dancingguy

Another data point: I sail on a 10 day cruise in two days and I am elite.  My app is giving me $249.90 for single device, full cruise, and $449.90 for 4 devices.   I'm not sure why it's $45/day instead of $40 as others claim on this thread.  These must be pre-elite-discount prices so I'll be paying roughly $22.50/day for 4 devices which is $5.62/day/device which is fine.  We'll share the 4 devices among 4 individuals.   I usually purchase on board first day - if my discount is cabin credit that's fine - all comes out in the wash.  

So is it $40 or $45/day? 

Question is: anyone know of a website to check maritime weather to get the most up to date forecasts? 

Some people have said that they are vaccinated and therefore they will cruise and it doesn't matter whether others are vaccinated.    Here are a few things to consider: 

a. there is still a 1 in 20 chance you could be infected - though perhaps not seriously infected.   

b. for the unvaccinated some ports may be off limits.  in fact some ports may put restrictions on the visit that impact everyone.

c. on-board activities will have more restrictions if a substantial number are not vaccinated. 

d. you may have your voyage disrupted if there is any outbreak on board - no one wants to go through that Diamond Princess episode.  

My suggestion to cruise companies: require vaccinations (excluding some groups e.g. children) to improve everyone's experience.   My guess is that this is good business also (2/3'rds of those who voted said they will cancel which is not a good omen for bookings).   My suggestion to individuals:   Get vaccinated if you can and contribute to the community resistance.    

Good to see a thread on music, venues and dancing on the Sky.  We'll be on the Sky on 3/28 - assuming it all doesn't fall apart due to Corona.  Basically Princess screwed up evening music and dance with the whole Royal layout.  The new 'Wheelhouse' is pathetic and now Crooners is missing or compromised on the Majestic/Sky and I guess the next few ships.   We do a lot better on the ships with a real Wheelhouse and a nice Crooners e.g. Emerald, Caribbean...

That said we still make it work - we just dodge passengers in the not-a-wheelhouse space etc.  We also enjoy the new larger Piazza and have found lots of musicians playing in the Piazza who aren't dance bands but still like it when people dance to their steal drums, or single guitar,  classical violins, etc. etc.    You might be dancing waltz's or tangos, etc. which might not be what you're looking for....

We've traveled with 'Static' - they are a fun party band for a lot of people.  

I will also encourage people to make it known to Princess if you feel the entertainment is weak.  These should be coveted jobs for entertainers -  yet some of the Princess Theater acts lately have been weak.  A single vocalist, say, that just isn't very entertaining.   The ship theater groups are always good - Princess has always put a lot of effort into their in-house musical shows. 

Thanks Times Prince and Jennifer for posting some really great info.

... and reports from other dancers from other cruise lines is really appreciated.

It's true - Princess has made a mockery of dancing in the Wheelhouse on the Royal and Regal. The new 'floor' is a marble circle in the hallway where you have to dodge passengers working their way from the Vista to other venues midship. We dance there anyhow, move furniture around, etc and submit comment cards asking Princess to rework the area. It's a better situation on the ships with a real Wheelhouse (e.g. Emerald, Crown, ...). In terms of bands we have always found that they have what we call a 'party band' and another 'dance band'. The party bands are kind-of ok to dance too but it gets old (and too loud) real fast and they don't play enough Latin, Waltz, Tango, etc. The lounge/dance bands have been great and we generally follow them around (dodging passengers in the Wheelhouse hallway...). Keep the pressure up on Princess, the venues, the performers, etc. ...

Hi all, we spent last week on the Royal (Athens to Rome) and here's the dance situation:

a. The Wheelhouse has been redone and the back half of it, where the dancefloor was, is now part of the 'Crown Grill' - bummer. There is still live music, sometimes bands, or more often piano or single acoustic guitar. The photo above captures this, however not captured is a small marble dance circle in the hall right next to the band. We danced here dodging passengers working their way past us in the hall. We still had a good time there.

b. We often danced in the Piazza if the band was the one we followed around. Plenty of room - totally on display from three decks of balconies.

c. We also danced in the Vista when the band was in the Vista. Sometimes we where the only ones there though.

So those are the 2.5 places to dance on the Royal. To us the bigger consideration was finding the one band we liked and just following them around (Prestige Band). The other band (Pentatonics) was more 'rock', loud, and less dance oriented. If it wasn't for the Prestige band dancing would have been really limited.

So you have to find your band and make your own party. You can't be shy about dancing in hallways etc (we also squeezed a few dances in the piano bar). You can also introduce yourself to the other small acts e.g. we danced to the accordion player and even did some basic tangos when the string quartet preformed a tango concert in the Piazza - they where fabulous! These musicians generally loved it when we danced and were very accommodating.

Note the Royal is in dry dock right now - so the above might change this month. I believe the Prestige band will be back after dry dock.

Note 2: I've been researching the Holland America Eurodam this week and it looks like they have removed 2 of the 4 dancefloors they used to have. We dancers need to stick together and keep pressure on the cruise companies to keep dancing alive! Give high marks to the dance bands.

Hi all, I appreciate the info about the Blues Club and enjoy (and play) blues, rock, etc. But to put a slightly different twist on things can anyone throw any light on dancing? Our group likes to dance every night (swing, latin, waltz, tango even). What have you seen on HAL ships? Are there reasonable dance floors? Will the band play a cha cha, rumba, whatever? We've had luck just requesting things from the band and finding/making room where ever we are but any insights would be helpful. Also any recent daily event schedules/planners would help us understand what's going on on some of the ships. Maybe I'll start a dancing thread - meetups would be fun!

Princess dancers: be aware that the once excellent Wheelhouse dance floor has now been replaced with dining tables. I'm not sure which Wheelhouse bars in the fleet have been 'ruined' and which still have adequate room to dance. Star a few years ago was great. Royal last week had us dancing in the hallway.

Hi, just got back today from a week on the Royal. There are wifi routers/hotspots in the halls of the cabin decks every 30 feet or so BUT IN SPITE OF THIS my room still did not have an adequate connection. My guess is that you are 50/50 on chances that your room will allow reasonable connectivity. The public spaces where generally better for wifi but just very slow reaching the web. It also varies depending on time of day. Given this level of support, charging .50 to .80 a minute is robbery - but they can make a buck AND discourage internet massive use which they can't support anyhow.

I do hope the technology improves. Wifi is just a matter of access points in rooms or on balconies which the cruise companies can fix with $$. Satellite to the internet for 3000-4000 people at sea is more problematic.

At home I'm up late reading newspapers, etc on my phone. On board I learned to cache things on apps like the nytimes app once a day, load up on kindle books, etc. I sensed trouble right away and bailed on the $100 package for 200 minutes and went minute to minute. I also used internet cafe's in ports which where common and more reliable and you could have a nice latte. Mostly I adjusted my attitude and expectations ....

I can recommend 'princess@sea' for intranet things (once you get to a good wifi location): texting with other people in your group, checking onboard activities and checking your running room tab. On shore we used Viber to communicate (or google chat) etc. from cafes/restaurants.