Dance cruise

[raisincain]

Is there any cruises that have a lot of dances. Dance cruises

[cruizergal70]

Link: dance cruises - Google Search

 

[XBGuy]

Yes there are.

 

They are organized and marketed by various specialized companies.  Essentially, these are specialized travel agents.  Cruise Critic rules prohibit us from discussing travel agents.  So, we are prohibited from recommending or even pointing to them.

 

I suggest that you rely on Internet searches.  It looks like @cruizergal70 has provided a lead.

[hueyjudy]

Every ocean cruise I've ever been on has numerous dancing opportunities.

[Capt_BJ]

if you want ballroom dancing then you want Queen Mary 2 . . .

 

[Markanddonna]

5 hours ago, hueyjudy said:

Every ocean cruise I've ever been on has numerous dancing opportunities.

I disagree. You might have the opportunity to jump up and down or line dance, but ballroom dancing has become rarer as the years go on. I used to see really fine dancers out on the floor and some brought their lovely outfits. That is rarely seen on most mainline cruises. On our last cruise, there was a very sad group that played in one of the main lounges and they never took the pulse of their dancers. 

[ldubs]

Did the OP mean ballroom dancing?   I have a hunch that they would have specified ballroom dancing if that is what they meant, but I don't know. 

 

As for plain old dancing (however you say that), it seems like there isn't as much of that going on as there used to be either.   But having two left feet, I'm probably not one to comment.   

[Tonopah]

We were on a Royal Caribbean cruise. We danced every night, but most of the venues have tiny dance floors. Not even big enough for 5 or 6 couples. The only larger floor (in the “Star Lounge”) mostly had participation games, not dancing. One night was Latin night in the star lounge and there was Latin dancing which we enjoyed. The tiny floors were disappointing but we made the most of it.

 

We ballroom dance and always choose Cunard for that. There are special private tours a couple of times a year that cross on the Queen Mary 2. Probably fun for the dancers who pay for the privilege, but irritating for those of us banned from the biggest dance floor afloat for two hours every evening.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Tonopah
Spelling and logic.

[Hlitner]

If the OP is looking for ballroom dancing on a decent dance floor, that has all but disappeared on many lines.  The Queen Mary2 probably does the best job when it comes to dancing as they use a live band and have a real ballroom facility with a large dance floor.   On most of our Princess cruises they do have a versatile band that plays several dance sets every evening in one of their lounges (usually located at the aft end of the ship).   HAL used to do a great job for dancers and even supplied a couple of male "dance hosts" on their longer cruises.  But that has been eliminated and the live bands have often been replaced with a DJ.   HAL has become more of single activity (trivia) cruise line.  

 

As to smaller luxury lines we have been pretty impressed with the dancing opportunities on Seabourn.  They always have a pretty decent band (with a singer) who plays dance sets all evening in the Club.  The Club is a nicely designed lounge with a real dance floor.

 

Hank

[jsn55]

17 hours ago, Markanddonna said:

I disagree. You might have the opportunity to jump up and down or line dance, but ballroom dancing has become rarer as the years go on. I used to see really fine dancers out on the floor and some brought their lovely outfits. That is rarely seen on most mainline cruises. On our last cruise, there was a very sad group that played in one of the main lounges and they never took the pulse of their dancers. 

I didn't read anything about ballroom dancing only. 

[Markanddonna]

I consider ballroom dancing today to be any dance that you had to learn rather than just moving your body to the beat.  Salsa, foxtrot, swing, rock (done with some standard movement and turns), etc. can be ballroom.  

Edited July 17, 2022 by Markanddonna

[Honolulu Blue]

On 7/16/2022 at 12:52 PM, raisincain said:

Is there any cruises that have a lot of dances. Dance cruises

As others have asked, what kind of dancing do you want to do?

 

• If you want disco dancing, there's a themed cruise for that
• If you want country-style line dancing, there's a themed cruise for that
• If you want ballroom dancing, I think my colleagues have covered this one
• If you want various kinds of freestyle dancing at various times, I'll suggest Carnival.  They have the Groove for St. Jude, various sailaway parties, a nightclub, and a small area that can be used for dancing in the atrium.
• If you want to learn a certain style of dance, many mainstream lines have dance classes, though which styles of dance they teach is variable
• If you're a fan of silent disco dancing, I know Celebrity offers this; perhaps other cruise lines do too
• Most of the mainstream cruise lines and some of the others have nightclub spaces at night where you can dance until everyone else drops (might be surprisingly early on some lines - I won't mention which ones 😛)
• Many cruise lines have space that's friendly for dancing and sometimes they'll have live music there to facilitate such action

 

Good luck in finding what you're looking for.

[raisincain]

looking for country dancing. thanks for all comments so far

[Honolulu Blue]

22 minutes ago, raisincain said:

looking for country dancing. thanks for all comments so far

You're welcome.  A couple of more targeted notes:

 

• Your best bet for a country theme (and dancing) on Carnival is to sail out of Galveston, though it still might get overwhelmed by the other types of music
• Cruise Critic has helpfully posted an article about the country-themed cruise I was thinking about: https://www.cruisecritic.com/articles.cfm?ID=4445

 

[ontheweb]

About the best cruise we ever had for ballroom dancing was actually a Carnival ship out of San Juan. The large contingent of locals made for a lively dance floor.

[Honolulu Blue]

21 minutes ago, ontheweb said:

About the best cruise we ever had for ballroom dancing was actually a Carnival ship out of San Juan. The large contingent of locals made for a lively dance floor.

Interesting.  Thanks for sharing.  I'll note that Carnival no longer sails out of San Juan. 🤬☹️

[ontheweb]

7 minutes ago, Honolulu Blue said:

Interesting.  Thanks for sharing.  I'll note that Carnival no longer sails out of San Juan. 🤬☹️

And the ship we were on, the Fascination, is no longer in the fleet.

[weltek]

FWIW, I enjoy watching people ballroom dance on NCL ships with observation lounges, and in the Manhattan dining room (not all NCL ships have these venues). 

[Dancer Bob]

QM2 is not really a good choice. The Queens Room is often used for lifted-pinky, invite-only closed receptions. Access to the alternate venue G32, is by way of the QR, so it's often not available. On Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, the alternate venue is on Deck 10. Also, in the past few years the QR Orchestras have stuggled to reach mediocre. The Caribbean groups upstairs have been surprisingly good when given an opportunity.

In the past, Costa has been the best choice, decent music and floors and a wide variety of music. It has attracted a loyal following of Europeans, although you'll see many dances more common in Europe, like Paso Doble and Mazurka. At present however, the situation seems pretty confused. (My last cruise was only 25% full, so cutbacks were inevitable.)

I wouldn't recommend any American cruise line. NCL's Manahattan Room would have been a good floor if the restarant people hadn't covered it with tables, which seemed to sum up NCL's attitude towards dancers. As far as Carnival out of San Juan, well, "lively" is one way of putting it. It was the only time I ever felt like sitting with my back to a wall in the disco.

Edited July 27, 2022 by Dancer Bob

[evandbob]

It's funny watching cruisers on Celebrity when they tune in to different tapes on their headsets yet try to dance together.

I doubt that's what the OP had in mind when posting though.

[Hlitner]

Thought we would jump back in on this thread with an observation and question for dancers.  Having been on many cruise lines (16) and dozens of ships in waters all over the world, we have noticed that the dancing issue is not just about dance floors and bands.  Once upon a time we were on quite a few cruises that had lots of ballroom dancers with some ships (on HAL and Cunard) having male dance hosts.  The hosts have mostly disappeared but so have the dancers.  In the last decade we have been on numerous cruises where they did have bands that placed dance sets, but it was common to see fewer than a dozen dancing couples (out of thousands of cruisers).  Even on our HAL cruises (which used to attract lots of ballroom dancers) we have been in the dance venues when we might see one or two couples who actually did real ballroom dancing. 

 

I can recall being on Celebrity (Solstice Class ships) where they would have a pretty decent band playing a few sets in the Atrium (where there is an area that can be used as a dance floor).  Out of thousands of passengers we might see two or three ballroom dancing couples.  DW and I would admire the skill of some of these dancers but also note that they did not have a lot of company.

 

So here is the thing for the dancers!  Cruise ships must generally play to what is desired by large number of passengers.  If there is a trivia game, BINGO, Liars Club, etc. the venue draws a big crowd.  Have a live band playing dance sets and you can often count the dancers on two hands.

 

What do the dancers think?

 

Hank

[Dancer Bob]

To be explicable to non-ballroom-dancers why there is so little demand, would require pages and pages of background material. A few greatly over-simplified comments:

Dancing is defined as "rhythmic motion in time to music". If you're not in time with the music, it's not dancing. We're also talking "with a partner" and "in a social environment", two more big constraints.

Bar owners hate dancers, we don't drink and want huge amounts of space.

Dancing is a LOT of work. Most women's "love to dance" disappears once they find out how hard it is to dance with a partner (line dancing is much easier). It's a lot easier to pass your time burying your face in a smartphone than taking dance lessons. Dancing was much more popular before television.

Most Americans learn to dance in huge, uncrowded dance studios. The biggest cruise ship floors are comparatively very restrictive. I was going to mention some experiences on Cunard but it got too complicated.

Many dance teacher organisations are really, really bad at marketing. The businesses with big advertising budgets employ the least experienced teachers.

 

[Hlitner]

27 minutes ago, Dancer Bob said:

To be explicable to non-ballroom-dancers why there is so little demand, would require pages and pages of background material. A few greatly over-simplified comments:

Dancing is defined as "rhythmic motion in time to music". If you're not in time with the music, it's not dancing. We're also talking "with a partner" and "in a social environment", two more big constraintsBar owners hate dancers, we don't drink and want huge amounts of space.

Dancing is a LOT of work. Most women's "love to dance" disappears once they find out how hard it is to dance with a partner (line dancing is much easier). It's a lot easier to pass your time burying your face in a smartphone than taking dance lessons. Dancing was much more popular before television.

Most Americans learn to dance in huge, uncrowded dance studios. The biggest cruise ship floors are comparatively very restrictive. I was going to mention some experiences on Cunard but it got too complicated.

Many dance teacher organisations are really, really bad at marketing. The businesses with big advertising budgets employ the least experienced teachers.

 

Thanks for the post.  I will confess that DW and I once took ballroom dancing lessons (for over a year) and ultimately abandoned the effort.  I have long said that we were "kicked out" of dance school for incompetence which is not quite the case.  But it was close ::).  DW and I really admire good ballroom dancers and always enjoyed watching the real "pros" show us all how it should be done.  We once became friendly with a widower who was a dance host on long HAL cruises and I really admired this guy for his dance skill.  He kept insisting that dancing was easy (for him that was true) but despite trying to learn all those steps (from childhood) it has never been my forte.  

 

So many of us went through young adulthood dealing with the freestyle dancing often found in discos.  There was no ballroom dancing in those places, Latin dances were something done somewhere else, etc.   Even at my ole age watching a couple smile as they waltz, or execute some complex cha-cha steps without missing a beat, etc. does make me happy.   And with the quality of entertainment on some cruise ships it is sometimes the dancing passengers that provide the best entertainment.

 

Hank

[jsn55]

Since most of us grew up with Elvis and the Rolling Stones,  I think that it will take another 20 years until people get interested in 'real' dancing again. 

[ldubs]

2 hours ago, jsn55 said:

Since most of us grew up with Elvis and the Rolling Stones,  I think that it will take another 20 years until people get interested in 'real' dancing again. 

 

Real or unreal, I can't dance.  Mrs Ldubs says just move your body.   I just don't get it.