Honolulu Blue

The 80s Cruise provided us with an update on its performers. There's good news and bad news. The good news is that Warrant, Dokken, and Firehouse will be joining us on this cruise. I think Firehouse is the best band of this group - though I have heard of all three. "Don't Treat Me Bad" is my favorite Firehouse song. I assume they'll play it. More good news is that we have an awesome band for 2026 - Quiet Riot! You can probably guess what the bad news is... Quiet Riot is now OUT for this upcoming cruise. They cited a "scheduling conflict", which the cynic in me interprets as they got a better 🤑 offer somewhere else. OK, maybe not that. Maybe when I get a free moment, I'll figure out where they plan to be while we're cruising. In the meantime, I'm banging my head. I'll do a metal health check when I'm finished.

I'm not so sure I'll make that one. ☹️

Well, well. Another day, another music themed cruise for me to look at. The Monsters of Rock Cruise will be sailing March 10-15, 2025 on the Norwegian Joy. This is a bigger ships than most charters on Norwegian, which favor the Pearl or Gem these days. It will head to Great Stirrup Cay, NCL's private island; and Nassau for an overnight visit. The initial lineup features 27 acts, including LA Guns (who were on the TEC '23 and I didn't see) and Stephen Pearcy, from the TEC that sailed earlier this year, whom I did not miss: You guys know I love me some RATT action, but the others I either don't know or don't impress me. And it's expensive - they're charging as much for me for 5 days as The 80s Cruise is charging for 7. So it looks like this one is a pass. ☹️

I'm in receipt of Jazz Cruises' latest biweekly newsletter Jazz Notes. They had a lot of little details about their upcoming cruises and jazz show in St. Louis. Here are the ones that were of most interest to this amateur jazzer: The Jazz Cruise is over 86% reserved Botti At Sea is 65% reserved Journey of Jazz is nearly 65% reserved As for the Smooth Jazz cruise story, I'll quote Mr. Lazaroff directly (emphasis mine): Both sailings of The Smooth Jazz Cruise ’25 are fully reserved and have been since February. The current Waitlist has nearly 2,500 names. Realistically, joining the Waitlist at this time will not result in a stateroom for ’25. It will, however, move you up the ladder for ’26. There will be a webinar for Botti At Sea that will cover what's going on with this cruise in detail that will be scheduled for some time around June 1 (250 days before the cruise). On the Journey of Jazz Cruise, there will be a live performance at the SFJAZZ Center on Tuesday, September 15 with Ron Carter and his quartet (Renee Rosnes, Jimmy Greene, and Payton Crossley). The next day there will be another performance at the SFJAZZ Center by the SFJAZZ Collective. I'll quote Mr. Lazaroff to give the highlights of that lineup (emphasis mine again): The 2024/2025 edition that will perform for our guests features Michael Rodriguez (trumpet), David Sanchez (saxophone), Chris Potter (saxophone), Warren Wolf (vibraphone), Ed Simon (piano), Matt Brewer (bass) and Kendrick Scott (drums), all of whom have sailed on a past edition of The Jazz Cruise. There was no mention of an additional charge for either of these concerts for passengers on this cruise There will be an "exciting jazz excursion in Victoria on Saturday, September 13" with details TBA. This implies to me that it will be "optional" and "extra cost", but as an outsider, I can't confirm this. Well, I suppose I could, but my interest level isn't that high.

About being 70+ and asked to serve on a jury, I'm not that age, but IIRC, in my county in Michigan I think they have all the options: They can opt out of the jury pool entirely They can get out of the current summons but stay in the pool for future summons They can serve if they previously haven't opted out

Yeah, I know about the OSC and its two sailings. I liked those lineups enough to consider them, at least briefly. I wonder if they'll split this cruise. Thanks for the schedule flyer! I note that they don't use Studio B as a performance venue at all. That's interesting. Also interesting is the fact that it's all dance-dance-dance-party-party-party and no scheduled Q&As or formal meet and greets/autograph sessions. I can live with that.

When I did variations of this route on Carnival, we always left from OSJ. I'd prefer that, since the views from there at night are nicer.

Thanks for sharing this. It's nice to know that Carnival Corporation is finally returning to San Juan. My opinion is that any route from there is one of the best Caribbean cruises anyone can take. I'll certainly consider these, perhaps as a B2B. The devil is in the details. P.S. One nice thing about leaving from SJ is that they often have late departures. I'll have to look to see if Princess follows this.

I started a roll call for the 2025 edition of the Super Legends Cruise that I just booked.

I have a similar story on one of my cruises from some years ago that wasn't on either Celebrity or Royal. We made haste to our disembarkation port, which happened to be the nearest large port.

@JamieLogical: Thank you for your detailed summary of yesterday. I found it especially interesting. I'm sorry Princess screwed up your allocation of drinks. We're discussing the drink limit on Princess in another thread and failed to note this disadvantage of it.

For me, I'd prioritize it this way: "Mandatory" gratuities, if not already prepaid The casino Any interesting excursions that I haven't prepurchased Souvenirs from the gift shop Specialty dining that interests me

Thank you for your comments and thanks for your support. I'll have to check out the artists you mentioned. There's lots of time until the cruise and I suppose I can spare an hour or two in the name of entertainment. I wish this cruise was twice as long with twice as much talent while not costing twice as much. But it is what it is. Let me know if you make it onboard. It's always fun to be with people you kind of know. 😀

I should have taken the advice of another Jody Watley song - "Learn to Say No". But I tinkered with the Super Legends Cruise site, signed up for an account, looked for cabins near the library (where I ended up on TEC 2023), booked one, paid the $50 deposit, and set myself up for $160 payments for the next 12 months. So, I guess I signed up for another music themed cruise, my fourth in 2025. I hope Jody Watley is in really good form. 🙏 P.S. I forgot to mention that she was supposed to be part of TEC '23 but canceled out on us for unknown reasons.

I got e-mail notification of the Super Legends Cruise in September 12-15, 2025. It's on Navigator OTS. I'm familiar with that ship thanks to last year's 80s Cruise. I liked it better than the Mariner. The timing is all right - it's well away from my other cruises, though I don't like that it's during prime hurricane season. Yes it's short, and it's VERY expensive, but the lineup is interesting: I like what I've heard of the Isley Brothers and would look forward to hearing from them again. Sheila E. will be on next year's TEC, so this would be a double down. Not too risky, since I expect her to be quite good. Tavares will be on next year's UDC. They should be all right, worth my time to while away an hour by the pool with. Heatwave was on the last UDC, but I missed them. They have two killer songs that I'd look forward to hearing. But the key performer here is Jody Watley. I really liked her back in the day. If she's still got "it", then she could top Sheena from the top of my charts. Anyway, El Lay is a long way to travel for just three days, and I don't much care for the terminal in San Pedro. And the itinerary is just 8 hours in Ensenada. The per day cost in even the most basic cabin would be the most of any cruise I've had or booked. But I keep hearing Jody singing to me, "You turned your back on me when I needed you most of all" (my favorite song from her, BTW). It remains to be seen whether I resist her siren's call. Stay tuned.