World Stage on Koningsdam

[ScottC4746]

I saw the Koningsdam does not have a Main Theater but a World Stage.  What exactly is that?

[VMax1700]

It is a stage with a 270 degree LED screen behind and around it. Where the shows take place. 

[catl331]

A theater-in-the-round.   CLICK HERE

 

 

Edited April 20, 2019 by catl331

[JRG]

Its a fancy name for a Main Theatre

Edited April 20, 2019 by JRG

[cowmilker]

We thought the World Stage on the Kdam was the greatest thing ever.  It's completely flexible (they can rearrange the stage lots of different ways).  And unlike a lot of folks, we loved the BBC Earth thing and went twice (we did B2B).

[3rdGenCunarder]

1 hour ago, cowmilker said:

We thought the World Stage on the Kdam was the greatest thing ever.  It's completely flexible (they can rearrange the stage lots of different ways).  And unlike a lot of folks, we loved the BBC Earth thing and went twice (we did B2B).

 

Did they use live musicians for BBC Earth?

[catl331]

2 hours ago, JRG said:

Its a fancy name for a Main Theatre

But it does distinguish it from conventional main theaters on older ships.

[cowmilker]

47 minutes ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

Did they use live musicians for BBC Earth?

Yes. The band plus the Lincoln Stage musicians.  It was simply beautiful.

[boards]

35 minutes ago, cowmilker said:

Yes. The band plus the Lincoln Stage musicians.  It was simply beautiful.

Yes they did for sure, it was great.

[JRG]

The World Stage is really great.....but HAL production teams are not taking full advantage of its programming capabilities.   I've seen it first hand.

 

Everybody likes the BBC show but its time to look past that.   Getting Lincoln Stage players on the BBC things shows how much passengers like music on the big stage and so do I.   

 

If Lincoln Stage Musicians get time on the World Stage,   Let Adagio and B.B. King Players get time.   

Don't forget about the Rolling Stone Rock Room.   Let them all alternate segments in the World Stage.

 

The B.B. King venue is great but tooo loud because you can't fix the sound in a walk-by stage for everybody.  I can't enjoy that and ended up watching from upstairs.   Move B.B. Kings to the World stage and mix the sound properly and let people sit and enjoy the concert or dance.  Serve drinks....

 

Same thing with the Rolling Stone Rock Room.  It should be moved to the World Stage and drop the  "Rock Room"

 

Leave the Billboard thing for those who like it.

Edited April 20, 2019 by JRG

[mcrcruiser]

On Koningsdam there are insufficient number of seats   to split the pax between the 2 shows offered .If you are not there 30 minutes prior to show time chances of getting seated is nil . Additionally there are 2 sizes of seats .in all my 80 years of seeing shows I have never seen such a mess 

 

 

[ScottC4746]

18 minutes ago, mcrcruiser said:

On Koningsdam there are insufficient number of seats   to split the pax between the 2 shows offered .If you are not there 30 minutes prior to show time chances of getting seated is nil . Additionally there are 2 sizes of seats .in all my 80 years of seeing shows I have never seen such a mess 

 

 

Isn't World Stage a fairly new concept.  Hard to test things on paper without testing it live.  It is like when Disney installs a new park attraction they have to do it live and tweak it.

[mcrcruiser]

9 minutes ago, ScottC4746 said:

Isn't World Stage a fairly new concept.  Hard to test things on paper without testing it live.  It is like when Disney installs a new park attraction they have to do it live and tweak it.

Then explain how Holland America who knows their on board capacity can only have seating that is to handle all pax evenly divided  into 2 shows .It is not just my observation but many other pax   .it is like saying we built the ship for 2700 pax but in reality we have room for only 2500 

 

 Another issue is HAL is weak in their efforts of main shows vs their sister cruise lines . They rarely have live music  with their main stage shows  these days & on our recent cruise (March 2019 )on Koningsdam they had a maximum of 6 dancers  for all shows 

 

 

[ScottC4746]

Just now, mcrcruiser said:

Then explain how Holland America who knows their on board capacity can only have seating that is to handle all pax evenly divided  into 2 shows .It is not just my observation but many other pax   .it is like saying we built the ship for 2700 pax but in reality we have room for only 2500 

 

 Another issue is HAL is weak in their efforts of main shows vs their sister cruise lines . They rarely have live music  with their main stage shows  these days & on our recent cruise (March 2019 )on Koningsdam they had a maximum of 6 dancers  for all shows 

 

 

Simply put, not EVERYONE attends EVERY show and I am proof of that.  With a week long cruise we did 2 shows.

[catl331]

1 hour ago, ScottC4746 said:

Simply put, not EVERYONE attends EVERY show and I am proof of that.  With a week long cruise we did 2 shows.

Still, IMO, there SHOULD be enough capacity for EVERYONE to see a given show IF they so desire.  I can't find the number now, but I think I've read that the World Stage capacity is much less than half of the 2650 double-occupancy ship capacity, never mind the 3194 max.

Edited April 20, 2019 by catl331

[VMax1700]

2 hours ago, mcrcruiser said:

On Koningsdam there are insufficient number of seats   to split the pax between the 2 shows offered .If you are not there 30 minutes prior to show time chances of getting seated is nil . Additionally there are 2 sizes of seats .in all my 80 years of seeing shows I have never seen such a mess 

 

 

Untrue. There are plenty of seats available. The doors open 30 minutes before showtime and thete ate lines of people standing waiting for the doors to open. Arrive about 10 minutes before showtime and walk straight in and take a seat. The 'boxes' to left and right seem to be totally ignored by pax.

[cowmilker]

3 hours ago, mcrcruiser said:

On Koningsdam there are insufficient number of seats   to split the pax between the 2 shows offered .If you are not there 30 minutes prior to show time chances of getting seated is nil . Additionally there are 2 sizes of seats .in all my 80 years of seeing shows I have never seen such a mess 

 

 

So, are you trying to say that a cruise ship should  have an auditorium large enough to hold all the passengers at once (or even half the passengers at once), and anything smaller than that is just bad, wrong and horrible?

I was on the Kdam when it was full to the brim with passengers and I never had any problem at all seeing any show I wanted to see.  I never had a single problem with any seats.

Edited April 20, 2019 by cowmilker
punctuation error

[rkacruiser]

8 hours ago, catl331 said:

A theater-in-the-round.   CLICK HERE

 

 

 

Thanks for posting that view.  What was shown on the screens far exceeds anything that I observed during my 14 days on Nieuw Statendam.

[rkacruiser]

3 hours ago, JRG said:

The World Stage is really great.....but HAL production teams are not taking full advantage of its programming capabilities.   I've seen it first hand.

 

The programming that I have witnessed in The World Stage was not great on Nieuw Statendam.  I totally agree with your comment "HAL production teams are not taking full advantage of its programming capabilities.  I've seen it first hand."  Me too, on more than one Class of HAL ship.  Major money is spent on Main Showroom technical capabilities, used for awhile once the ship as the ship is first put into service.  And, then:  ho-hum productions with most technical capabilities of the shows that are probably suited for the least technical sophisticated main showrooms of HAL's older vessels. 

[iflyrc5]

We were on the Kdam for 42 days Jan/Feb 2019.  If you did not get to the world stage at least 30 minutes before the early show most evenings you did not get a seat.  For the late show you could wait until about 10 minutes before the show time.  They had officers including the Hotel Director at the entrances turning people away when the room filled up.    During the last 21 days they did add a third show for some of the performances (this is the way it was in 2018) which made it much easier to get a seat.

 

Also - over the 42 days only the BBC and one other dance performance used the full capability of the World Stage and the amazing video wall.

[3rdGenCunarder]

5 hours ago, VMax1700 said:

Untrue. There are plenty of seats available. The doors open 30 minutes before showtime and thete ate lines of people standing waiting for the doors to open. Arrive about 10 minutes before showtime and walk straight in and take a seat. The 'boxes' to left and right seem to be totally ignored by pax.

 

NOT true in my experience. For the dance show, the only way to get a seat was to be there 45 minutes before the show. By 30 minutes prior, the seats were all full. And people did use the boxes. 

 

I went in during the day and did an estimate of capacity. I'd say 600-700 at the most. That is not sufficient seating for a ship of this size. 

[3rdGenCunarder]

8 hours ago, JRG said:

The World Stage is really great.....but HAL production teams are not taking full advantage of its programming capabilities.   I've seen it first hand.

 

Everybody likes the BBC show but its time to look past that.   Getting Lincoln Stage players on the BBC things shows how much passengers like music on the big stage and so do I.   

 

If Lincoln Stage Musicians get time on the World Stage,   Let Adagio and B.B. King Players get time.   

Don't forget about the Rolling Stone Rock Room.   Let them all alternate segments in the World Stage.

 

The B.B. King venue is great but tooo loud because you can't fix the sound in a walk-by stage for everybody.  I can't enjoy that and ended up watching from upstairs.   Move B.B. Kings to the World stage and mix the sound properly and let people sit and enjoy the concert or dance.  Serve drinks....

 

Same thing with the Rolling Stone Rock Room.  It should be moved to the World Stage and drop the  "Rock Room"

 

Leave the Billboard thing for those who like it.

 

BB King is way too loud. So is Rolling Stone. I mean painfully loud, and that was just when I walked by.

 

On the Vistas, putting BB King in a  small space also makes it too loud. But on one of our cruises on a Vista, they had BB King in the main showroom for one night, and it was fantastic. They played real blues, and the volume was appropriate for the size of the room. Sadly, I've never seen any of the "alternate" music groups in the main showroom again. Maybe now that HAL is dropping production shows they'll try this again.

 

[mcrcruiser]

We still sail HAL but we do prefer Princess for many  amenities  .Princess has better over all entertainment value  & choices  . The Crown Grill steak house beats Pinnacle   steaks quality hands down  .HALs  standard Balcony cabins ,bath & showers are better than the standard sized shower for Princess std balcony cabins   . Service in HALs MDRs,lido & Room Service  is the best of all  std cruise lines 

 

  We have found that the  Eurodam size is best for us  ;but ,we are willing to try the Royal Princess when she comes to LA  to make comparisons  .We booked a B2B on royal Princess for April 2020  . We do Star Princess Hawaii 15 night  Dec 2019   . Booked Carnival Miracle from San Diego  to Hawaii cR/T   October 2020    & HALs Koningsdam   Dec 2020 Mexican Riviera  from San  Diego  . Those 5 new cruises will bring us up to 88  cruises .Yes we are believers & love cruising  on different cruise lines for different reasons 

[catl331]

12 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

I went in during the day and did an estimate of capacity. I'd say 600-700 at the most. That is not sufficient seating for a ship of this size. 

The number I read once was 900 ... but still way short of what it should be IMO.

 

 

[Despegue]

the original idea was to habe a smaller, but high tech venue that would be used 3 times per evening for shows.

This setup was abandoned some time ago and now there are only 2 shows per night, resulting in a lack of seating.

 

In my opinion, the Entertainment big wigs in Seattle have the Mad Cow disease or something, as non of what they have been deciding recently regarding the Showroom at Sea makes any sense at all. Time to put them down.