Honolulu Blue

A few small items from Mr. Lazaroff's latest newsletter: News about The Jazz Cruise's 2025 program will be announced no later than November 7 There's a webinar for those booked on the 2024 edition on November 16 News about the Botti At Sea 2025 program will be announced no later than December 7 There's a webinar for those booked on Botti's 2024 on Thursday, October 19 There's a webinar for those booked on either of the Smooth Jazz Cruises for 2024 on November 2 The McDonald LaBelle Cruise is near 70% sold

That's the way to do it. 😃

Here I go again with a review of a random American Top 40 countdown - this time from July 9, 1977. The relevant songs start with #29. KC and the Sunshine Band held that position with "I'm Your Boogie Man". He played it on the UDC both last year and this year. Moving on to #23 was "Feels Like the First Time" by Foreigner. Lou Gramm played this on The 80s Cruise earlier this year. I expect Foreigner to play it on the 70s Rock and Romance Cruise next March. Ranking at #21 was "Life In the Fast Lane" from The Eagles. Hotel California, Eagles' tribute band, will be covering their hits on Rock & Romance next year. Will they play this one? It's from the LP Hotel California, so there's a decent shot. At #16 was "Whatcha Gonna Do?" by Pablo Cruise. They'll also be doing the R&R thing next year. This was their first hit, so it's extra likely to be played. #13 was held by "Dreams" from Fleetwood Mac. We have Bella Donna doing a tribute to Fleetwood Mac on R&R. I'm pretty sure they'll get to this one. For the benefit of @George C, I'll list #9 - "Margaritaville" from Jimmy Buffett. Mr. Buffett recently died, but this song will live on for a very long time on the radio, in homes, on cruise ships, and even portside tourist traps like this one: The last song of relevance to us was at #5. This was held by Andy Gibb's "I Just Want to Be Your Everything". I don't know much about Bee Gees Gold, but they'll be on the Rock & Romance Cruise, and they do say they play Andy Gibb songs, so maybe they'll get to this one? Thanks again for stopping by.

I'll directly quote the man himself (emphasis mine): I will then at the end of this month fly to Miami, meet a dollop of beards at the Mother ship and then I will visit the following ships: Carnival Conquest - October 27th Carnival Horizon – October 28th Carnival Celebration – October 29th I will be spending embarkation day on each ship, meeting the guests, taking many shelfies and talking to the crew and lots of live video as I do my traditional walkies. Then in November I will do the same for ships in other home ports. I also have a visit to the Carnival Jubilee. I hope to meet as many of you as I can. I won't be on any of those ships on those dates. Those of you who are, and who happen to be Mr. Heald fans (you know who you are), have fun with our Brand Ambassador. P.S. I'll be on the other ship out of Miami, the Magic, in November.

I've been to all those islands (except Nevis) on Carnival and Celebrity. My last cruise on Carnival took me to St. Kitts and Barbados: All those islands, and others in the region, are great to visit, IMHO. NONE of the ones you mentioned in your post are part of the Virgin Islands, BTW. On the same Carnival Cruise, I DID get to one of the rarer V.I. stops - Tortola, part of the British Virgin Islands: Enjoy your cruise, whenever and wherever you decide to go.

The latest Internet rumor is that George McCrae will be on the 2025 edition of the UDC, if it sails (which it looks increasingly likely to). He was on last year's edition; I didn't see him there. But he made a surprise appearance with KC and the Sunshine Band on this year's cruise. We weren't on the ship for this concert; we were actually in Key West. He got a nice reception from the crowd when he sang his big hit "Rock Your Baby", which was written by KC.

A quick look at https://www.hollandamerica.com/en/us/plan-a-cruise/specialty-cruises/culinary-cruises doesn't show any cruises for 2024 or 2025. Probably not announced yet. I'm rooting for you. 🙏

I had one cruise canceled on me during the pandemic, and I think I canceled three for pandemic-related reasons. I also had a cruise canceled because it was chartered to the gummint. That one was before the pandemic. None of those were as painful as this one: TL,DR: The ship left without me because sometimes I do stupid things. 🙃

First of all, have a fun cruise! I'm considering going the opposite direction, since I've already done the east-to-west PC crossing thing (not on Princess, and not through the classic locks). I'll put it on my "consider" list. On your other questions, I think my colleagues have answered them as well or better than I could, but the one I quoted I have some perspective on. Carnival ships (I mean Carnival Cruise Line, not the whole corporation) tend to stay on ship's time for their shorter cruises. They think it's a convenience TO YOU, the passenger, to not have to worry so often about silly, unimportant things like time changes. I understand their perspective, but don't always agree with it. But Carnival will do regular time changes on their longer cruises (also sometimes on their shorter ones) that cover long distances through multiple time zones, and as already mentioned, Princess tends to follow local time. On one of my Princess cruises, we changed time one day and switched back one or two days later. That was a bit of a whipsaw, 🤬 but somehow, I managed to survive it.

Because I have a little extra time on my hands, I'll do a review of the Billboard Hot 100 for November 24, 1984 similar to what I did last week for a random week in 1985. From the bottom to the top... At #88 was @George C approved crooner Melissa Manchester with "Thief of Hearts". She was scheduled to be on next year's Rock & Romance cruise, but bailed out. Too bad. ☹️ Maybe she would have played this one? I honestly don't remember it from back in the day. At #83 was "Foolish Heart" from Steve Perry. He also had a song at #96 ("Strung Out"). The latter I liked better and indeed count it as my favorite Steve/Journey song. DSB did one of Steve's solo hits during their show on the Ruby in April, but it was neither of these. At #81 was Kool and the Gang with "Misled". I saw the Gang on the UDC in both 2022 and 2023. They didn't play this song either time. This shot is from last year's concert: At #75 was Donna Summer with "Supernatural Love". I don't remember this one either. Will Rainere Martin, our Donna Summer tribute act, cover this one on the 2025 UDC? Somehow I doubt it, but I hope to see for myself. At #72 was Prince and the Revolution with "Let's Go Crazy". At #2 was Prince and the Revolution with "Purple Rain". Tribute band Red Corvette played both of these on the Ruby. At #65 was the band Prince had his fingers all over - The Time - with "Jungle Love". Morris Day and The Time played this on The 80s Cruise earlier this year. At #57 was "Tender Years" and at #31 was "On the Dark Side", both by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. They played both of these on The 80s Cruise last year: At #51 was "Body" from The Jacksons. I saw them on the UDC in 2022. No, this one didn't make the cut. At #50 was "Jamie" from Ray Parker, Jr. I'm looking forward to seeing him on next year's edition of The 80s Cruise. Will he play this one? I think it's close to 50-50. We'll see. At #47 was "You're the Inspiration" and at #20 was "Hard Habit to Break", both from Chicago. The story here gets a little complicated. Jason Scheff was the lead singer and bassist for Chicago, but not on these songs (he joined just after this album as released). He'll be leading a superband/tribute group called Generation Radio on next year's Rock and Romance Cruise. Who knows how much of the old Chicago hits he'll play, but Mr. Scheff has played them in the past (source: https://generationradio.com/generation-radio/ ). My view is that more Chicago = better. I'll probably find time for these guys next year, but the concert calendar is already packed, so there's a chance I might not. Moving along, at #42 was "Girls With Guns" from Tommy Shaw. I have this LP somewhere in cold storage. I liked it. Mr. Shaw eventually went back to his day job with some obscure band called Styx. I saw them in concert last month. This song didn't make the cut. At #25 was "Teacher Teacher" from 38 Special. They're featured on next year's edition of The 80s Cruise. I'm hoping against hope that they play this 🙏, but I think it's too obscure. Coming at #19 was Pat Benatar with "We Belong". I saw her a few weeks ago and yes, she played it: At #16 was David Bowie with "Blue Jean". The upcoming Rock & Romance Cruise will have a tribute to Mr. Bowie called "Being With(out) David Bowie". Will this one make the cut? More likely no than yes, but anything is possible. At #15 was Dennis DeYoung with "Desert Moon". Mr. DeYoung was with Styx for a long time, but he isn't anymore. Here's the guy that replaced him in Styx. He did a good job. They didn't play any of Mr. DeYoung's solo stuff, obviously: At #7 was Sheena Easton with "Strut". I'm really, really looking forward to seeing Ms. Easton on The 80s Cruise. 😍 This isn't my favorite song from her, but it's up there, and I think she's likely to play it. Finally, at #4 was Daryl Hall and John Oates with "Out Of Touch". We had a tribute band called Rich Girl play this one on the Regal Princess a couple of years ago. I apologize in advance for the photo quality: Thank you for joining me on this journey into the past and into the future. I promise my next post will be a lot shorter and have more news content.

Like I mentioned in a similar thread a few months ago, all of my cruises were special in their own way. But my music charters have been a little more special than the rest. Here's a photo from one of them, with a rare concert on land in one of my favorite ports - Key West: @Ellis1138 mentioned The Star Trek Cruise. Well, immediately after those cruises they tear down that stuff and put up decorations for The 80s Cruise - another music charter that I've been on. Here's a random photo from a Q&A with one of the performers:

Thank you for satisfying my curiosity. It certainly sounds like you have a lot of things in mind. I hope that everything comes together to make them happen.

I'm trying to figure out how this would work. The four ways I see are 1) take the QM2 to NYC and immediately return on it, 2) take the QM2 there, visit the city for two or more weeks, then take the QM2 back, 3) take the QM2 there and take a random cruise ship back while visiting NYC while waiting, or 4) take the QM2 there and suffer through what seems like a long-haul flight by my standards (6 hours or so?) but perhaps manageable by yours.

Who's running the casinos? That may be a more complicated question than some think. I've heard that casino operations on some cruise ship casinos is subcontracted. I suppose I could find a definitive answer to this, but I'm too lazy and not interested enough. 🙃 I agree with you on the craps pass line odds here. I think it's better and makes more sense for all involved to have odds at the same rate for everyone.

Another small update for the UDC - I got an e-mail from them saying that prices are going to increase on October19. This is a subtle sign that this cruise is actually going to go; I don't think they'd want to increase prices if they were struggling for reservations.

I haven't read most of the comments here, but I'm sure this grizzled group of veteran cruisers has little interest in 3-day cruises. My shortest cruise has been 5 days, but... I actually booked one of these for next year. It happens to have a couple of headlining musicians and a couple of comedians of headliner quality. It's on a cruise line that I've never used. Apparently, that was enough for me to get to book. I'm looking forward to it. 👍

I'm going to count them as days in port and not at sea. Though I wonder if any vets of that particular cruise are left here. I imagine that many, if not most, have left cruising entirely because of what happened there.

UPDATE: The UDC 2025 has posted what they have for their lineup so far, and mostly it matches what I said above. Score one for Internet rumors!

The same megacasino that hosted Pat Benatar and Styx this summer is hosting Queen Nation on December 29. I liked them, but I didn't like them enough to brave potentially bad roads and bad weather to go see them. Besides, they'll be at Rock & Romance, and I'm sure I'll see them then.

I'm pretty sure they didn't go to the Caribbean.

Forgive me for stepping in it, but I think the cruise companies could make a bigger deal out of Columbus Day than they currently do. After all, him and his crew could be considered the first cruisers from Europe to visit that part of the world. 🙂

According to the latest Internet rumors, here's who will be on the Ultimate Disco Cruise in 2025 (if it goes): Raniere Martin (Donna Summer tribute probably) Rose Royce Tavares Boogie Wonder Band (we knew this from previous rumors) Trammps with Earl Young (knew this also) Bee Gees Gold Stone City Band a Rick James tribute band Denny Terrio as host Most of these have been on the UDC before (the ones who have not I put in italics above). Tavares was scheduled to be on this year's UDC but dropped out. My reaction is this is a good back half of the lineup, but I'm hoping for bigger names to eventually commit.

All's well that ends well. I'm happy for you! 👍

Thanks for sharing. I'm especially interested in this as I plan to do a similar route next year on a non-Princess ship that has Starlink. I would especially be interested in one that's midway between Honolulu and Fiji. That's traditionally been a bit of a dead zone for Internet service.

I hear you. I find the jog down the stairs much, much easier than going up. I could do 20 flights down, no problem. But after about 6 flights up the stairs (especially when I've come from off the ship), I find myself sucking wind and starting to wonder why I didn't take one of those pretty elevators.