Honolulu Blue

He wrote an autobiography, "Juke Box Hero". I'm sure you can find it wherever you purchase books these days - or they can order it. I might have brought the actual book for him to sign if I knew he was going to be available for autographs (I didn't find out about it until I was onboard).

@NinS and @George C: Thank you both for your perspective on music charter seating on various cruises across companies and cruises. I'm still trying to digest it all and may comment further later. For now, I'll just comment on the seating arrangements I've seen and experienced on my cruises: All concerts outside the main theater - first come, first serve The 80s Cruise 2022 (year 1 for me) - I bought in late so no reserved seats were offered to me. By stopping by the theater 15-20 minutes before showtime, I could generally find seats in the middle between rows 6 and 12. I thought they were just fine. The 80s Cruise 2023 - I had could pick reserved seats and did, but the very best seats were all taken. I got row 6 off to one side. Not bad, but I preferred to be in the middle of the action. The 80s Cruise 2024 - i told that story in the posts I made yesterday. I still think they're pretty sweet. 😀 We'll see how they turn out. Ultimate Disco Cruise 2022 and 2023 - first come, first serve. I didn't have any problem getting a seat in the middle between 6 and 12 rows up. The Princess 80s themed cruises - on the Regal I mostly sat myself in the lower tier center and up a dozen rows or so. I could have gotten better seats if I wanted to; the ship wasn't that full at the time. On the Ruby earlier this year, I mostly sat in the balcony center 2 to 4 rows up. My camera seemed to like that view. And I didn't mind either.

I guess I'm higher on the Jazz Cruises priority list than I thought. I got an e-mail for the Smooth Jazz cruises pre-sale registration. I'm sure the rest of you will get this if you haven't already. If you don't get it soon, be sure to check your spam folder. Anyway, there are a couple of things I want to say about what's in the e-mail. First, the deposit is $500 per cabin to be paid when making a pre-cruise reservation. If the reservation doesn't turn into a booking, then it's refundable. Second, there's a chance I could get a slightly better price than I see online for these cruises (not that I'm interested; not my jam, sorry. ☹️). The e-mail says the price is based on my Jazz Cruises sailing history and to call for an exact quote. I assume people who are booked on one of the Smooth Jazz Cruises for 2024 get the best prices, then those who have booked with Jazz Cruises a bunch in the past.

I've bought and read very few regular books since I discovered Kindles around a decade ago. Before then I bought and read a bunch of books. I still have most of them. I haven't been to a book signing on a cruise, but I have been to an autograph session for someone who happens to be an author - though he's not primarily known for such. The autograph was free, but the T-shirt I acquired for him to sign definitely was not:

I'd miss them. I've only sailed on Celebrity with M-class ships in the Caribbean - partly because the charters I prefer like them.

I thought that seat was pretty sweet too. There was some work involved in getting it, along with a bit of luck and some hoping and prayer. I'm a little surprised that StarVista has already announced another sailing for Big Easy. Its sales seem sluggish from what I can see from up here in the cheap seats.

Thanks for your kind words. Mr. McDonald is going to be busy all three days, so I'm pretty sure he will be on the ship the whole time. And while Ms. LaBelle will only be doing shows for one day, she might stick around for more than one day - though, of course, you could well be right in your theory. It will be interesting to see and experience.

That's right. Blue cards (early show) get comedians, LaBelle, and McDonald on the three nights in the main theater. Red cards (late show) get McDonald, LaBelle and comedians. Michael will join both of Patty's shows as a special guest.

This is a short note saying that I got an e-mail from Jazz Cruises announcing the Smooth Jazz cruises. I didn't see anything important covered in it that's not covered by the Web site, so I'll just say check your box.

One last thing for today (I think)... according to Internet sources, the return of UDC in 2025 will be announced by StarVista on Thursday. This will make my loan shark happy. 🤑

My main theater seat for The 80s Cruise is marked with a star on this map:

I guess I'm first with the news - The Smooth Jazz Cruise has replaced their main Web site with the 2025 information. Mr. Alonzo Bodden has an intro video there. Let's see... details. Both sailings will be out of Fort Lauderdale and heading to Labadee, Grand Turk, and Nassau. OK, not the best itinerary in the world, but who cares on cruises like this? 😆 The initial lineup looks like it's the same for both cruises. Let me put of a screenshot of what I saw: On pricing, I saw good news and bad news. The good news is that I saw a solo balcony class available. At $6200, it looks like the single tax is only about 50%, which isn't terrible. The bad news is the solo inside cabin price is $4225. Ouch! 😧 I wish I had 2024 prices to compare, but that seems like a pretty hefty increase from last year. Maybe I'm wrong though. Full pricing and booking information is at https://thesmoothjazzcruise.com/pricing/ .

I'll do an UPDATE since I went through the ticket reservation process. I followed the instructions I was given and signed in right at 11. All of row 1 center was blocked out, as were a few seats elsewhere. I went through my options and selected a seat in row 3 center just off the aisle. I hope the couple next to me are nice. 🙂

It was probably 5, unless you were hoofing it and/or on a really fast ship. Source: Someone who did the route in reverse

Not this time, sorry. ☹️ But thank you for your past service. 👍

I may be misremembering things (as I often do 🙃), but some years ago, there were Carnival employees on this board that only posted to help passengers with sticky situations - kind of as an extra arm of Guest Services.

Hi guys. I was reading about a ship that recently had what seemed to me an incredible 10 consecutive days at sea between ports. The ship's passengers seemed to be well fed and happy despite such a long trip with no stops. Anyway, that inspired me to do this poll. What are the most consecutive sea days you've had on one of your cruises? I had five on my way to Hawaii from Vancouver on one of my cruises a few years ago. Other than that, I haven't had more than two consecutive sea days on any of my cruises. Thanks in advance for voting and sharing!

I'm hoping you and your friends here get the news you want TODAY! Please share details!! I'm only on some of the Jazz Cruises email lists and not a past or future guest on the Smooth Jazz cruises, so I probably won't hear any news until later. Anyway, this is a big day for me, as I go for super ultra premium seats on a different music charter cruise. 🙏 P.S. Have I mentioned that I'm on the McDonald LaBelle cruise? I got the newsletter @Globaliser mentioned above.

My suggestion is to drop off the small cases in the closet and put the larger bag UNDER THE BED, NOT ON TOP OF IT. And be quick about it; don't linger any longer than you have to.

I haven't been on Carnival in a while, but I'm pretty sure the food on Celebrity is much better, class adjusted, than Carnival. Entertainment, surprisingly, I thought was fairly even. Most shows on either line didn't interest me, but what shows there were I enjoyed. Carnival has more comedians and comedy shows, if that's what you're into.

Five so far: Carnival (14 sailings, 2 booked) Celebrity (5 sailings, 1 booked) Princess (3 sailings) Royal Caribbean (2 sailings, 2 booked) Holland America (1 sailing) In addition, I have a booking on Norwegian. Curiously, I can't, at this time, imagine booking with any cruise line other than those six - unless one of them is chartered by someone that offers a cruise that interests me.

I had a 14-day Journeys cruise on the Breeze in 2020 (my last on Carnival before You Know What) and out of about 3800 passengers, 1579 were Platinum and 429 were Diamond. That's the most high status passengers I've seen, though my upcoming Journeys cruise on the Dream in January will probably come close to that.

I'll defer to others on how priority tendering works for Platinum guests (flashes Platinum card for the fun of it 😁) since I don't have any recent experience with it on Carnival. I do know that, across all cruise lines including Carnival, the people who have early excursions with the cruise line will be the first on the tenders. They'll have special meeting places. There's no Platinum priority on getting off in non-tender ports. Listen to the announcements for when you can get off. Sometimes the Captain will arrive early and you can get off early, if you can get cleared early.

As @NavyVeteran noted above, the size of ship can make a difference to which set of locks you go through. I did a Canal transit a few years ago (not on Princess) through the new locks and I'm investigating a cruise that goes through the old locks from the opposite direction (also not on Princess). As for Port Canaveral vs. Port Everglades, PC is not a favorite of mine. I just think the port is a pain to get to and around. And it takes longer to sail to where I want to go, which means cut port times or even a port that gets cut entirely. So, of course, I have one going out of there next year (also not Princess). This is just my opinion and worth about what you paid for it. I'm sure we'll hear from people who love Port Canaveral. Whatever you pick, enjoy the experience!

StarVista Live on their main FB page posted some info about the next Sandy Beaches Cruise. I guess I'll post the screenshot instead of typing since it has all the known info about it: