The End of Lincoln Center

[Oceansaway17]

2 hours ago, Infi said:

I also wonder if HAL is doing a natural "cleaning house" of their partnerships. On our holiday cruise on Zaandam, I was told the partnerships with Microsoft and Oprah had expired during the pandemic and were not renewed; America's Test Kitchen expired in January 2020 as well. I also heard from one of the entertainment staff that the Port to Table (cooking shows that aren't ATK) is coming back, but the BB King contract expires early 2023 as well - not sure if those are true or just rumors. If BB King contract is expiring, that will be another big loss for HAL as that venue must be a huge moneymaker.

oh I did not know that Oprah and Test Kitchen went away.

 

I suppose those that love Lincoln might consider going on MSC as they have opera singers.

 

[luvteaching]

We, especially DH, loved Lincoln Center Stage. Yes some of the presentations were classical but there was a nice mix of music, it wasn't blasting your ears out or giving you a headache, and all ages were in attendance and enjoying it. We found the music walk to be pretty loud and it bothered DH to no end so didn't stay long. 

 

Karen

[paulvdb1]

3 hours ago, lazey1 said:

I for one am delighted to find out that HAL will be eliminating Lincoln Center Stage or limiting it to a rotating headliner act. Classical music is not enjoyed by everyone and it seems like for years that Lincoln Center Stage has been devoted to funerary music. Perhaps once a cruise I could manage to sit through one of their shows. PS, I am 81 years old, definitely not one of the younger generations.

I'm quite stumped by your post. Having just come off Noordam where the LCS performers were by far the best on the ship, and certainly no funeral music. HAL is losing their differentiation to other ships

[NCTribeFan]

I enjoy LCS.  I'd so much prefer the horrid piano bar go away.

 

I'd love to avoid it but when it's right across from the Roulette wheel (which is typically my evening entertainment), it's hard to do that.  For the life of me, I can't understand why people enjoy listening to bad vocals being shouted out while two people are pounding as hard as they possibly can on the keyboards.  Ugh.

 

Looking forward to Rotterdam in April for 26 nights.  Hope we at least have BB Kings, Rolling Stones, & LCS for those 26 nights.  And at least the piano bar isn't immediately next to the casino!

[St Pete Cruiser]

24 minutes ago, Oceansaway17 said:

oh I did not know that Oprah and Test Kitchen went away.

 

I suppose those that love Lincoln might consider going on MSC as they have opera singers.

 

MSC has opera singers?  Classical music?

[GeezerCouple]

5 minutes ago, paulvdb1 said:

I'm quite stumped by your post. Having just come off Noordam where the LCS performers were by far the best on the ship, and certainly no funeral music. HAL is losing their differentiation to other ships

 

This is why it is so surprising, especially given it seems to be very popular in real life (standing room only, etc.):  This IS something that really differentiates them from other lines, especially given the quality.

When I read about the plans for "Lincoln Center", I was really wary... thinking it would be some "cheap imitation <something>" type.  The seating may not have been the best, but it wasn't bad, either.  However, what mattered was the music, and those musicians were incredible (and we can be quite the critics).

 

IF a HAL ship only had time/space for ONE single performing group, then right, perhaps not classical (but maybe even so!).  But given there are other choices... why drop the one that makes HAL special? 

Or at least, don't drop it until the attendance seriously drops off; that would be different.

 

Sigh.

GC

[mwj]

We are disappointed that LCS is departing. It has been the highlight of our early evening entertainment.

The addition of the Ocean Bar band is a positive. We enjoyed them on a recent Zaandam cruise. The music venues in general have been good on HAL ships. We noticed on NA that the volume in BBKings and Billboard had been turned downed compared to our cruise four years ago on KDam.

 

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Main Stage entertainment. The lack of consistency is appalling. With some poor and some fantastic. One can only hope this change to eliminate LCS evolves into real entertainment and enrichment on the Main Stage.

 

If nothing else, hopefully the elimination of LCS also means the elimination of BBC Planet Earth. Seeing the same program as four years ago is not entertainment.

 

Yes, we will voice our disappointment with the elimination of LCS to anyone at HAL that will listen, beginning with guest services and our PCC, and going up the corporate office ladder.

[leerathje]

2 hours ago, REOVA said:

They are rolling the BB King music into the song list for the Rock Band (and hopefully the horn section). 

 

Won't affect the smaller ships, since they have either BB King (to now be Rolling Stone) or Rolling Stone area but will be interesting on Pinnacle ships if the BB King area will be trivia, games and comedy club only now. 

 

I think in the Pinnacle ships, they would need to move Rolling Stone to BB King's space...it's so much bigger. You also don't need the upper level for comedy shows et al.

[bz]

Between the poor food choices and the disappearance of LCS, the lack and qualtyi on the main stage, think it may be goodbye to HAL, hello Celebrity, Azamara, Oceania, maybe Seaborn/Regent, even at the higher prices.  Just as I'm getting to 3 star.

[LMaxwell]

2 hours ago, St Pete Cruiser said:

MSC has opera singers?  Classical music?

Yes. Frequently throughout the day time. They have played opera music at sailaway even. 

[Guest ldtr]

We have enjoyed Lincoln Center, not so much the other music venues. HAL is a cruise line for doing unique itineraries, with the time on ship being when one mostly entertains themselves. The ship layout is not very conducive for ship run activities. Probably why they tend to schedule so few of them.

[REOVA]

23 minutes ago, bz said:

Between the poor food choices and the disappearance of LCS, the lack and qualtyi on the main stage, think it may be goodbye to HAL, hello Celebrity, Azamara, Oceania, maybe Seaborn/Regent, even at the higher prices.  Just as I'm getting to 3 star.

Always good to try other lines to get perspective. We've heard friends try some of these (including Viking) and some prefer them and some don't. The itinerary is key and HAL won't compete with general 7 day Carribean cruises. The hardest part is when you get to be 4* (free laundry) or have been with them for a while at 5* (Although HAL forgets and 5* has no bonus anymore for service and passengers can pay for Club Orange). 

[REOVA]

4 hours ago, LMaxwell said:

 

Does anyone know what "later this year" means? Am looking at March for spring break and wife resistant due to lack of entertainment on last cruise. If even less this time, I'll have to sleep in Lifeboat #9

Be careful on Lifeboat #9. That was trouble, at least on the Amsterdam. 😁

[Hlitner]

First the took away the 7 piece ship bands.  They eliminated the brass and woodwinds.  Then they eliminated the HAL Cats.  Then they eliminated the Production Shows.   Then they eliminated the popular Rosario Strings.  Now they are eliminating Lincoln Center.  I cannot help but wonder how long until somebody decides to eliminate HAL!

 

Hank

[RD64]

4 hours ago, Homelines said:

What about bringing back the Filipino bands and Rosario Strings?  The music used to be so much better.

And the HAL Cats - despite popular opinion I always enjoyed them.

 

[REOVA]

12 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

I cannot help but wonder how long until somebody decides to eliminate HAL

If they have a Buyer, I'm sure that could be arranged. 

[Ferry_Watcher]

7 hours ago, lazey1 said:

Classical music is not enjoyed by everyone and it seems like for years that Lincoln Center Stage has been devoted to funerary music.

 

What the heck is "funerary" music?  Dirges?

[ChinaShrek]

Many posters here have stated that the World Stage is underused on the ships. i think this is attempt to use the stage better. When HAL listens to your concerns and attempts to make change, people still complain. If.the Boston Pops or Chicago Symphony, for example, are on my HAL cruise I will be happy to see them perform.

[REOVA]

6 minutes ago, ChinaShrek said:

Many posters here have stated that the World Stage is underused on the ships. i think this is attempt to use the stage better. When HAL listens to your concerns and attempts to make change, people still complain. If.the Boston Pops or Chicago Symphony, for example, are on my HAL cruise I will be happy to see them perform.

Yes people complain but this is also not really making a change they want. HAL is taking a "daily" activity and moving it to a "random" activity to fill a void of not using the World Stage for what used to be variety of shows. Yes,  It does add more space and room for those that were crowded in the old Explorer's Lounge (or BB King on Pinnacle), but is it really a change that covers the initial complaint they have about World Stage? 🤔

[3rdGenCunarder]

Perhaps the problem with LC is that it didn't generate any profit. Rolling Stone and BB King have bars, don't they? There's no beverage service at LC on the ships where it's squeezed into Explorer Lounge. Even when LC had its own space on K'dam, bar waiters came around before the performance, but once it started, there was no service. This was appropriate, as a waiter moving through the rows would have been distracting, but it reduced HAL's chance to make some money. 

 

Ah, the Hell Cats. I was not sorry to see them screech their way out the door.

[iflyrc5]

6 hours ago, REOVA said:

They've had the Ocean Bar band (in addition to the HAL band on World Stage when music was live). This is nothing new. PR marketing will next say they are having more variety at the Lido buffet. 🙄

We were on the NA for the month of Nov 2022.  There was no group in the Ocean Bar.  They had someone play the piano for about 2 hours in the late afternoon/early evening and that didn't happen every night.

[happywandering]

8 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

This is big news for us, and very unwelcome.

 

We finally had a wonderful NZ/Australia cruise on Noordam, just before the plague hit.

Being classical music lovers, we found this to be a wonderful extra.  I had read about it, and kept it in mind when considering trying HAL.  We were both very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the musicians.

 

The Lincoln Center room was always completely packed, with people standing in the back.  We weren't alone in arriving early to get a good seat.  (The seating arrangement wasn't ideal, but it "worked".). A larger room or more seating would clearly have been very well used.

 

Lincoln Center really set HAL above and beyond other cruise lines, at least for us.  DH asked me to try to plan more on HAL, precisely because of Lincoln Center.  (COVID put a lid on cruises for us for a while; otherwise, we'd probably have taken 2 or 3 more by now.)

Without Lincoln Center, there's not that much that clearly distinguishes HAL from a few other cruise lines or ships.  They all have their pros and cons.  In fact, we really enjoy Oceania, especially their Riviera/Marina ships.  However, their little occasional quartet isn't anything close to the real performances at Lincoln Center.

 

We'll still consider HAL if there is a specific itinerary, which is the most important thing when we select cruises.  However, IF this is true, HAL just dropped off the "preferred list" for us.  It was still a very nice cruise indeed, beyond LC, but so are cruises on several other ships...

 

With all the cuts being made, and by many cruise lines, some of the charm of cruising is slipping away.

[Yes, we understand the financial pressures.]

 

What a shame. 😒

 

GC

+1  agree heartily

[happywandering]

7 hours ago, tupper10 said:

I guess they no longer want us to cruise anymore with them. It was one of the things we liked best about their cruises. The demise of Lincoln Center means that they don't really value their loyal customers and want to change the demographic, oh well.  

+1

[happywandering]

6 hours ago, Tampa Girl said:

 

The reason for having diverse musical entertainment is so that one does not have to sit through "funerary" music if one is not so inclined.  There were sufficiently different music being played in other areas on the ship for you not to have suffered through classical music.

suffer?  No choice if all choice is removed.

[HappyInVan]

8 hours ago, lazey1 said:

I for one am delighted to find out that HAL will be eliminating Lincoln Center Stage or limiting it to a rotating headliner act. Classical music is not enjoyed by everyone and it seems like for years that Lincoln Center Stage has been devoted to funerary music. 

 

Funerary music? 🙄

 

I suppose that not everyone likes the disciplined and lively music from the Enlightenment. I'm amazed on each voyage that a piano and three string instruments can interpret jazz and Broadway so well.

 

To each his own, I suppose.