Ballroom Dance Lessons

[GCurry]

We are leaving for our second cruise on the Grand this Saturday. One good thing about a repeat cruise is, you know the ship and the dance venues, and in this case, we'll even know one of the bands. "The Barnacles" were on our last Grand cruise in 04.

The cruise won't be a total repeat, as we'll add Roatan Honduras to our Ports of Call list. Cruising out of where you live makes for a very inexpensive vacation, I just wish there were more itineraries.

 

Happy Cruzer, I was pulling for Emmett even though Mario was clearly IMHO the better dancer.

I'm glad you enjoyed your HAL cruise, they are a favorite of ours as well. I'm not surprised there was a shortage of rock music on board, as that is a different crowd.

[mummsie]

Hi GCurry, Have a wonderful trip. Sounds like a lot of fun. Yes always nice doing a repeat. We are doing the same on Pacific Princess - just some different ports :D Will feel like home - Mummsie

[tropicalsunset]

GCurry: hope I'm not too late... have a great cruise!!

 

Happy cruzer... haven't tried HAL yet ... will have to do that one of these days... glad the dancing was great... love the latin!!! :cool: :)

[smoothdancer]

Well I absoutely missed wishing GCurry a wonderful send off!... So much to do. We are having X-mas early here. Next Saturday is X-mas eve here because then on the next Friday, the 22nd we are going on a Princess cruise - Mexican Rivera.

 

I am going to be with no dance instructors soon... So unhappy!.. Our international instructor from FADS is opening up his own studio and the distance is just to far for us to go. Then our pro smooth coach now has a new partner and moved to Boston. So far she has traveled back to CT once a week for her students here, and is about to discontinue this... We learned so so much from her and I am so disappointed.... Both instuctors are moving on to wonderful things but I still end up trying to find new instructors which is not easy to do....

 

I guess we will figure it all out once we get back from the cruise.

[mummsie]

Hello Smooth. How awful for you. I hope you manage to find somebody good to teach you. Xmas is catching up on all of us. Its been crazy here but at least so far summer hasn't been too bad. If it stays like this for Xmas it will be lovely but you can guarantee it will be stinking hot. Nothing like playing cricket out in the hot sun after a big meals.

Some good news from the dancing front - my son and his partner came 3rd at the 'Australian Dancesport Competition' in their graded event in New Vogue :D on Friday evening. He was so excited when he phoned me. Its totally amazing they did so well - its a tough competition - 5 rounds :D. Got back to the quarter final in the standard which is better than last year. :D I am one happy mum let me tell you.!!!! Mummsie

[tropicalsunset]

Gee, It's quiet around here without GEne around!! I bet its not quiet where he is... Hope they are having a fabulous time!!!

 

Smooth: you know how I feel about losing a dancing instructor!! can't imagine what its like to be into comps and lose two at one time!!!! :eek: :eek: We know our teacher is going to school and one day will move on... and we are enjoying her style and patience!!! Enjoy the holidays and your cruise .... and may the right instructors be waiting for you when you get back!!

 

Mummsie: Congrats on the successes.... I love that you have a dancing family and can share these victories!!!

[mummsie]

Hi Tropical, Yes it is very quiet around here at the moment. I just put it down to Xmas and all the extra things people are doing. I know we have been flat out with social events over the last couple of weeks. Not long to our cruise either - am really looking forward to a break. Mummsie :)

[Keith Rita]

Good morning fellow dancers. We've have a lot going lately. A couple of dances, our continued lessons and practice, some of our 11 grand kids activities, Christmas shopping, decorating, etc., and getting ready for our cruise. We leave for that Dec 26.

We hope to be able to relax and, of course, do some dancing.

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

[GCurry]

I have returned, surviving the stormy waters of Costa Maya, attacked by bats on a jungle river in Belize, Zip-lining the canyons of Roatan, snorkeling the reefs of Cozumel and dancing every night!! We had a high ole time and enjoyed every minute of it.

The Currys did achieve some measure of fame on-board for our dancing only to watch the real dancers in action at a dance club party the night we returned.

Ah well, no matter how good you are, there'll always be someone better. But at least in my case it's a truth I've come to accept, as we'll keep working at it, but not too hard.

 

It was a great cruise on the Grand Princess with a lot of people we came to know on Cruise Critics. Our Dec. 9th board had over 20,000 posts, so you knew a lot about people before the cruise even started.

 

We had a balcony on Caribe Deck, which gave us a preview for our Alaska Cruise next June on a sister ship the Diamond.

 

There were at least four bands on board, but not a good Latin group among them. God I hate doing the rumba to "Corina Corina"!!

Ballroom standards were rare except from the piano player in the atrium where I might have danced between two elevators but resisted the impulse.

 

We have a short four day work week, and then it's off to Tennessee for Christmas.

So with whatever you celebrate and where ever you go Smooth, Mummsie, Tropical and all you others, we wish you joy and happiness this holiday season.

[mummsie]

Have a great holiday everybody. We have the week off between Xmas and New Year so will be back on deck 2nd January. Xmas day we are going to our son-in-laws grandparents as they are on acreage and they have a/c. Xmas day is usually really hot here so salads and cold cuts for lunch and then a game of cricket or footy afterwards to work off the food :-) Mummsie:D

[tropicalsunset]

Mummsie: Have a wonderful holiday!!

 

No sign of snow up here... my son had to drive 6 hours to Maine this weekend to snowboard... it has been unseasonably warm around here.. we don't mind as we are saving on the heating bills!!

 

Gene: glad you had a great cruise!! Have a safe trip and a wonderful holiday!!

 

Dave's down with the flu so we canceled another dance lesson.. haven't been very consistent this fall..

 

Keith-Rita: enjoy your cruise!!

 

We are on Century on Jan 20... going in to Miami a couple days precruise... I am glad I booked a hotel a year ago as the prices have gone up by more than $100 a night!!!

 

Almost ready for the holidays... this is the first year the boys are out of the house and we are late on the tree thing -- having friends in on the weekend so geuss we will have to decorate the tree before then!!! :rolleyes: :)

 

We had our annual Christmas dinner dance down at the Elks lodge Friday night... there was quite a crowd in the ballroom ---- a few of us ballroom dancers... and Dave and I managed to expand the dance floor a few times!!!:D

 

I know what you mean, Gene, why do they place the ballroom type bands in the areas with the smallest or even non-existent dance floors????? someone needs to be the dance consultant to these cruise lines!!!!

[smoothdancer]

Happy Holidays to everybody!

This year our holiday will be spent on a cruise!. Christmas day we will be in Jamacia.

 

Most of my family had plans to go away for the holidays so last week-end I hosted a Christmas dinner where we all got together. The event was a lot of work and now I am really looking forward to cruising and doing a bunch of nothing. We will be on the Golden Princess... I hope we find some good music to dance to in the Wheelhouse Bar. Our roll call also had a lot of particiaption.. Think there is about 90 of us.

 

We will cruise out of New Orleans. On Friday night we have special dinner plans.. I understand that NO has a special Holiday menu and we look forward to giving it a try.

 

Hope all has a wonderful and safe Holiday

[happy cruzer]

Have a dancing good time everyone!

 

Gene, When you return please tell me more about the dancing on the Grand. I booked for Feb 24th while you were cruising. Looking forward to more news.

 

I'm in retail so no holiday season for me. I drive Christmas eve, eat and visit Christmas day and then drive the day after. So I get a whirlwind visit and then back to work.

 

Hope everyone has a very good and safe holiday!

[GCurry]

Have a dancing good time everyone!

Gene, When you return please tell me more about the dancing on the Grand. I booked for Feb 24th while you were cruising. Looking forward to more news.

Happy, most of our dancing was in the Wheelhouse Lounge, there were two groups playing every night, a folk/rock duo and a three piece combo, neither of which did any ballroom, so you had to adapt. They would alternate days with one playing early and one late. Spice, a rhythm and blues & Island music duo were in the Explorer Lounge, and if you could find them, a Latin Oriental trio played there and at the Captain's party. The show band played dance music 30 min. before the performance, but we had late seating and were never there on time. The daily Patters give you the who's playing where and when.

There were classes in line dance, Triple step Swing, and Rumba on sea days. Just basics, but Susan learned some new line dance steps to Mambo #5, (on my juke box in hell!) and I worked out with some triple step. This is a good overview of dancing on the Grand. It was a great cruise as well.

 

We are back home on the Texas Gulf Coast from a lovely Christmas in the Mountains of Tennessee. There was an environmental group recently against big vehicles that asked the question "What would Jesus drive?" Well, he had all those disciples don't you know, so he'd do what I did, load up a diesel Excursion with the wife the girls, a whole bunch of Christmas and see a couple of thousand miles of America.

 

Anyway, the travels are over hopefully, until Alaska in June on the Diamond. We won't dance-in the new year, but it will remain a major activity in 2007.

 

I enjoyed visiting with you this year, and learned a thing or two about dancing at the same time. Here's wishing that 2006 was a good year for you, and 2007 will be even better.

 

Gene

[tropicalsunset]

We are back home on the Texas Gulf Coast from a lovely Christmas in the Mountains of Tennessee. There was an environmental group recently against big vehicles that asked the question "What would Jesus drive?" Well, he had all those disciples don't you know, so he'd do what I did, load up a diesel Excursion with the wife the girls, a whole bunch of Christmas and see a couple of thousand miles of America.

 

well, I hardly want to live the lifestyle that Jesus did... DSW would be out of business as well as many fine clothiers!! and look how HE ended up!!!! as much as I respect the mail... he was an Icon... and I will take the two seater with the top down and hair flying in the breeze!!

Quite frankly,,, I would see a caravan of camels or in this day a lineup of limos...... but if the Excursion fits..... ;) :D

 

We are off on a weekend thing with friends at a Hartford area Marriott... with New Years package thing... so it should be fun!!! Our dance studio is doing a New Years Party and they called and left a message inviting us so I wonder if they got much of a turnout...

 

My son got me an MP3 player for Christmas .... I am having fun programming my tunes into it and I can practice my dancing to my faves!!! I LOVE IT!!!

 

GCurry: glad you had a great cruise....interesting... a Latin Oriental trio.... would love to see that!!! :D

 

I hope Smooth is enjoying her cruise!!

 

Have a wonderful New Year and lots of Great Dancing in the New Year.... especially wish a fabulous instructor comes Janet's way!!

[smoothdancer]

Happy New Year all! We are back from our X-Mas cruise and we had such a wonderful, wonderful time. The last time we sailed Princess was in 2003 and thought it was just OK... This time however we just loved the line.

 

There was so much dancing.. we danced before dinner, after dinner until 1:00 AM. The bands were playing a lot of latin music and ballroom as well. Other passangers were dancing ballroom type dancing but not so many so that you could not get around on the floor. The bands were excellent. We even one night danced some hustle in the Explorers lounge.

 

I am not sure if it was because it was a X-Mas cruise but most passangers dressed up each evening, even on port days and casual nights were not so casual... Of course I was prepared and loved it! Our table mates were so very interesting, one lady was a motivational speaker that I spent some time with. We loved all the ports, and loved that the ship was decorated for the holidays with a lot of christmas themed events.

 

I came home with, as always, a lot of pictures of the ship, and the dance floors! Once the pictures are edited I will post a link for anyone that has plans to sail the Golden. For us, we will definetly sail her again.

 

Wishing a good year to all my ballroom thread friends!

Smooth

[tropicalsunset]

Smooth... so glad you enjoyed your cruise... I don't know if you fly out of Bradley... but when we cruise .. we use the Roncari Valet Parking at the airport and we always seem to meet people that just came off a Princess ship and always hear great reviews... We will have to try it sometime!!

I can't wait to see your pix!!!

 

Hope everyone had a great New years... we had an absolute blast... the hotel was packed... even mix of youngsters and oldersters... dance floor was full ... we were creative... and had fun!!! :D

[mummsie]

Hello and and a happy new year from Australia. We had a quiet one this year. As my birthday is the 31st - the worst day to have a birthday let me tell you but that aside. Gary took me up to our local shopping mall for lunch - just a cheap chicken curry but I didn't have to make it and then he took me shopping at one of our big shopping outlets. Didn't buy too much but had fun trying on shoes with my daughter for a couple of hours. Went out to dinner at a really nice Italian Restaurant about 10 minutes from home, came home had a bottle of wine and went to bed early. Heard the big fireworks at midnight though - it was such a clear cool night - so very unusual for this time of year that the sound of the fireworks travelled from the city to our place which is about 6 miles as the crow flies from the CBD. New Year yesterday we went to the movies so I had a lovely weekend.

Our weather has gone completely crazy this year. Not complaining though because its been lovely and cool. Have only had the a/c on about twice so far although we still have a few months of summer. Christmas Day here temps were 15C below normal and it even snowed down south for the first time ever at this time of year. It was the coolest Christmas Day for 180 years. They are predicting a cooler than average summer because the el nino we are in the middle of is much bigger than has been for the last couple of years. Now if we could only get some rain to fill our dams and ease our water problems. Only a couple of weeks until our cruise on the Pacific Princess - can't wait. We have had a few of our ports changed because there is a military uprising in Fiji so we have been re routed to some little islands in New Caledonia. Should be nice though - they are just small islands with beaches and palm trees :D Hope everybody has a good year of cruises and dancing. Mummsie

[GCurry]

GCurry: glad you had a great cruise....interesting... a Latin Oriental trio.... would love to see that!!!

I think they were Filipinos which would explain a lot, but didn't help the dance situation much.

 

Glad to hear you had a great cruise Smooth, perhaps our trip on the Diamond will be more like your experience.

 

And speaking of Princess, I hope you have a good one on the Pacific, Mummsie.

 

Ole Lance is missing in action, and the college isn't offering Ballroom this semester. We are considering some Salsa Lessons to fill the time. We do a little Mambo and Cumbia, so Salsa should be fun and quick to learn.

Anyway, we've got dances the next three weekends which should get us back in the "Swing of Things" so to speak.

[smoothdancer]

Here is the link to the start of our Princess picture review. Click on the Princess button

 

http://WWW.JustCruisin-sv.com

[mummsie]

Hi Smooth, Looks like you had a great time. Good pics :-) That will be us in 2 weeks from today :-) Its amazing how the princess ships all look the same in the public rooms :-)

Our summer here has been unseasonally cool - still got blankets on the bed. Not that I am complaining but I just hate to think that February which is usually our hottest month is going to be a stinker to make up for the nice cool December we had. - Mummsie

[smoothdancer]

Lucky you Mummsie! Our next cruise will not be until May when I fianlly get to try the Queen Mary2. It is justa 4 day cruise over Memorial Day week-end but I am quite excited about it!

[S&D]

Hi there Mummsie,

 

I have spoken to you on the threads here recently..maybe on the Sun Princess or Pacific Princess thread?....we are from Adelaide....and love our cruising and dancing.

 

Have a great cruise on the Pacific, and warm that dance floor up for us too...:D ..as it looks like we are on there about 2 weeks after you...early Feb for 12 days.

 

We do rumba, and a lot of jive/rock n roll, and a basic mambo/salsa which we love too, we recently learned quickstep and slow foxtrot, but we think we may not have enough room for those "flowing" type of dances on the ship. We also have our old standby..the faithful "box step"..like a slow rythm, which fits a lot of music types...and small spaces..

 

I do love reading these pages, you all sound like wonderful and experienced dancers, we are only still learning but we sure have a lot of fun.

 

Hubby has been out of action with a disc/bad sciatica for 10 weeks, and we have just started dancing again 2 weeks ago. Boy....we really missed it too..:(

 

Maybe you could post from the ship and let us know how you find the music/bands while you are cruising?..:)

 

Do have a wonderful cruise, and we look forward to hearing about it on here when you return!

 

Thank you to everyone who posts on here, its a lovely thread..:)

 

Warm wishes..

 

S&D

[mummsie]

Hi S&D, Welcome to our wonderful group. Where in Adelaide are you from? We are from Brizzie. I have a couple of cousins living there - one in Stirling in the hills and the other in Ridgehaven. You will find that you can make the foxtrot and quickstep fit any sort of dancefloor - we have been doing it forever. You just do quarter turns and spin turns with little steps :D I can certainly email from the ship and let you know what the bands are like. Last time they were fantastic and they played pretty much what we wanted as we were the only ones dancing most nights. :D You never know we might fly over one day and dance in the SA Open which is usually a good comp - friends of ours have done it a few times. Mummsie

[smoothdancer]

We have never been very successful doing a quickstep on a cruise dance floor.. We just cant seem to shorten up our steps enough to make it work... On the other hand the foxtrot is quite do-able. We had a lot of dancers on our cruise, and that makes it so much more fun.