Evening 'entertainment' Azura

Currently on Azura on a Baltic cruise. The evening entertainment programme is dire, worst I've ever experienced; headliners dance troupe, awful and the only other options have been a couple of feeble comedians. Is it always this bad? It's 9pm and I've given up again and gone to bed!

I hope that is not usual because we will be on Azura in 4 weeks time, though I suspect that it might be. We were on Ventura in April and it was the worst entertainment that we had seen in 35 cruises, poor comedians and very bad tribute acts though Headliners were reasonably good and the speaker was one of the most interesting we have seen.

I have to agree. The entertainment can be dire. On a recent 6 night cruise on Azura we had the same entertainers twice over and the tribute acts were appalling.

We have found RCI have the best entertainment by far on cruise ships.

Yes, although I guess most of us don't pick a cruise for the onboard entertainment it does make a difference to overall enjoyment. Princess seems better, more variety and more professional. As you say, on P and O the same acts are repeated, the standard is low and not even a nod towards any 'localism' eg Russian dances when in St Petersburg etc

Currently on Azura on a Baltic cruise. The evening entertainment programme is dire, worst I've ever experienced; headliners dance troupe, awful and the only other options have been a couple of feeble comedians. Is it always this bad? It's 9pm and I've given up again and gone to bed!

It does seem to vary greatly from year to year and ship to ship - we had a similar experience on Aurora 4 years ago. We ended up playing cards most evenings. The speaker Dame Mary Peters was wonderful and Captain Turnbull's Q&A, but apart from that...

Following year on Azura better - singer/pianist Elio Pace, another brilliantly funny comedian/pianist, a good Freddie Mercury tribute, couple of good singers...

Last year on Britannia OK Beatles tribute, OK Freddie Mercury tribute, excellent house band Pulse, great comedy ventriloquist, but some of the best entertainment was the Headliners. The shows and singers were the best we've seen on our cruises.

Funnily enough when we returned to cruising after a long break, the first cruise we took was with RCI and apart from the ice show and one other we thought the entertainment very poor.

I usually find the Headliners very good indeed. The comedians are usually awful and we creep out. The same goes for single vocalists, usually too loud and not enjoyable. I dislike the tribute acts, again usually so loud they blow yiur brains out.

I think the comedians seem to be stuck in a kind of time warp. They are very pleasant and gentlemanly, but do seem to be 'old school' . Our recent one made me laugh, but there were lots of references of meaning to older generations and their kind of humour that I didn't quite get it a lot of the time.

I have just come off Oriana, and I may have been just lucky, but on the whole we thought that the entertainment was the best we have had on a cruise ship for a long while. The Headliners were the best troupe we have ever had....imho. (dont get excited though if you are about to go on Oriana...thatvparticular troupe's contract finished at the end of our cruise!)

We also had a couple of excellent solo vocalists, a brilliant male group, and apparently a very good magician and comedian....although I didn't see the latter two. People also spoke highly of the individual entertainers in the various bars. And the Entertainment manager and her team were also very good ..very friendly and high profile around the ship.

Overall it was much better than on Arcadia last year....Perry Grant excepted! :D

The last couple of trips I have been on were on smaller lines, viz. Fred Olsen, Voyages of Discovery, and Cruises and Martitime. I thought their entertainment was better, ie. more enjoyable, not because it polished and professional - it wasn't; especially on Discovery when the sound man had to rush out from his booth during one of the songs, repair a broken microphone, and dash back before the song ended - but because the smaller shows had more personality.

P&O's production shows struck me as 'production line' shows. Polished, drilled, and with completely interchangeable cast.

I find the entertainment very variable, last year Oceana had some excellent bands and singers but at xmas they had been replaced by a mediocre lot. the production standards can leave a lot to be desired with equipment failures during shows. I have never rated the headliners as they shout over the overloud orchestra and have less talent than the show teams on Thomson which, despite less facilities, put on more enjoyable shows. Maybe it is because P&O run their own show teams, probably to save money, whilst Thomson and I believe Fred Olsen use Peel entertainment.

I find the entertainment very variable, last year Oceana had some excellent bands and singers but at xmas they had been replaced by a mediocre lot. the production standards can leave a lot to be desired with equipment failures during shows. I have never rated the headliners as they shout over the overloud orchestra and have less talent than the show teams on Thomson which, despite less facilities, put on more enjoyable shows. Maybe it is because P&O run their own show teams, probably to save money, whilst Thomson and I believe Fred Olsen use Peel entertainment.

ps - I wonder why they did not include Grieg in the classical sailaway from Norway.

I have always find the entertainment on P&O good - not amazing, not bad, just good

Cant stick the Freddie Mercury tribute act - Poor Freddie must be SPINNING in his grave - Suffered him on Azura in the Fjords in 2012 as my dinner table mates wanted to go along to see him

Some good tribute acts onboard... Annie Lennox & Elton John

Headliners fantastic - I love a good show - best group were on Azura in 2012 - that girl could sing !!!!!!!

A few good comedians and the ventriloquist was a good choice, he had people laughing

Entertainment on P&O is just good...

We were on Ventura last year and enjoyed most of the headliners shows. The ones we didn't enjoy wasn't because they were bad, just not to our tastes. Didn't see any of the comedians but we did see a Phil Collins tribute act that was ok, but the sound system was too loud and distorted and a Michael Buble trite be act that was very good.

I found the entertainment mostly good. I think I will start missing some of the headliners shows soon though as they are the same ones! I understand Brittania has some different shows but I haven't been on her yet.

Recently come off Aurora and had mixed entertainment. Headliners were good, not the best but they were a male dancer short which was obvious at times. They did a show we hadn't seen before on eighties music which was great.

We had the octaves who I believe are regulars? They were great, though some of the older contingent weren't so happy!

Mark Shortland (comedy magician) was fantastic (even though he got us up on stage!). Singer Penny Mathiesson (opera/musicals) had a wonderful voice and was friendly to bump into around the ship. There was a guy called peter cutter who apparently wasn't great, and a comedian (and I use the term very loosely) Vince Earl who was the worst we've ever seen.

Must have been lucky on my P&O cruises especially with comedians, David Copperfield, Jeff Stevenson, Fogwell Flax???and the excellent Ted Robbins, plus singers like Jacki Graham and a guy called Jake from the celebrity jungle thing (Quickenham???)

Never rated the dance troupe, I've seen the Thomson productions many times and they are the best at sea.

Chatting last night we realised that it has been a few years since we saw any good classical musicians or singers on P&O though Cunard are still managing to get them on their ships.

My personal opinion of the entertainment on Oceania is on the whole poor. here is what was on offer

• Illusionist (cant remember his name)- he was the best of all the acts - engaged with audience and was very professional
  
• Beatles tribute act - have seen much better - lacked any atmosphere
  
• Octaves - male vocal quartet -OK
  
• Roy Walker - dated 70s comedian, not my cup of tea at all, in fact if I hadn't been in the middle of the row I think I would have left midway.
  
• Headliners Theatre group - just a song and dance group They work hard but are let down in my opinion by the production. The Queen tribute wasn't good, the sound was poor, as it was impossible at times to hear any singers over the backing music. Think they forgot some Queen songs do have "light and shade" and aren't just blasted out as loud as possible.
  
• Poolside entertainment - more suited to a holiday camp.
  

I find the standard of the Headliners varies greatly. Last year on the Ventura the standard was poor but this year on the Ventura the standard was brilliant.

At the end of the day it is about personal choice. If for example you don't like Freddie Mercury you are hardly likely to like the tribute act. While some acts are better than others in terms of quality they are not always as bad as many suggest.

I find the standard of the Headliners varies greatly. Last year on the Ventura the standard was poor but this year on the Ventura the standard was brilliant.

 

At the end of the day it is about personal choice. If for example you don't like Freddie Mercury you are hardly likely to like the tribute act. While some acts are better than others in terms of quality they are not always as bad as many suggest.

I hope that the Headliners show is better on other P&O cruises. I do like Queen, infact saw them twice and the West end show "We will rock you" .The headliners tribute wasn't as great as it was talked up by the Entertainment manager, I was expecting much better .

Chatting last night we realised that it has been a few years since we saw any good classical musicians or singers on P&O though Cunard are still managing to get them on their ships.

We had some on our Ventura long cruise to the Caribbean.

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I think the comedians seem to be stuck in a kind of time warp. They are very pleasant and gentlemanly, but do seem to be 'old school' . Our recent one made me laugh, but there were lots of references of meaning to older generations and their kind of humour that I didn't quite get it a lot of the time.

I said similar about the comedians a few months ago and suggested P&o try some of the younger fresher comedians now on the comedy circuit. The comments I got basically said that people on P&O don't like the new, younger comedians. Most I suspect had not seen these comedians live but based there views on TV game shows.

I think the comedians seem to be stuck in a kind of time warp. They are very pleasant and gentlemanly, but do seem to be 'old school' . Our recent one made me laugh, but there were lots of references of meaning to older generations and their kind of humour that I didn't quite get it a lot of the time.

Roy Walker was one act on our cruise - very much stuck in the 1970s, he must be in his 70s. he kept referring to the Comedians show on the TV which I can just about remember, but not sure how relevant it was to the audience in general

Roy Walker was one act on our cruise - very much stuck in the 1970s, he must be in his 70s. he kept referring to the Comedians show on the TV which I can just about remember, but not sure how relevant it was to the audience in general

Annibea - it was Roy who I was referring to, lol. We are obviously on the same wavelength if not the same cruise. ;) Yes, he is about 76. No disrespect to him at all of course, but he is representative of a 'genre'.

I hope it is not too dire as we are on Azura for the first time in July :eek:

Our first two P&O cruises were on Oceana and we were pleasantly surprised.

But as others have said Thomson have the best production shows at sea. Some are up to West End standard. Fred also has good entertainment but are limited a bit by not having theatres on their ships, only show lounges.