Raman50

Looking for a Park & Cruise in Metairie or New Orleans. 

Thanks Bill. Good to hear from you; we had a great time with you and Diane on the Breakaway. Hope to cruise with you again!

Is it possible to walk from Fulton Parking thru the Convention Center to Erato Terminal?

Love, love, love Rock of Ages. Saw it multiple times on last year’s Breakaway repo, made even better by the special lyric sheet provided by Pelican Bill.

On 10/24/2019 at 1:26 PM, PelicanBill said:

Entertainment

I’ve saved the best for last.  I think Norwegian and Breakway have terrific entertainment.  The conversaion of Fat Cats to Syd’s Pour House (a Rock n Roll band show) was a great addition last year as well.

 

I always want to see a good band poolside playing island music and reggae. The band last year was amazing. And this year, it was a different band, but with the same lead singer!  He’s awesome. I think his name is Leo.

 

But Rock of Ages is the highlight of my Breakaway cruises. I am a superfan and many of the cast who have done past rotations know me. I have Rock of Ages themed shirts and I try to sit in the front row every show.  I reserve my one show and am first in line or close to it for that show and in the standby line for others. This time they were letting standby in right away and it took a moment to future that out. Yikes.   Well I just made it to the front row for show #1.  But it was hard because we found the front row almost all occupied already. They were now seating Havens guests in the front row before the House opened. This has never been done before and I was somewhat put off by the idea. For one, what’s the point of having a reservation, and not nice to deny someone waiting for an hour at the door that chance for the front row.  Second, these people aren’t in the front row because they are fans. They are there because they paid more and are being given a privileged seat.  And that is a disservice to the cast, who would much rather see people in front who are excited to see the show.  This repeated for the second show that night and I had to settle for the second row.  The consolation is I got to meet family members of one of the cast members and learned a whole lot! 

 

The bad thing is that people in that front row got up and left during the show.  Here’s a *slap* for them. If you sit in front, commit.  It’s really, really, rude to the performers to sit in front and leave in the middle.

 

So, the favor.  Thursday morning, I wrote a polite note to Clay (Cruise Director) and left it at customer service asking if they could be sure he got it during the day.  I describe my dismay at seating people in the front row before the house opens, especially when some get up and leave.  I asked if there was any way to be sure I could be in the front seat for the second show, this superfan would really appreciate. And I had a special reason too.

 

When I returned to the ship from Cozumel, I had a message from Clay’s secretary to call the Box Office Manager, who answered right away, and said there would be a seat marked reserved on the center front row on the aisle for the second show.  With my thanks, I ran and got dinner and got in line to get in early at the first show.

 

It turned out that there was nobody seated early for either show this evening and I got the front row easily for the first show. But my reserved seat made it possible to go eat some food in between shows this time. So I could wander down at 9:45 for the 10:00 show and watch people wonder what sort of VIP I am.  Haha.

 

All four shows were great as always. And being into amateur theater myself, I always spot the fun mishaps like when two dancers got their costumes stuck together and they had to hop off stage connected as one!

The best part was that I had a sign ready to hold up during bows. A series of pages taped together that unfolded read

 WE
WILL
MISS
YOU!

I got a lot of surprised and appreciative looks during the bows and end of the song.

And as the theater began to empty, the lead ran out and asked me to stay for a picture with the cast. That’s a souvenir I could never have hoped for!

 

Interesting. Would you mind giving a brief overview of a cruise that went over a month?

Sailing out of Seattle on the Jewel, we did a fairly typical Alaskan cruise, Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway; returning southward we ported at Victoria, Vancouver and Astoria, continuing along the west coast, stopping at San Francisco and Los Angeles. In Mexico we stopped at Matzalan, Puerto Vallarta, Huatulco and Puerto Chiapas. Next we ported at Puntarenas, Costa Rica before a full transit of the Panama Canal (which happened to be the 100th anniversary, 1914-2014). Last stop was Cartagena, Colombia before heading to Houston (Bayport). We stayed on board for the first NCL cruise out of Houston. Those stops included Cozumel, Belize City and Trujillo, Honduras. A total of 35 days. We were told the average age dropped 20 years on the final seven days of our cruise.

First NCL cruise Oct 2014 = 70 pts., second cruise Feb 2015 = 7 pts. Total = 77 pts. 5 months. First cruise was a 35-day repo (Seattle to Houston) booked almost a year in advance, double points.

Sailed in August and we are sailing again 10/26! Embarkation was a breeze, got to port @ 10:30 and we were in line at Chopsticks @ 11:30! De-embarkation was even quicker. We left our deck 8 cabin @ 8 am (self-assist) and we were in our car driving home @ 8:30. Parked inside at Park N Cruise, $45. Everything in-between was great, which is why we going again in 3 weeks.