cafeDB

I was on QM2 in February - there were 4 male and 1 female dance host on board. American and UK.
Plus a Japanese man who appeared sometimes.

I spent a month on Royal Princess the atrium is very large. They had several hundred people learning ball room dancing. Also line dancing and several other forms of dancing.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Several hundred at once? Was it even possible to move, let alone learn ballroom dancing?

Could you please tell us how big the atrium is? What sort of flooring do they have?

Thank you

We are considering a cruise on the Diamond Princess from Singapore to HK in April next year.

It's been really interesting reading this thread, thank you to all who have contributed especially Lanwood. I'm looking forward to Japanese breakfasts and toilets! haha!:p

We love ballroom (and latin) dancing and it is one of the most important things when we choose a cruise.

Can anyone who has been on the Diamond since the refurbishment please tell me how many dance venues are left and how big the dance floors are? What are the ballroom dancing opportunities like?

I'm quite hopeful because many of the really good dancers I have seen on past cruises have been Japanese couples and I am hoping that Princess is catering to them in this respect too.

Princess does have dining room menus printed in languages other than English and uses them when appropriate for the passenger. I do not know if Japanese is one of those languages.

They do, a waiter tried to give my son one before on a RCI ship, on the way to Hong Kong.

OOps, typed that real late.

I 'm sorry I meant to say clockwise / anti-line of dance. The line of dance is the same but some people don't seem to know that onboard.

What I meant about the tempo is that the tempo was either hard to hear or that it was variable during the same song. Speeding up and slowing down at will!

Going on the Solstice in November for the itinerary mainly but was quite disappointed to learn that the dance floors are so small. Pictures definitely looks too small for any ballroom dances, maybe just latin dances. I always laughed on Liberty OTS and Voyager when they had "Ballroom night" in the topfloor lounge with a little oval round floor the size of a pocket handkerchief. Apparently American cruise directors think " chacha, rhumba and salsa" are "ballroom dances" because that's the only music they played, with an occasional waltz. I'm hoping it will not be like that on Solstice. But then again, we can dance anywhere - including on the open deck in Halong Bay, in a Fuxing park in Shanghai and on top of a boat in Lake Windermere, as long as they play good music. The worst is when they have a floor but employ a band that doesn't know what dance music is.

 

I will bring my dance shoes on all cruises for all the reasons you've all stated, most comfortable, light and prettiest shoes I can pack. I got a tip from another dancer to always bring TWO pairs, in case one breaks and then you can't dance at all.

I wear them all night but just take care not to go on the open decks so I don't wet and spoil the soles.

Reporting back on the Solstice.

Brought my shoes but didn't get much proper dancing at all.

Evening Ballroom dance music was played in the 3rd floor atrium, a main thoroughfare at the bottom of the grand staircase with a tiled floor and people walking all over it while you try to dance. Funny shaped, dangerous tiles, too small to do any proper lines for Standard but ok for Latin if there was not more than 2 other couples dancing.

They had a pretty decent wood floor up on the Sky Observation Lounge which they wasted almost every night on game shows and other nonsense. We gave up on the atrium and went up to the Sky Lounge with our iPhone to dance before the nonsense started. The night they finally decided to have ballroom dancing there they spread sticky gunk on the floor, claiming this is the "correct" way to prepare the floor for dancing! When the "ballroom" music started there was lots of no tempo-jazz and slowdance and undanceable music, only about 1 quarter that could be used by a proper dancer.

Cruise Director totally ignored all feedback on dancing and other entertainment, including board games! One of the most boring cruises I have ever been on, thank God for the port days and beautiful scenery.

Don't bother to bring dance shoes for the Celebrity, you'd waste and ruin them!

I've been on HAL twice -- and the only way to survive the sticky dance floors is to wear something over your shoes -- so they will slide on the floor. The floors are fine if one just wants to stand and sway to the music. We found it easier to dance on the carpet -- we could hear the music in the area where the elevators were, and just danced there. There wasn't much traffic through the area, and we had enough room to waltz and foxtrot.

I was on the Celebrity Solstice in Nov 2013, they had a decent size floor in the Sky Observation Lounge which they were always using for game shows and other nonsense AT NIGHT! We would get in there to dance with music from our iPhone before the nonsense started and it was actually quite fun to have the whole floor to ourselves to do our our nice lines and moves and people started coming up early to watch and clap for us!

However on the night when "Ballroom music" was finally scheduled they waxed the floor with said gunk, it was so sticky I almost twisted my ankle. Asked the DJ and the steward who had done it and they said this was the "correct" way for dancing!! We re-educated them and said that people were going to hurt themselves that night and they would be blamed - so they finally came and cleaned it up by washing the floor again! It was still slightly sticky but more manageable after that.

So the correct way to survive sticky dance floors is - Don't stand for it! Ask them to clean it up!

I was on all three Queens, QM2, QE (both 7-day TA's)and QE (10-day Caribbean) this January. The QM2 was regrettably the biggest dance disappointment of the three. While the dance floor is the largest, the music was the poorest. The recorded music was about 50-50, there was some nice stuff but also a lot of duds that needed to be chopped. The Queens Room Orchestra's are contract musicians who change regularly and with quality that's highly variable, but usually mediocre at best. Expect to do most of your dancing during the recorded music sets. Note that the entrance to the alternate venue, G32, is through the QR, so when there's a reception, no access and no dancing.

A 4-day cruise will definitely be a different atmosphere from a longer one for dance activities.

Just back from QM2 today and just wanted to say that your comments, as usual, are spot on.

We enjoyed the band on QV more and the dance floor there felt bigger as it was not restricted by the glass balcony at the end. The band was a joke. There was a long pause between each song as they actually discussed how they would play the song (hello?? don't they rehearse this stuff first?). The band leader would then announce something like : "Now for a nice slow waltz" and promptly play a Viennese Waltz instead!

You were right too that we got most of our dancing in the first 2 hours of recorded music and then rested when the Orchestra came on to play variable tempo music that catered to the shake your booty dancers, the "1,2,3" in little squares "waltzers" and the "hold each other with eyes closed right in the middle of the floor, while other people try to dance around them" dancers and the, "anticlockwise" dancers.

There were lots of excellent dancers onboard this segment of the QM2 World cruise HK to Singapore, mostly from HK and the floor was pretty crowded even during the recorded music segments. The CD seems to be listening to our Cruise Critic posts as they now call the segments " Strict Tempo Dance Music".

I went to Saigon in June 2012 on Voyager of the Seas and used the guide which has glowing reviews mentioned the most times on this thread "Z---" and unfortunately I had a very different experience.

Please read my post here, before booking him:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=36220737#post36220737

I am just back from my third similar segment on the QM2 today and would like to highly recommend "Vietravel"

I asked a friend who is a ex-Vietnamese from HCM and owns a inbound travel agency for Vietnamese to Singapore to recommend a guide. She put me in touch with Vietravel, which is supposed to be the largest tour agency in Vietnam.

We corresponded with Sheila (very prompt and very good English) and were assigned a guide called Dang.

What a change 1 syllable made! There was no self-absorption and self-promotion and no pressure to take us to the lacquer factory to shop. It wasn't even mentioned! The tour was exactly as we requested.

Here is an excerpt from the email I just sent to them:

"We have just returned from our cruise today and I would like to write to thank you for your generosity and the very excellent tour we received on 5 April 2014.

While we were just exiting the ship, there was an Australian lady who had been stranded as her friends were sick and their tour was cancelled. She had no idea how to get to Saigon and she requested to come with us. I was afraid to further impose on your hospitality and so I said that I would have to check with the guide first. Your guide Mr Dang was very gracious to allow her to come along on the trip even at this last minute.

We were very pleased with the quality of the tour received and the flexibility of Mr Dang who went along with a last minute request to change the FITO museum tour to the Ho Chi Minh City museum instead. He spoke English excellently and was informative and helpful. He showed us around the War Remnants museum prison area and told us how to view the exhibits indoors. He also took us through the city museum stopping to show us the major exhibits. He also shared many personal stories with us in a humble manner and gave us many insights into the Vietnamese culture and people which I had not received from other guides on previous trips to Vietnam.

We enjoyed our day very much.

We would also like to add a word of commendation for the driver. Although some roads were rough and the traffic was messy, he drove in a very safe manner and got us back to the ship with plenty of time to spare.

Myself, my husband, Mr and Mrs Lee and Jackie (the Australian last minute addition) would very much like to thank you for the gracious hospitality that we have received.

"

We had 1 hour each at the 2 museums we requested (quite enough as he showed us the highlights), a multi-course Vietnamese lunch (with all the representative Vietnamese foods, [including much better pho than the one we had in Pho 2000, which was noisy, cluttered and dirty]) in a private room at a beautiful serene restaurant, with 2 waiters dedicated to us. We were also allowed plenty of time to shop in Ben Than market as we requested rather than having our requests blatantly ignored as "Z---" had done.

And beat this - despite the last minute addition who also ate lunch, there was NO extra charge!

Probably a little late in answering this but we're ballroom and latin dancers and someone here was asking about the dancing on smaller Princess ships.

They had a very nice wooden floor in the top deck, 12 floor (can't remember what it was called) usually with a DJ and there were only 2 other dancing couples on board. The Dj usually played danceable music and switched to undanceable music when he wanted to go to bed! (better than live undanceable music) and we were very happy to have the floor to ourselves almost every night.

Perhaps because of the itinerary (Holy Land), there was no one else in the lounge and it was obviously not making them any money so that may be why they took the dance floor out of Royal Princess -sob!!!

Going on the Solstice in November for the itinerary mainly but was quite disappointed to learn that the dance floors are so small. Pictures definitely looks too small for any ballroom dances, maybe just latin dances. I always laughed on Liberty OTS and Voyager when they had "Ballroom night" in the topfloor lounge with a little oval round floor the size of a pocket handkerchief. Apparently American cruise directors think " chacha, rhumba and salsa" are "ballroom dances" because that's the only music they played, with an occasional waltz. I'm hoping it will not be like that on Solstice. But then again, we can dance anywhere - including on the open deck in Halong Bay, in a Fuxing park in Shanghai and on top of a boat in Lake Windermere, as long as they play good music. The worst is when they have a floor but employ a band that doesn't know what dance music is.

I will bring my dance shoes on all cruises for all the reasons you've all stated, most comfortable, light and prettiest shoes I can pack. I got a tip from another dancer to always bring TWO pairs, in case one breaks and then you can't dance at all.

I wear them all night but just take care not to go on the open decks so I don't wet and spoil the soles.

I'm going to go against the grain here, and say that I found the Nha Trang markets to be one of the best. Ok, I'll admit that their souveneirs weren't as good as other places, but I found the fresh food area of the Cho Dam Market to be absolutely fantastic.

 

The people were friendly (at one stage my wife and I were watching a lady sort out....well I'm not sure what it was...so the lady cuts one open and hands it to us to try), they're happy for you to take photos (some markets where there is high piracy, such as KL's China Town, etc, we had problems taking photos of ourselves even because stall holders got funny), and the range of what they had there was amazing.

I just went to HCM and Ben Than market in June on another cruise and although it was really nice, I am not keen on facing the 2 hour ride just to shop there. I've already seen the rest of the usual tourist bits in HCM as well, so I was hoping to do my shopping in Cho Dam market. Could anyone tell me if

Iwe can get nice embroidered "Ao Dai" (The Vietnamese traditional long dress and trouser suit) and Western style evening clothes in Cho Dam?

I got a beautifully sequinned velvet evening dress in Ben Than market in June for US$19!! (did not bother even to bargain! See explanation below) and I'm hoping for similar items in Nha Trang.

A little off-topic here but if going to Ben Than market in HCM and you hate bargaining,here's a tip from my tour guide there. Just buy everything from the government run section which is on the front left side of the building (nearest the famous Pho2000 noodle shop). The prices are fixed and so ridiculously low there is just no need to bargain.

In June this year, we had a wonderful and very efficient tour of Rome in 8 hours with our driver-guide Onofrio (American tourists all him "Jack") during our Western Mediterranean tour on LOS. We saw all the important sites at our own pace without having to wait for other people. Onofrio was a wealth of information and tips, he could get us into little side lanes that tour buses could never do, right next to the Pantheon, Trevi fountain and Plaza Navona, Campo del'Fiori etc saving us lots of time and walking and even drove us all up to a lookout point for the Forum which required a special sticker on his car.

We booked out Vatican and Colosseum tickets on-line (clicking on the links in the RomeinLimo website) and walked right to the entrances bypassing all the long queues (definitely worth the few extra euros).

I came back giving rave reviews about RomeinLimo and Onofrio to all our friends and we were back in Rome again on 1 and 2 Nov before our Holyland cruise (from Venice) and requested for him again. He picked us up from the airport and this time took us to some of the beaten track places and well as the Christian tour of Rome. We had a wonderful time and we have 4 groups of friends going to Rome in the next few months and all of them are going to use him too.

One thing though, don't bother paying extra for the private Vatican guide, we did that in June and she never gave us any extra information or pointed out anything along the way, she was just trying to get us into the Sistine chapel as quickly as possible. We went on our own the second time and did just fine on our own by downloading audioguides into our mobile phones online. The best ones (free) are the Rick Steves ones from his website. I used them for all the important sites in Rome, Venice and Athens.

Hi Ruth,

I have been reading your posts and they have been so helpful.

I am on Princess cruise which was supposed to stop in Haifa on Nov 9th and Ashdod on Nov 10th. However, with less than a month to go, the cruise line has suddenly cancelled Ashdod without any explanantion and changed it to an overnight in Haifa instead.

It is my first time to Israel and the whole point of this cruise was to visit Jerusalem.

My question is this: do you know of any reason why our Ashdod stop could be cancelled ie any specific dangers? and if so, would it be foolhardy to visit Jerusalem and Bethlehem?

Thank you in advance,

E