Dance Floors w/ Bands?

[Dancer Bob]

How do you do that animated avatar? I can't even upload my photo.
Around here, singles average out about even. There are definitely some nights with extra guys. Our cruises are mostly couples, but one not too long ago, there were three extra guys and one single woman. Another one, there were 2 1/2 guys (our travel agent dances a little bit) but we spent a lot of time sitting in the lounge waiting for the women to show up, or they left early.

[UKRoger]

[quote name='Dancer Bob']How do you do that animated avatar? I can't even upload my photo.
Around here, singles average out about even. There are definitely some nights with extra guys. Our cruises are mostly couples, but one not too long ago, there were three extra guys and one single woman. Another one, there were 2 1/2 guys (our travel agent dances a little bit) but we spent a lot of time sitting in the lounge waiting for the women to show up, or they left early.[/quote]

I know the problem with aneven mix of men and women because at our dance studio I have on ocassions been the only man with about nine women including my wife. How many men get to have many other women in their arms and not have their wife hitting them over the head with a frying pan.

[PunkiC]

Since this is a temporary thread specifically for questions to Mr. Caluori, I fear it will be shut down before anyone experiences dancing on the Royal.

Would you please be so kind as to report your experiences on this thread:

[url]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1851635[/url]

Thank you. I am really interested in knowing the real on board dance situation.

[UKRoger]

[quote name='Dancer Bob']How do you do that animated avatar? I can't even upload my photo.
Around here, singles average out about even. There are definitely some nights with extra guys. Our cruises are mostly couples, but one not too long ago, there were three extra guys and one single woman. Another one, there were 2 1/2 guys (our travel agent dances a little bit) but we spent a lot of time sitting in the lounge waiting for the women to show up, or they left early.[/quote]

The Animated Avatar was one I came across on the internet that I liked as it is called Dancing Star. I downloaded it to my computer then in my profile settup on Cruise Critic I uploaded it. I seemd quite easy to do but I cannot remember exactly how I did it but I think it looks good and says something about me. AAnyway off to dance practice now for about three hours.

[pjslc]

While not a dancer myself, I thoroughly enjoy watching others dance and find it very entertaining to relax in a lounge with a drink and watch couples sway to the music. One of my great joys of cruising. I certainly hope the new ships provide venues to satisfy those who love to dance.

[PunkiC]

I think, pjslc, that there must be a lot of people like you because everywhere we go on the ship, people look at us and say, "Oh, you are the dancers. We love watching you."

Dancing every night is the best part of cruising for us.

[Dancer Bob]

Not only do we pay for the cruise, but we're part of the entertainment too. It would seem to be in Princess' interest to try harder to give us what we need.
So far haven't found an avatar that really says something about me.
The number of singles usually isn't exactly balanced, but as many as nine is rare here. On a cruise ship, I'm usually the only single who dances. There may be women sitting around whining about no single men, but they don't dance (I won't treat someone who shows up with flip-flops or platform sandals seriously).

[cr8tiv1]

[quote name='Dancer Bob']Not only do we pay for the cruise, but we're part of the entertainment too. It would seem to be in Princess' interest to try harder to give us what we need.
So far haven't found an avatar that really says something about me.
The number of singles usually isn't exactly balanced, but as many as nine is rare here. On a cruise ship, I'm usually the only single who dances. There may be women sitting around whining about no single men, but they don't dance (I won't treat someone who shows up with flip-flops or platform sandals seriously).[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Okay...."we" are definitely going to have to be on the same cruise at the same time. I have been lucky enough to "borrow" a husband when his wife hurt her foot and "shared" partners when friends came on the same cruise. You will know me because I will have my dancing shoes on and a swirly skirt/dress.

I am seriously considering a cruise on HAL (oh, for shame) since they are promoting Dancing with the Stars themed cruises. Wish Princess would have thought of this first.[/COLOR]

[Di Princess]

[B][COLOR="Black"]I am bringing my new silk turquoise dress with bolero (mid-calf length) on the [I]Royal Princess[/I] Inaugural. Also, I wear my most comfortable Jazz Shoes (GrandBaby used them for 4 years in high school but now she is in pre-med at SFO.) Since she is 6-foot, 1 inch in stocking feet, and I am 5-foot 2 inches, they are nice and loose. I need to try to get the beige dyed turquoise.[/COLOR][/B] :eek:

[Times Prince]

[quote name='PunkiC']I think, pjslc, that there must be a lot of people like you because everywhere we go on the ship, people look at us and say, "Oh, you are the dancers. We love watching you."

Dancing every night is the best part of cruising for us.[/quote]We often get that kind of recognition as well, and it makes for great post-cruise conversation: "While on our last Princess cruise ... " :)

[Dancer Bob]

I'm going with Stardust on Costa Luminosa in January. It's from Miami, but they have had groups from the Left Coast in the past.
Most of the women I know want to wear some sort of swirly dress when they dance. Even non-dancers I meet say "we wear scrubs all year, we want to dress up" so when the marketing hypesters say there's no demand for formal, I doubt they've ever been on one of their ships.

[Di Princess]

[quote name='UKRoger']The responses we have had about dancing on the Royal Princess are rather nebulous and non committal so Princess can say they answered truthfully whatever the situation is on the dance floor. There will be a large number of guest on board be saying why all the fuss it is only a few who dance so why bother. It is obvious to me those who don't dance seem as though they can demand everything and get it and those who do dance are left with the scraps. On Monday I was in Blackpool at the British Open Championships and there were some complaining about the restaurant in front of the Winter Gardens being so full of dancers. These people do not know the beauty, grace and elegance of ballroom dancing or the ability to bring people together in a way health and physical fitness is improved.

I have also heard said oh I wish I could dance like that but they do not realise they can if they take time to learn and all dancers I have met are prepared to help. Those who would love to be able to dance properly are also the ones not wanting dance floors. Anyway getting off my soapbox we will find out very soon what the dancefloors are realy like and how they are used. I am on the maiden voyage and will report back on the ballroom dancing available and hopefully I will get to practice my routines for my upcoming competions.[/QUOTE]

[B][COLOR="Black"]Although not a competition dancer, I take dance lessons once a week with my Daughter and S-i-L. Roger, today, I managed to dye my beige Jazz Shoes a beautiful Turquoise (my favourite colour) to match my Formal Dancing dress. Comfortable feet make better and easier dancing. Even put on some turquoise crystals. I am all set to find a lucky Dancin' Guy.

To be sure, Roger & I and maybe Shogun will be posting Live From the Royal Princess Inaugural and, we shall not soften our criticism.

Donna I.[/COLOR][/B]

[UKRoger]

[quote name='Di Princess'][B][COLOR=black]Although not a competition dancer, I take dance lessons once a week with my Daughter and S-i-L. Roger, today, I managed to dye my beige Jazz Shoes a beautiful Turquoise (my favourite colour) to match my Formal Dancing dress. Comfortable feet make better and easier dancing. Even put on some turquoise crystals. I am all set to find a lucky Dancin' Guy.[/COLOR][/B]

[B][COLOR=black]To be sure, Roger & I and maybe Shogun will be posting Live From the Royal Princess Inaugural and, we shall not soften our criticism.[/COLOR][/B]

[B][COLOR=black]Donna I.[/COLOR][/B][/quote]

I will be posting about how the Royal Princess shapes up but if it falls short I will post that and hope I am not asked to swim the rest of the way.

Donna we shall have to have a dance whilst on board and I promise to keep it simple. My routines are big and take time to learn and practice. Hopefully I will be able to practice whilst on board. I have checked my tablet and it has some good music on it for practice.

[Solara]

[quote name='UKRoger']I will be posting about how the Royal Princess shapes up but if it falls short I will post that and hope I am not asked to swim the rest of the way.

Donna we shall have to have a dance whilst on board and I promise to keep it simple. My routines are big and take time to learn and practice. Hopefully I will be able to practice whilst on board. I have checked my tablet and it has some good music on it for practice.[/QUOTE]
[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][B]Roger,

I'm looking forward to hearing your reviews on the opportunities for ballroom dancing. It was because of the classes we took on the Golden in 2009 that we started dancing. Hope we are all wrong and there are plenty of opportunities to dance. [/B][/COLOR]

[Di Princess]

[quote name='UKRoger']I will be posting about how the [I]Royal Princess [/I]shapes up but if it falls short I will post that and hope I am not asked to swim the rest of the way.
Donna we shall have to have a dance whilst on board and I promise to keep it simple. My routines are big and take time to learn and practice. Hopefully I will be able to practice whilst on board. I have checked my tablet and it has some good music on it for practice.[/QUOTE]

[B][COLOR="Black"]Simple will be good for me. I will love hearing your music too.
I finally found out how to work the heat in my Flat by pushing a lot of buttons, so no longer freezing. I had to open the windows because now I don't know how to turn it off. I also got hot water in the kitchen & bathroom sinks.
Karen came in at 7 AM and then went out again to buy T.P. Oh, my, no T.P., nor kleenex, nor paper towels, nor napkins (serviettes).
$80 a night is too much for this place, even though it's right by London Bridge.
I surely pray that my place in Barcelona for a week is much better. At least it should be warm.[/COLOR][/B]

[SeagoingMom]

[COLOR=DarkRed]I am following this thread with interest. We are dancers, too, in our 50's. Perhaps this makes us representational of the "next" generation of cruisers who want to spend the next few decades enjoying ballroom/swing dancing on cruise ships, rather than the generation which has been fortunate enough to have already been enjoying it for decades!

We are not professionals, competitive amateurs, nor even skilled at dancing -- we just love to do it, and will choose a cruise line and ship based on the opportunities we think we will have to dance. We look for dance lessons during the day and a dance floor (and we aren't fussy about that either :rolleyes:) to practice our steps in the evening. We are OK with a small combo, or any other source of music as long as it is danceable.

We have danced on Celebrity and HAL. On the former, there was a small dance floor which was quite crowded for our taste, but the music (combo) was fine for us. On HAL, the floor was again quite small, and the band small but fine. We were one of only two or three couples dancing on our Panama Canal cruise, which surprised and scared me, as I fear that HAL will give up having dance bands if the number of people dancing is so small.

I have been considering cruising on Princess for several reasons, but I did not realize that opportunities to dance should have been one of them! From reading this thread, it seems that Princess is a very good choice for us, although I would be intimidated dancing with the sort of dancers that it sounds like some (all?) of you are -- competitive, at the very least.

So if anyone can give me their views on the best ships for dancing for us "hobbyists," I would appreciate it.

I have heard that NCL has dancing of all types somewhere on board. I have no particular interest in NCL, but I might consider it if we could dance!

At this stage, we can't afford anything beyond the "mainstream" cruise lines, so I would appreciate hearing anything anyone can tell me about any of them, including the lesser-discussed lines such as [/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed]MSC, Costa, P&O, even Azamara [/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed](which would be a stretch for us), or Cunard, which [/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed]we might be able to swing (no pun intended). [/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed]
[/COLOR]

[rolfecms]

[quote name='SeagoingMom'][COLOR=DarkRed]At this stage, we can't afford anything beyond the "mainstream" cruise lines, so I would appreciate hearing anything anyone can tell me about any of them, including the lesser-discussed lines such as [/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed]MSC, Costa, P&O, even Azamara [/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed](which would be a stretch for us), or Cunard, which [/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed]we might be able to swing (no pun intended). [/COLOR][/quote]

Hi SeagoingMom,

I am in my 50's and mostly cruise Celebrity and Cunard. I know the perception is that Cunard is high priced, but they do run great sales and offer excellent rates. As a result we've been able to enjoy cruises at least as good if not lower priced than Celebrity.

I can't speak for Princess, but as far as ballroom dancing goes Cunard has Celebrity beat by a long shot. Dedicated room with large wooden floor and orchestras with vocalist most evenings.

[Dancer Bob]

Without getting into details,
Costa offers best value-for-money for dancers, by far. But it has some deficiencies- food is a lower standard, and avoid European vacation/kids sail free promotions.
Cunard Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth are the nicest ships, but the music is very unreliable- Cunard's music was dull and dreary in the 1950's and the orchestras can massacre that. They've been playing strict tempo music during breaks but that could change overnight. I don't consider QM2 good value, for several reasons.
NCL Epic has a nice floor, except it was covered with tables. The whole attitude was "dancers not wanted on board".
RCCL has some nice floors but hardly any music. The attitude was pretty much the same.
Holland America for several reasons I refuse to go back before I'm at least 90, but unacceptable- they put sticky gunk on the floor, you could hear your shoes pulling loose,
I'll be checking out P&O Oriana in the fall and MSC Divina next winter. I'm eagerly awaiting reviews for this ship.

[PunkiC]

[quote name='SeagoingMom'][COLOR=DarkRed]I am following this thread with interest. We are dancers, too, in our 50's. Perhaps this makes us representational of the "next" generation of cruisers who want to spend the next few decades enjoying ballroom/swing dancing on cruise ships, rather than the generation which has been fortunate enough to have already been enjoying it for decades!

We are not professionals, competitive amateurs, nor even skilled at dancing -- we just love to do it, and will choose a cruise line and ship based on the opportunities we think we will have to dance. We look for dance lessons during the day and a dance floor (and we aren't fussy about that either :rolleyes:) to practice our steps in the evening. We are OK with a small combo, or any other source of music as long as it is danceable.

We have danced on Celebrity and HAL. On the former, there was a small dance floor which was quite crowded for our taste, but the music (combo) was fine for us. On HAL, the floor was again quite small, and the band small but fine. We were one of only two or three couples dancing on our Panama Canal cruise, which surprised and scared me, as I fear that HAL will give up having dance bands if the number of people dancing is so small.

I have been considering cruising on Princess for several reasons, but I did not realize that opportunities to dance should have been one of them! From reading this thread, it seems that Princess is a very good choice for us, although I would be intimidated dancing with the sort of dancers that it sounds like some (all?) of you are -- competitive, at the very least.

So if anyone can give me their views on the best ships for dancing for us "hobbyists," I would appreciate it.

I have heard that NCL has dancing of all types somewhere on board. I have no particular interest in NCL, but I might consider it if we could dance!

At this stage, we can't afford anything beyond the "mainstream" cruise lines, so I would appreciate hearing anything anyone can tell me about any of them, including the lesser-discussed lines such as [/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed]MSC, Costa, P&O, even Azamara [/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed][COLOR=DarkRed](which would be a stretch for us), or Cunard, which [/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed]we might be able to swing (no pun intended). [/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed]
[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

There is never any reason to be intimidated by other dancers on a cruise ship. The only point of dancing on a cruise ship is to have fun, so relax and have fun.

We made a serious determination right at the start that we would never compete or take lessons from a school where competition was emphasized. We have seen too many couples take their dancing from a really fun, romantic, couples activity, to what appears to be a painful, and very expensive competitive chore, which leaves them arguing and blaming one another.

Sometimes there will be very good dancers on ships but, if you get to know them, you will find that they are very nice and helpful people.

I have yet to meet any dancers on ships who were really snobby or competitive once I got to know them. That type of attitude really has no place in a social dance situation.

We aren't particularly fussy about music either, as long as it is danceable, but we do enjoy a good wooden floor. Dancing night after night on marble can be very painful for my old body.

[Thrak]

I'm not a dancer - I'm a total klutz. However, I do understand about a wooden floor vs a marble floor and the seemingly limited opportunities being offered to the ballroom dance set on the new Royal Princess. (Dance in the Piazza? With all the traffic and competing noise?? Really???)

Perhaps the ballroom dance set might be able to view this in a slightly better light. Think of this big, shiny, new ship as a mechanism to remove a lot of folks who may impact your dancing opportunities on the other ships. If 3,000 non-dancers sail on the Royal they won't be sailing on the ships you are used to sailing and which DO have good wooden dance floors. Yes, I can understand your disappointment.

I thought I'd really love to sail on the Royal as well but it lacks something my wife and I love about cruising - a Promenade deck that you can walk around the ship on. Whoever decided that wasn't necessary obviously didn't talk it over with the cruisers themselves. We will likely try a short trip on the Royal one of these days to check it out but are more likely to sail on other ships that offer this feature.

It sounds as if the ballroom dance folks will face the same situation. Hopefully you will be able to make the best of it as it doesn't sound like Princess has a good grasp of your needs / desires. Sad but there it is...

[UKRoger]

What is not being considered in my opinion is the cruise lines must attract new customers but they must also retain existing customers and that includes those who are Ballroom Dancers. If the Princess Cruises have capacity of say 10,000 guest per week and the atrition rate of existing cruisers is 10% then Princess need to bring in 1,000 new guests per week. If they are unable to recuit new guests at that rate then the line will suffer.

Because the numbers will be high just to stand still Princess in my opinion cannot upset existing guest by not recognising loyalty. My comments are about standing still and in any business you can not stand still because you then go backwards. It is better to recognise loyalty and retain all customers but make offerings that can attract new customers. If The Royal Princess does not provide suitable dancing opportunities then they will loose custom and will find it increasingly dificult to recruit new customers to replace them. In other businesses I have been involved with it is only when they recognise properly that loyalty counts that the business can move forward with retention and acquisition of customers. If The Royal Princess is not right for existing customers then Princess will suffer and that could start as soon as next week. I am onboard the Maiden Voyage to Barcelona and I will report my findings and if things are not right I will not be afraid to criticise but if things are good then I will praise.

Dancing is my hobby and passion and my dancing is not just competitive but is also social so I believe I can give a reasoned and realiable report form first hand experience.

[PunkiC]

Looking forward to your report, Roger.

[Dancer Bob]

Just read some of the initial reviews. Appallingly superficial- one guy was whining about no crisps at the bar. And much complaining that the service wasn't already polished and professional.
About the only solid piece of information was that a suite "balconey" was only a metre deep. If they cut corners there, I wonder what they did with dance floors. We definitely need UKRoger's report.

[PunkiC]

He posted somewhere that the atrium had dance music but that the floor was filled with chairs, making dancing impossible. :(

Here is a link to his post: [url]http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=38840350#post38840350[/url]

Looks like we will never sail on the Royal.

[Dancer Bob]

Thanks, a very interesting thread.