Celebrity Eclipse -New Production Shows, oh dear.

[techwatcher]

I belong to another Celebrity chat group and someone onboard now is raving about the production shows. They also are saying Topper is one of the best shows they've seen at sea

 

Depends what you are after in a show; yes it was upbeat with modern music BUT it also had the thinnest of storylines seemingly used as an excuse for singers and dancers to do their thing.

[iandjm]

I belong to another Celebrity chat group and someone onboard now is raving about the production shows. They also are saying Topper is one of the best shows they've seen at sea

 

Sounds like the drinks package is being used to it's maximum benefit :)

[aquanaut1]

Sounds like the drinks package is being used to it's maximum benefit :)

 

 

Lol.... We have been chatting about the inclusive packages on a different thread. Highly entertaining and I am quite looking forward to seeing the difference it may make to our cruise experience ... I shall be tee total when viewing the first show of the cruise... If it is awful I may utilise the package to make the final two more tolerable , I am sure my daughter will love them all either way and that's all that matters !!!

 

 

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[Pavovsky]

Are the RC shows better?

[CruisingChick]

Are the RC shows better?

 

Depends on the ship and the show. The newer ships have big productions like Hairspray, We Will Rock You, etc. The older ships have basic production shows like Celebrity which we felt were on par with what Celebrity offers.

Edited August 9, 2016 by CruisingChick

[4Mast]

While on a recent Eclipse cruise I saw the current offerings (shows) from Celebrity and submit the thoughts from the party members (age range 17yrs to 68) I was with:

Chandelier: Songs are OK but the production/story line are poor. So keep the songs and scrap the story?

 

Rock City - music is ok and there is not much else to comment upon.

 

Topper - An acceptable show - just do not worry about the story line and enjoy the spectacle.

 

There were 'guest' artists on most nights and most were entertaining - Jayne Curry stood out among these but the Juggler was entertaining as was the Freddie Mercury tribute (although I did hear one comment that someone did not like the camp behaviour). At St Petersburg a local dance/song group performed that night - enjoyable.

 

I think that for many expectations of cruise ship entertainment is high and while we do enjoy being entertained (its a part of our holiday) I think Celebrity has taken something of the wrong direction with these shows.

 

Rock City

 

 

 

 

Topper

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2016 by 4Mast

[Cruise a holic]

We are Elite on Celebrity and just got off the Oasis for RCCL. The entertainment on the Oasis was much better than what we've recently seen on Celebrity, good production numbers and great variety, but I missed the food on Celebrity.

 

IMO, Comparing the entertainment on RC, especially the Oasis ships to Celebrity is like comparing shopping for clothing in Target vs. Bloomingdales-

 

Note I am a big Celebrity fan and the cruise line is my favorite- but that is because the experience on Celebrity isn't all about the shows.

[grandgeezer]

IMO, Comparing the entertainment on RC, especially the Oasis ships to Celebrity is like comparing shopping for clothing in Target vs. Bloomingdales-

 

Note I am a big Celebrity fan and the cruise line is my favorite- but that is because the experience on Celebrity isn't all about the shows.

 

A little thin skinned are we? The original post asked about the entertainment on Celebrity. The response was that they thought RCL's was better. They never made any negative comments about it or said "it was all about the shows". They never said that they didn't like Celebrity as a whole. Lighten up.

[Cruise a holic]

Not at all thin skinned. I do not understand what makes you think so? I truly enjoy Celebrity -but after over 30 Celebrity cruise- and additional cruises booked, I have had experience on most of the Celebrity Ships. I have also sailed multiple times on RC- I have experienced the entertainment. Again, note IMO- so everyone has their own opinions.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Cruise a holic

[grandgeezer]

Not at all thin skinned. I do not understand what makes you think so? I truly enjoy Celebrity -but after over 30 Celebrity cruise- and additional cruises booked, I have had experience on most of the Celebrity Ships. I have also sailed multiple times on RC- I have experienced the entertainment. Again, note IMO- so everyone has their own opinions.

 

I think you were thin skinned when you got all defensive because the person commented about RCL having better entertainment than Celebrity. There were nothing else said. The comment about it not being all about the shows was your opinion not theirs.

I'm not questioning your feelings about Celebrity just the fact that you are defensive about someone having their own opinion on something as trivial as the shows.

[Cruise a holic]

I agree. RC does have the best entertainment at sea. Especially the oasis and freedom class. That was my intent in my response

Edited August 17, 2016 by Cruise a holic

[bEwAbG]

I agree. RC does have the best entertainment at sea. Especially the oasis and freedom class. That was my intent in my response

 

I understood perfectly well what you said the first time and didn't read any attitude in your reply at all. And I agree RC has the better entertainment by a mile!

[BMT]

Just come off Eclipse and enjoyed Rock City - but we are booked on Rock The Boat on 30th September, so you can tell the music I like!!

 

The other two shows were fine - perhaps a bit blah!! Hey, its a cruise ship, not Broadway.:D In Topper I could see occasional elements of the previous show 'Eclipse'.

 

I agree that Freddie Mercury was great - seen him before, but enjoy his act. At least he's not trying to BE Freddie. The other acts were good also - seen 'em all before - but its all enjoyable and part of the cruise experience.

 

I truly can't see what all the fuss is about.:confused: Makes a change from sitting in a bar.

[brfan]

I agree. RC does have the best entertainment at sea. Especially the oasis and freedom class. That was my intent in my response

 

As far as RC goes, their broadway shows are amazing. I loved Mama Mia and We Will Rock You and am looking forward to seeing Greece in October on the Harmony.

 

However, I wouldn't say the same for Royal's "In House" shows. Personally Blue Planet (show on Allure) was one of the worst shows I've seen. The Gift was only slightly better and Spectra's Cabaret was well indescribable, though I did enjoy it even if I didn't really understand it. Basically Royal's "in house" shows (the ones I've seen) are fairly comparable to the ones I've seen on Celebrity's and in fact I would give Celebrity a bit of an edge here as I really did enjoy Topper.

[techwatcher]

...as I really did enjoy Topper.

 

Can I ask what you enjoyed about Topper?

[brfan]

Can I ask what you enjoyed about Topper?

 

The music, the performance, costumes and the simple uplifting message of the show. I went in having heard the negative reviews of the show and decided I wasn't going to care what the story was, but just enjoy the performance and when it was over was pleasantly surprised. I wasn't the only one who felt that way and anyone I spoke to couldn't understand why it had such negative reviews.

[Red J]

We have repeat bookings on Infinity.

Can someone run down the theater and atrium shows, etc for that ship?

 

Not expecting anything great after seeing how bad they were on Equinox. The cast worked hard & did the best job possible with terrible material but we had hoped for more after all the hype...but maybe there will be a surprise bright spot on Infinity.

 

Wondering how long each show will be on a particular ship.?

 

We just returned from our trip on Infinity, and the shows were Boogie Wonderland, Star Factory, and iBroadway.

 

Boogie Wonderland had great 70's musical production numbers rendered nearly unwatchable by the attempt to create a storyline. If they'd left out the weak plot and cheesy dialogue and just stuck to the music it actually would have been a good show. (That and why was the theme to Happy Days included, other as an excuse to do some Grease-style hand jive choreography? Featuring a 50's style number in a 70's themed show just because it was from a TV show that happened to air in the 70's didn't make the flashback within a flashback any less jarring.)

 

Star Factory ended up being our favorite, I think, because they stuck to just doing one song after the other from a variety of (mostly pop) genres. We noticed they still tended to rely a little too much on medleys and mashups, but it wasn't nearly as egregious as the first one.

 

iBroadway is built around a somewhat unnecessary gimmick (scrolling through a Broadway playlist on an iPod), but it wasn't distracting. They primarily stayed with their strengths and just let the singing and dancing carry the show without any awkward dialogue or attempt at plot - and in fact I thought the first section of music from shows about Broadway (The Producers, Chorus Line, 42nd Street) was actually put together in such a way as to much more effectively tell a story through music than the ham-handed Boogie Wonderland script. In fairness I'm a musical theater nerd, so I really enjoyed the music (I know it's not everyone's favorite), which isn't to say it was perfect. I thought some of the music choices were ... surprising. Like Miss Saigon - which in fairness sounded great but I just didn't expect to be visiting a Vietnam-war era brothel in a family show, and I'm not sure if any of the parents in the audience did either. And they still went a mashup too far once again (Why is the soldier from Miss Saigon wandering into Les Mis? Why can't we just sing one song from Phantom at a time?).

 

I have to give kudos to the Celebrity Orchestra. There were a couple of times when they were definitely carrying the shows on their musical strengths. We really enjoyed listening to them when they played on their own in the RendezVous Lounge as well. I appreciate Celebrity's use of live musicians in the shows, and the singers and dancers did a great job - although sometimes they were paired with material that didn't suit their range (or cringeworthy dialogue). Overall, though, we ended up really liking two of the three shows, and I thought the other one could be salvageable with a few tweaks.

Edited August 18, 2016 by Red J

[harz99]

So Infinity still has the old shows. Not perfect I'll grant you but still better than the new in house ones. RedJ, the Orchestra is also old, the new shows run on prerecorded sound tracks without any live music. You were lucky.

[Red J]

So Infinity still has the old shows. Not perfect I'll grant you but still better than the new in house ones. RedJ, the Orchestra is also old, the new shows run on prerecorded sound tracks without any live music. You were lucky.

 

I'm so sorry to hear that about no Orchestra in the new shows. We'll be on Equinox next year, so I'm curiously apprehensive to see what the performances are then.

[Hlitner]

We agree that the story lines are phony and add little to the show. And the shows are now sophisticated Karaoke....with all music (and some singing) tracks laid down months (or years) earlier in a production studio. But it is not just on Celebrity. HAL now has some shows all pre-recorded with oft sophomoric dance choreography. As very long time frequent cruisers (70-100 days a year) DW and I have seldom skipped a production show....even when we have seen that same show multiple times. But lately, we find ourselves looking for something else to do during production shows. On our recent HAL cruises (79 days) we at least had their BB King Blues Club or Piano Bar as alternatives. On X, there are sometimes no decent alternative....although on the S-Class ships we sometimes find a decent blues/jazz group playing in the Ensemble Lounge. Sure wish X would have piano bars (with a decent entertainer).

 

Hank

[aquanaut1]

Just off the Eclipse. Shows were absolutely fine , especially the Rock one and Topper , no storyline really but it's all about music and entertainment , and my family were truly entertained for the entire hour . Well done Eclipse entertainment team . Job well done

 

 

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[Blue Lagoon]

We came off Silhouette a couple of weeks back and noticed the absence of the production staff's involvement with dance lessons. There were no dance lessons (typically in Sky Lounge and of a traditional nature) to be had. Also, this is the first time in many years that there was no backstage tour offered to the Elite Plus returning guests.

 

Is this the trend fleet-wide or just a rare occurrence?

[hcat]

We just returned from our trip on Infinity, and the shows were Boogie Wonderland, Star Factory, and iBroadway.

 

Boogie Wonderland had great 70's musical production numbers rendered nearly unwatchable by the attempt to create a storyline. If they'd left out the weak plot and cheesy dialogue and just stuck to the music it actually would have been a good show. (That and why was the theme to Happy Days included, other as an excuse to do some Grease-style hand jive choreography? Featuring a 50's style number in a 70's themed show just because it was from a TV show that happened to air in the 70's didn't make the flashback within a flashback any less jarring.)

 

Star Factory ended up being our favorite, I think, because they stuck to just doing one song after the other from a variety of (mostly pop) genres. We noticed they still tended to rely a little too much on medleys and mashups, but it wasn't nearly as egregious as the first one.

 

iBroadway is built around a somewhat unnecessary gimmick (scrolling through a Broadway playlist on an iPod), but it wasn't distracting. They primarily stayed with their strengths and just let the singing and dancing carry the show without any awkward dialogue or attempt at plot - and in fact I thought the first section of music from shows about Broadway (The Producers, Chorus Line, 42nd Street) was actually put together in such a way as to much more effectively tell a story through music than the ham-handed Boogie Wonderland script. In fairness I'm a musical theater nerd, so I really enjoyed the music (I know it's not everyone's favorite), which isn't to say it was perfect. I thought some of the music choices were ... surprising. Like Miss Saigon - which in fairness sounded great but I just didn't expect to be visiting a Vietnam-war era brothel in a family show, and I'm not sure if any of the parents in the audience did either. And they still went a mashup too far once again (Why is the soldier from Miss Saigon wandering into Les Mis? Why can't we just sing one song from Phantom at a time?).

 

I have to give kudos to the Celebrity Orchestra. There were a couple of times when they were definitely carrying the shows on their musical strengths. We really enjoyed listening to them when they played on their own in the RendezVous Lounge as well. I appreciate Celebrity's use of live musicians in the shows, and the singers and dancers did a great job - although sometimes they were paired with material that didn't suit their range (or cringeworthy dialogue). Overall, though, we ended up really liking two of the three shows, and I thought the other one could be salvageable with a few tweaks.

 

Does anyone know if these shows with live orchestra will be playing on Infinity through Oct?

Hope there is a return to live music...the DJs and recorded soundtracks have a lkmited appeal.

[bphman]

Maybe this is an industry-wide problem. We just got off HAL and the shows were awful. The comedian was hilarious and fortunately gave 2 shows. The singers and dancers could do neither and there was no theme to the shows. On the Silhouette next summer and I hope they get their act together, pun intended.

[davekathy]

Just off the Eclipse. Shows were absolutely fine , especially the Rock one and Topper , no storyline really but it's all about music and entertainment , and my family were truly entertained for the entire hour . Well done Eclipse entertainment team . Job well done

 

 

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Agree.