Princess Bands and Entertainment

[matt690]

Hi,

 

We just got back from a cruise on another cruise line. The pool band was a duo; they hardly played and were not good.

 

It has been a few years since we sailed on the Grand Princess. We remember having a great band that played all day by the pool and consisted of 4 band members. Is this still the case on Princess ships - in particular, on the Crown and Ruby?

 

Thanks so much.

[mmceachn]

Hi,

 

We just got back from a cruise on another cruise line. The pool band was a duo; they hardly played and were not good.

 

It has been a few years since we sailed on the Grand Princess. We remember having a great band that played all day by the pool and consisted of 4 band members. Is this still the case on Princess ships - in particular, on the Crown and Ruby?

 

Thanks so much.

 

I returned from the Crown on Dec 6. One of the pools had live music for an hour or so around lunch and around four in the afternoon on sea days. The band was called Passion...two female lead singers, a drummer, keyboardist and guitarist. They also played in one of the clubs at night and at the carribean deck party and at sailaway.

 

I would have enjoyed more live music on deck during sea days,

[mmceachn]

Hi,

 

We just got back from a cruise on another cruise line. The pool band was a duo; they hardly played and were not good.

 

It has been a few years since we sailed on the Grand Princess. We remember having a great band that played all day by the pool and consisted of 4 band members. Is this still the case on Princess ships - in particular, on the Crown and Ruby?

 

Thanks so much.

 

I returned from the Crown on Dec 6. One of the pools had live music for an hour or so around lunch and around four in the afternoon on sea days. The band was called Passion...two female lead singers, a drummer, keyboardist and guitarist. They also played in one of the clubs at night and at the carribean deck party and at sailaway.

 

I would have enjoyed more live music on deck during sea days,

[Times Prince]

mmceachn's experience was similar to ours on the Emerald Princess - Pool band by the center pool, but very limited playing hours. They played more on sea days.

 

I'm afraid extended live band hours by the pool have fallen victim to budget cutbacks. Previous Caribbean cruises had one more band on each ship who played mainly at the pool, now it is one of the other bands sharing time - and they are limited as to how many hours they can play during a day.

[Northender]

There are many posts that include the entertainment issue. I think it is a crapshoot right now. On our first cruise - the Grand, the band in Wheelhouse was Phoenix Rising and we thought they were great. Have not run into them since and hoping they will be on the Ruby in April:)

 

We also had a sailaway group on the Grand a couple of years later, forget their name, and they were fantastic. I believe the lead singer was a woman. I mentioned this to the CD when I ran into him and said they sould be in one of the lounges. He did not take my advice very well. Actually made me feel like I knew nothing about entertainment.:( People were wondering what happened to them after Sailaway. Oh well.

 

So a crapshoot it is.

[Love Boat Dream]

There are many posts that include the entertainment issue. I think it is a crapshoot right now. On our first cruise - the Grand, the band in Wheelhouse was Phoenix Rising and we thought they were great. Have not run into them since and hoping they will be on the Ruby in April:)

 

We also had a sailaway group on the Grand a couple of years later, forget their name, and they were fantastic. I believe the lead singer was a woman. I mentioned this to the CD when I ran into him and said they sould be in one of the lounges. He did not take my advice very well. Actually made me feel like I knew nothing about entertainment.:( People were wondering what happened to them after Sailaway. Oh well.

 

So a crapshoot it is.

 

 

Phoenix Rising was on the Crown last week. Great group! we also had a Caribbean band called Temperature. They played limited hours by the pool and sometimes in Explorers. PR was in Wheelhouse.

[caber]

We were on Crown October/November and Phoenix Rising were on then.

[bjcanady]

There are many posts that include the entertainment issue. I think it is a crapshoot right now. On our first cruise - the Grand, the band in Wheelhouse was Phoenix Rising and we thought they were great. Have not run into them since and hoping they will be on the Ruby in April:)

 

We also had a sailaway group on the Grand a couple of years later, forget their name, and they were fantastic. I believe the lead singer was a woman. I mentioned this to the CD when I ran into him and said they sould be in one of the lounges. He did not take my advice very well. Actually made me feel like I knew nothing about entertainment.:( People were wondering what happened to them after Sailaway. Oh well.

 

So a crapshoot it is.

 

 

Phoenix Rising leave the Crown Jan. 30 and after their time off are suppose to join the Diamond

[VictoriaH]

Several years ago we were on a ship in the Caribbean and had a wonderful band on the deck by the pool. The band was called "Upryzin". Many of us stayed all day just to hear them and some passengers also were dancing.

Another ship we were on did not have a pool band and we noticed many passengers were not on the deck much of the day.

It would seem that if Princess would have a band there, certainly the bars would sell more drinks.

We will be very disappointed to be in the Caribbean without a "Caribbean style " band.

[beshears]

Phoenix Rising Band was on the Sapphire Princess, for the April 9th Mexican Riviera cruise in the Wheelhouse Lounge. They are very good, and welcome any requests.

[cruzinchris]

Ditto to above posts about Phoenix Rising.

 

DH and I also enjoyed Exotique on the Ruby and CB. I believe that they're currently on the Coral.

Chris

[camofwilliamsburg]

On Star the band played mostly for port days when we were sailing away. Short set of about 45 minutes.

[shoreham01]

I am sorry to tell you that when we were on the Grand in September we did not notice any live band playing round the pool. Every time we tried to sit around the main pool area they were playing really loud films or concerts on the MUTS screen. Ghastly experience which forced us to move to other areas of the ship. They played the films etc so loud that you could not even hear your own choice of music from your MP3 player. We sailed on a Princess ship years ago and really enjoyed the live calipso music round the pool area. We are back on the Grand in June but will not go near the pool area if they are still showing films during the day. People talk about chair hogs but I can assure you there were plenty of empty chairs around the pool when we walked passed there. Most people we spoke to hated the loud intrusive noise of it all and moved to other pool areas or other areas of the ship.

[Jasperdo]

I returned from the Crown on Dec 6. One of the pools had live music for an hour or so around lunch and around four in the afternoon on sea days. The band was called Passion...two female lead singers, a drummer, keyboardist and guitarist. They also played in one of the clubs at night and at the carribean deck party and at sailaway.

Interesting. Passion was the band on my Jan. 5 Golden sailing. They are a great band from St. Lucia. We listened to them nearly every night in the Explorers Lounge. But, there was only one lead female singer. The other lead singer was male.

[tgrissom]

Back in 2006 my wife and I took a cruise to Tahiti aboard what is now the Ocean Princess. A band named Spice played by the pool. Awesome 2 person band, but I have not heard if they are still playing on a Princess ship.

[beshears]

Does anyone know how we can find out what bands/singers are on "what ships" and their itineraries?

 

It seems that they move ever so often. I would like to book a cruise where I knew Phoenix Rising was going to be on it, but I don't want to book it, and find out they are on another ship.

[michigan tim]

The pool band on the Crown a month ago, as mentioned above was Temperature, while being pretty good, they played very little Caribbean (reggae, calypso, parrothead, etc...). Mostly motownish stuff. I don't understand why the bands play so little anymore. When we first started cruising the bands would play throughout the afternoon.

 

As for the comment above about the Grand not having a pool band, did you check the other (Neptune's?) pool area?

[englishbird]

Got off the Emerald 3 weeks ago. Two really good bands on board.

Gypsy Moon in the Wheelhouse and Icon by the pool and in Explorers some evenings.:D

[Vexorg]

On the recent Ruby sailing I was on we had East Coast Connection as the house band. They played mostly classic rock covers, but they did a pretty good job with that. They left the ship a couple of weeks after our cruise, but we had a talk with the lead singer on the last night of the cruise, and were told they were planning to play in Vegas during the summer. My brother lives not far from Vegas, so we might look into the possibility of seeing them down there.

[monakayk]

On every ship I have been on for the past 4 years....bands playing by the pool (sea days) were very limited times. No Steel Bands play anymore either. :(:(:(Very sad, cause hearing the steel bands play made us really feel like we were in the tropics.

[simbasmom]

Please, Please mention this on your comment cards that you fill out at the end of the cruise. An increasing number of cruise lines are cutting back on their live musical entertainment if they have it at all. I'll admit-part of my suggestion is self-serving (well, self-serving to my son); he's in the ship's orchestra on one of the Princess ships and really enjoys his job.

[Times Prince]

Got off the Emerald 3 weeks ago. Two really good bands on board.

Gypsy Moon in the Wheelhouse and Icon by the pool and in Explorers some evenings.:D

Emerald and her sister ships are really nice with the band venue overlooking the pool deck (and not one with MUTS). One cruise we had a great band, I think called Oasys who played Caribbean music - some using synthesized steel drums.

 

Please, Please mention this on your comment cards that you fill out at the end of the cruise. An increasing number of cruise lines are cutting back on their live musical entertainment if they have it at all. I'll admit-part of my suggestion is self-serving (well, self-serving to my son); he's in the ship's orchestra on one of the Princess ships and really enjoys his job.

We do this every cruise, as we love live music, and would actually stay on deck and buy drinks just to enjoy.

[Cruisin' Chick]

Interesting. Passion was the band on my Jan. 5 Golden sailing. They are a great band from St. Lucia. We listened to them nearly every night in the Explorers Lounge. But, there was only one lead female singer. The other lead singer was male.

 

That's right. They also played at the Ultimate Deck Party. And sometimes in the Piazza, including on New Years Eve. Elua also played quite a bit (sometimes just Dave, sometimes both Dave and Leialoha), including one sailaway.

[simbasmom]

We do this every cruise, as we love live music, and would actually stay on deck and buy drinks just to enjoy.

 

 

Wonderful to know! Ironically the dancers and other entertainers also prefer the live music backing them up rather than "canned" music. I'm not sure why-I always kid that it's because if they screw up perhaps a live band can "cover" their mistake whereas "canned" music just goes on.

[Vredenius53]

We just got off the Grand. They had a band called The Static Band. Absolutely wonderful.