Dance Floors and Dancing

[librarycin]

On Grandeur, they have a quartet playing most every night in the Centrum and while the floor is small, you can do a passable smooth, traveling dance. The main landing in the Centrum is quite nice, waltzes especially feel like something out of a movie on the marble floor, with the balconies rising above you.

 

Oh...it sounds beautiful... I wish I still had a dance partner... I took lessons off and on for years, and stopped about a year ago when my bf and I split up. I have started bellydancing instead, but I sure miss ballroom when I watch other people dancing...

[melodiousjones]

Good evening,

 

I am new on this forum. My husband and I are looking at a seven-day cruise for our 10th wedding anniversary. We are both young professionals (early to mid-30s, yes, we got married young -- more or less right out of university:D), and we want to go on a cruise in autumn. Neither of us has ever been before, and we don't really know anybody who has undertaken a cruise either. It seems that cruising is not all that popular among our age group.

 

We want to book a Caribbean cruise, but we have not chosen a particular cruise line yet. Now to my questions: We are both avid ballroom dancers, and were wondering if there will be dancing on formal nights. How about the other nights? Also, how large are the dance floors on the various ships? I have done some research, and know that Cunard has excellent dance floors, but what about the other lines?

 

We are not really interested in Carnival, since we are both quite formal, and figured that Carnival would be too casual for us. We really want something quite elegant, but would like to explore alternatives to Cunard.

 

Thank you kindly for any assistance/information you can provide.

 

Persephone,

I'd like to personally invite you to join my band Neptune's Party on board the Voyager of the Seas starting on December 14, 2008. We perform a wide variety of Dance music and have a great reputation for catering to the dancers on board. We are independent contractors and don't really have a loyalty to any one line. We have played several of the cruise lines and just recently finished a contract on board the Island Princess in the Wheelhouse Lounge as a trio, but mostly we work for Royal Caribbean as a quartet show-band. I can tell you that the last time we worked on board Voyager, the dancers we had on our ship raved about the dance floor in our lounge (Cleopatra's Needle) Additionally, on several nights of the cruise, there are dance parties in the Ice Rink (Studio B) where they cover the ice with a dance floor and have the country show, 80's dance night, etc...

Anyway, if you choose another ship or cruise line, have a great time and be sure to make requests if you have specific songs or dances you like to do. Any band worth their pay can either play your request or can play a similar song for you to dance to!

 

Hope to see you on a ship one day!

Check out our website at: http://www.killergig.com/NeptunesParty

[Bill S]

Persephone: we are also social ballroom dancers and have cruised on HAL (quite a few times) and on Celebrity (once).

We were on Celebrity's Millenium and thought there was adequate dancing room. However, as much as we like Holland America Line ships, most of their dancing venues are very small. We find that they tend to feel crowded with more than 5 or couples, more so on the newer Vista-class ships (Zuiderdam, Oosterdam, Westerdam & Noordam). The Ocean Bar on HAL's S & R class ships (Statendam, Ryndam, Veendam, Maasdam, Zaandam, Amsterdam, Voledam & Rotterdam) offer a dance floor which is a bit larger than the Vista-class ships, IMO. Generally speaking, we have been satisfied with the the music played by the dance combos onboard.

We have ballroom dancing friends who sail Princess exclusively and they tell us that the Princess dance venues are fine.

Both Celebrity and HAL still have two formal nights per week, so they do retain a bit of that element of the sailing tradition.

I hope this helps you a bit and that you find a cruiseline that suits your needs. Happy dancing! :)

[Dancer Bob]

I recommend Costa for dancing. I have been on the Mediterranea several times, the Atlantica once (they are sister ships) and the Fortuna once. I am told the Serena, Concordia, and one other whose name I forget have the same main lounge as the Fortuna. This year, only the Fortuna is sailing from FLL. They all have large dance floors, and, very important, Costa's music policy is to have almost continuous music in the main lounge from 6 PM to 1.30 AM. There are two groups which alternate; in my experience, they are usually play what the crowd wants. The ships are physically similar to Carnival ships of the same class- the major difference is the large dance floor in the main lounge.

 

I was on Adventure of the Seas once- nice dance floor in the Enchanted Evening lounge, but the group only played a couple of hours, mostly during second sitting. Only a few people danced. The theme nights in the disco were OK.

 

I was on the QM2 with a dance group once, and was very disappointed by the music- half was just elevator music. Our group offered to put our CD's on during the break, but were refused- whether they were worried about copyright or just didn't like the criticism, I don't know. I've heard there may have been a cruise director who knew something about dancing, so their music policies might have changed- but I'd want to confirm before booking.

 

I'm a silver level International dancer, but not a dancesport fanatic.