Dance Floors w/ Bands?

[sminfiddle]

[quote name='UKRoger']The lack of dancing aboard the Royal seems to be remaining and I see no change in the situation coming from Princess. ... Princess are not satisfying my needs so they will not get my money. If there are other taking their spending elsewhere Princess will actually make less money and eventually regret the design of the Royal.

I have not decided on my next cruise but we are looking and when Princess has been suggested by our Travel Agent we have said no thank you without further thought. [/quote]
Enjoying your posts UKRoger! Great detail. Can I beg a clarification though?
Your choice is yours of course, but it sounds as if you will only sail on a given cruise line's newest ship? If that's not the case then I am confused.

I do agree that advertising the Piazza for ballroom dancing is quite misleading. But I haven't heard of them ripping up the wood floors on the other ships.

Rick

[UKRoger]

[quote name='sminfiddle']Enjoying your posts UKRoger! Great detail. Can I beg a clarification though?
Your choice is yours of course, but it sounds as if you will only sail on a given cruise line's newest ship? If that's not the case then I am confused.

I do agree that advertising the Piazza for ballroom dancing is quite misleading. But I haven't heard of them ripping up the wood floors on the other ships.

Rick[/quote]

I am not limiting myself my cruise lines but I would decide to look at other cruiselines first before Princess. Dancing on the Royal Maiden voyage was a disaster and the floors were non existent. On the previous cruis to the Royal we sailed on the Coral doing the Panama Canal. We enjoyed that cruise but when it can to dancing this again was not good especially as the band in the Wheelhouse bar wanted to stop playing around 10:30 and the bar wanted to close. We felt uncomfortable because we were dancing when they wanted to close. Infact when we stopped dancing to get a drink the band packed up. We eventually worked out how to keep them dancing because there were three other couples who wanted to dance so we made certain we drank in shifts so there was someone on the dance floor.

During the Panama cruise the cruise director even withheld dance classes because he wanted to put bingo on each day and if not bingo then a trivia quiz. When the dancers got together and did the trivia quiz and won by a long way we were criticised by the others that took part as cheats using the internet even though we had not device to access the internet.

These last two cruises have put us off Princess and as competetive dancers not having anywhere we could practice did not endire us to the company. I even spoke to the cruise director on the Royal and asked where we could practice for our upcoming comps and was told that they employ dancers for the shows so why would we want to dance. As for the dancers in the shows who are supposed to be professional dancers I could see so many faults I think they have not recruited well.

For future cruises we will look at the area first then look to see who sails to that area and sail with the other lines before deciding on Princess. If Princess are te only line that can satisfy what we want then I will go with them but others would feature above them as first choice.

[Dancer Bob]

Punki, be warned, there are many reasons I don't like HAL, but I rate them "unacceptable" because on Oosterdam, they put sticky gunk on the dance floor. Like adhesive tape, you could hear your shoes pulling loose, you didn't dare try anything like a pivot. It was deliberate, they kept adding more gunk as it wore off. And I've been told they did it on Eurodam. I rated the music as "dull and dreary". You will probably be the only people awake after 9PM.
On QE/QV, when there's a reception in the Queens Room, there's dancing offered in Yacht Club/Hemispheres. On QM2, G32 is behind the Queens Room, there's no alternative. On the TA I did last year, I figure time in the Queens Room cost me close to $100/hour. The live music was mediocre at best, and the recorded music much inferior to QV/QE.
Unfortunately I have to agree with UKRoger and take my hard-earned pounds/dollars elsewhere (in my case Costa, I like the atmosphere and I can live with their deficiencies), although a good report might persuade me to book Princess (I just got an offer on Island Princess from a group I've traveled with).

[sminfiddle]

[quote name='UKRoger']On the previous cruis to the Royal we sailed on the Coral doing the Panama Canal. We enjoyed that cruise but when it can to dancing this again was not good especially as the band in the Wheelhouse bar wanted to stop playing around 10:30 and the bar wanted to close. We felt uncomfortable because we were dancing when they wanted to close. Infact when we stopped dancing to get a drink the band packed up. [B]We eventually worked out how to keep them dancing because there were three other couples who wanted to dance so we made certain we drank in shifts so there was someone on the dance floor.[/B]

[/quote]
Thanks for clarifying, and for the clever tip on how to extend a dance set...

Hope to see you around one of these days.

Rick