ballroom-cruisers

It's worth waiting to check the wash cycle has actually started before leaving... not closing the washer door fully happens easily. It's good to have slight seas even if it's been quite windy at times on this voyage. Good thunderstorm was visible yesterday evening but the ship was steady as a rock.

Ahh, such a relief to know that there will only be a few who flout 'the code' - the Gala nights will remain the elegant atmosphere of traditional values - and those who don't adhere will be hidden away in the dark recesses of the main dining room, so that they are not visible enough to spoil the classy community feeling of Gala-enjoying passengers who do dress to the code. ( I did have a typo in the sentence when it came out as 'soil' but I corrected it back to 'spool' before clicking the Submit Reply button, despite the excitement of reading the detailed survey of the penultimate night Gala adherence. Oh what a relief.

On the 10th October, there are three other ships due to be there. The MSC Divina with about 3500 passengers is scheduled to leave at 4pm. QV is scheduled to leave at 5pm with just over 2000 passengers, and then Costa Deliziosa with just under 3000, and Seven Seas Voyager with about 700 later into the evening. So I guess mapleleaves' comment is relevant to the possible queues for the cable car descent to get back to the tenders.

The only excursion in Santorini that we were interested in has in the description that they provide a cable car ticket for you to return to the ship (presumably by tender from the bottom of the cliff) - so not an option we want to take.

Very limited choice of itineraries going SOU-SOU in 2025 (so far) - with lots of fly-cruise holidays - we are not impressed! Fly-cruise is fine for those who like spending time in airports, and with limited luggage allowances, and happy with the risk of cancellation of flights - but we prefer departing and arriving back on home soil in Southampton. There are nice ports in the Med that the ships could go to - but Cunard seems to be avoiding them. Maybe it is to keep costs down!

Fabulous to hear.

Thanks - hopefully the new faster internet will be available for when we next get aboard. If the new routers in all the rooms are installed and wired up it should make a significant improvement to being 'connected' and hopefully lead to internet grumbles being consigned to history (well, one can hope!).

Thanks - how long were the ballroom evening sessions? An hour, 45 minutes or something else? I guess if 7.30pm to 8.30pm, and then 9pm to 10pm it is reasonable enjoyment level for a dancer - though many ballroom dancers are used to three hours of dancing in an evening, or more.

We have not been on Ventura for some years - how much ballroom dancing is there in the Atrium on this ship in the evenings? Is it all evening, or do they have small periods of ballroom dancing interspersed with other activities like jazz duo sets, or quizzes that you can't dance to? Do they still have a live band? Or is it all recorded ballroom music when they do play it?

Is there any evidence of the set of new Starlink antennas somewhere near the top of the ship? They are usually almost rectangular and often a set of 6 mounted on posts on the high railing somewhere.

Yes it remains the case that Cunard is about the only line that still has ballroom and Latin dancing every evening, with an orchestra playing several sets of 45 minutes each evening, with recorded music between those sets. It used to be the case that P&O had ballroom dancing, such as in the Crystal Room on Britannia, every evening, with quite a lot of people coming to sit, buy a drink, and watch the ballroom dancing, including show dances on formal evenings. However when that started to be diluted by quizzes and jazz duo sets in the middle of the evenings on Britannia we stopped going on P&O, and haven't been back. Also on Cunard the dance classes have always been run by a professional ballroom couple, and high quality teaching of basic waltz, cha cha, rumba, jive, quickstep, and occasionally samba, have been taught on sea days. There was a period this year when the classes were taught by dance hosts instead when a professional couple was not on board, but that is apparently changing back to the original format again, with a professional couple back on board, as well as dance hosts to partner solo or other passengers who wish to dance in the evenings. The dance floor on Cunard ships is a reasonable size, so that a moderate number of couples can dance the moving dances like foxtrots, waltzes, quicksteps, ballroom tango, and samba and paso, whereas the floor on most other lines is quite a lot smaller. Although there have been some limited sequence dance sets on Cunard, such as an hour at 5pm, it has largely been the case that the evenings are ballroom and Latin dancing - so the dancing is much more interesting and pleasurable when it is not rigid sequence figure groups, which often has packed rings of couples and free movement around the room is difficult.

Is this related:

It sounds like the recruitment of dance hosts is different in the US and UK, and the organisations that manage the interviewing and detailed arrangement of the 'contract' for those who get through the recruitment process may give a quite different feel in the two countries. Either way, once through the process the dance hosts do have to work pretty hard every evening of their time on board, as well as be required to attend daytime dance lessons, and some of the solos events. It is also possible that the entertainment managers may require different levels of duty on any one voyage from the dance hosts. It would nice really useful to know what the plans are for the rest of this year, as well as how things are envisaged for the four ships next year and beyond, so that we get a feel for how things might change in the future regarding support for ballroom dancing on Cunard?

Is it not more the case that those who dress casually tend to stay the same on party evenings if they are in the Queen's Room, and dress the same when going to other venues on board on non-party evenings?

None of us would like it having our cruise terminated in exchange for hotels or flights of any kind - but we all know that occasionally exceptional situations arise, and lead to exceptional experiences that we would not have predicted - sometimes we have to simply shrug shoulders and say, "That's life" and move on once we get back home.

Yes that picture was certainly on a 'party evening' - we have had some nice ballroom evenings on voyages the past couple of years since Covid, but the number of ballroom dancers regularly on the floor, and the number of non-ballroom evenings in the Queen's Room seems to vary depending on which voyage it is. We had a voyage in June where all but two evenings of a two week voyage were pure ballroom all evening. On the other hand a friend on QV going to the western Med and back very recently had four party nights out of 7 on the one week voyage, which meant only 3 ballroom evenings in the QR. Our experience the past year or so has been never more than two dance hosts on a voyage. Pretty much every time it has been a man and a lady as dance hosts, but also a professional couple who did the dance lessons and the show dances on the Gala evenings. I am led to believe that this is the arrangement that is planned at least for QV from next month, but I don't know the arrangements planned to QM2 the rest of this year concerning both dance hosts and professional ballroom couple. It does seem that the US dance host recruitment is independent of that in the UK. The UK recruitment organisation seems to focus on QV so perhaps QM2 is serviced by the US organisation when it comes to dance hosts and the professional couple? What about QE and Queen Anne - does anyone know the situation for those?

Having talked to people directly involved with the dance hosts and the dance professional couple it seems that Cunard is covering the period where the professional ballroom couples resigned by having a pair of dance hosts, who are running the dance classes, as well as acting as dance hosts for singles in the evening ballroom dancing. From September at some point some of the professional ballroom couples are coming back on new contracts, and there is expected to also be a pair of dance hosts where it is possible to have them accepting being on board voyages. It is possible that not all voyages will have both professional ballroom dancers as well as dance hosts. On any voyages where it isn't possible to attract dance hosts to be there then there are usually some passengers who may be prepared to dance with single passengers. Hopefully on most voyages the evenings will have people dressing up, especially on Gala nights - experience shows that most do, even on non Gala nights except on some of the shorter voyages.

Looks like a genuine saving - but if the voyages were selling well these discounts would not be being offered.

I would try to take a few lessons at a local dance school if you can. Most people start with basic waltz for ballroom and cha cha for Latin. The advantage of a human dance teacher is that you can ask questions and they can see what you're doing and offer advice on fixing basic faults. I'd also find the teacher with the best reputation near you for ballroom teaching, if possible. Don't worry about being on the dance floor as a beginner. The more experienced dancers should have no problems going past or holding on the spot until there is space to move. Either way have fun learning.

It might be in the best interests of Cunard if at least some of the entertainment managers were reading these threads and taking some notice!

There is a big difference between Cunard and the many other cruise lines. Cunard is special and has a unique on board experience that you can't get on any other line. So there is no ready alternative, so naturally people will do their best to maintain what they like in the way a Cunard cruise is managed and the offerings that can't be found anywhere else on a ship, and defend the standards that are perceived to be slipping. Those complaints are often aired on this board if they can't get to speak directly to the managers on board or at Cunard HQ. It is very different if you 'were' a P&O loyal passenger and no longer accept their changes - because there are plenty of alternative cruise lines that give you a comparable or better experience. And yet on the P&O threads there is even more complaining than on this board! One other thing is also a factor - many British passengers do not wish to do fly-cruises, due to the significant loss of faith in airports and airlines in reliability of travelling as booked without hassle, and almost everyone knows someone who has had flights cancelled, baggage lost, or had their travel plans changed because the airlines failed to provide the flights that had been booked. There is only a fraction of cruise lines that depart from and arrive back in the UK. That does limit the choice of alternatives for cruise options.

My guess is that a lot of people want to maintain that special quality that is Cunard - and not slowly have it become the same as the other lines - yes, on the voyages we have been on, it has been very clear that most on board continue to dress up in the evenings, even on non Gala nights, the Queen's Room remains a popular venue for people who will split their loyalty between the theatre and other evening entertainment options, and there are also people who we know who spend every evening watching ballroom dancing, and who do not go to the theatre at all. Equally others will not have any interest in the dancing, and may spend all evening in the Casino, the Chart Room, or other parts of the ship, but there certainly seems to be a bigger contingent who are interested in evening theatre shows, as well as ballroom dancing.

There is clearly a significant demand from quite a lot of passengers who strongly desire to continue having cruise holidays that involve a big component of dressing up to make multiple nights a real occasion in the company of many others who are of the same mind, and wish to spend many evenings either engaged in, or watching, ballroom and Latin dancing, to live music provided by an orchestra who can play high quality dance music, as well as afternoon tea dances where people can also enjoy dancing between bites of their scones and sips of tea, whilst others watch as they enjoy their sandwiches and cakes too. If Cunard is the last refuge for those of this mindset, then they are going to make plenty of noise to the people who make the decisions, so that if at all possible this great experience will not be quickly lost to the mediocrity of the many other lines who go for the huge ships with the extensive children's mega entertainment on deck, multitude of modern sameness, and much the same as each other with no unique features compared to other similar lines. Cunard is still today unique. So those who wish it to continue will of course speak up!

Bell Boy, yes - exactly. It seems the provision of dance hosts is divided between the US and UK agencies to try to cover all the ships if possible. But as you say it is not straightforward to get enough quality hosts for all voyages on all ships, and with the 4th ship coming on stream next year that will be harder still. Most dance hosts will do a few one or two week voyages per year, but not more. So getting two hosts per voyage on one ship if they agreed to do two per year would then need about 20 host pairs - for all four ships that would need 80 pairs of hosts just to have two dance hosts per voyage. Some dance hosts are dance teachers who need to be running their own studio at home to make a living. If they go on a two week voyage, then they are earning nothing in their studio while they are away. The dance professionals have in the past taken a 4 to 6 month contract, so to cover all four ships and assuming the dance pros will be on board for say half the year, means you need 8 professional couples. Even then it is not straightforward to attract that number on an ongoing basis. For the pros it is a job, albeit a pleasant job, but they are away from home and family for an extended period of time every year. Either way I do hope that Cunard continues to work to satisfy the unique demand from people who love to both dance, and to watch dancing, in the elegance of the Queens Rooms on all four ships.

There is a UK based organisation that provides dance hosts too - and they are very active recruiting for QV.