendees.

One of the main reasons for offering self-catering accommodations when working with the SMERF market is that this type of event participant is more likely to be traveling with their partner or family than other types of event attendees. Accommodations that have kitchen and laundry facilities can make the non-attending partner and other family members feel more at home and allows them to keep food and drinks readily available, rather than having to leave their lodgings every time they want a snack. This also allows your SMERF participants to enjoy the convenience and savings of dining in for some meals, if they prefer.

Seasite.com makes it easy for event planners to source and plan a cruise event. They provide search tools that help you identify the right ship, meeting space grids that show you how the ship fits your needs, and other great planning resources.

The world seems to be a bit darker and edgier than in the past and guest security should be taken seriously by the hotel hosting your next event. It’s shocking when untoward events take place in a hotel; guests book a room for comfort and convenience. Their security is simply taken for granted.

It never crossed Erin Andrew’s mind that her privacy would be invaded last September at the Nashville Marriott. The ESPN sportscaster was photographed with a cell phone through an altered hotel room peephole while she was changing. Other celebrities have been stalked or robbed while staying at quality hotels. Security procedures have become more stringent after the violation of Erin Andrew’s privacy.

You may not have a celebrity speaker at your event; however, the nature of the event might pose some security problems that need to be addressed. Preventative measures should be taken if your guest speaker is well known either to the public or in the industry. Book the speaker into his or her room using an alias.

Alert hotel personnel if anyone requests a room stating they are in your party, you must be notified immediately. Changes are the request is legitimate but it’s better to avert a problem than fix it.