Honolulu Blue

Thank you for your kind words! No, no original acts on Princess - at least in the U.S. On one of the UK editions of the 80s theme, they had the REAL ABC, the REAL Nik Kershaw, and the REAL T'Pau. That would've been interesting to see. This is a picture of the real ABC that I saw on The 80s Cruise last year. It was a full charter that wasn't on Princess. It also cost quite a bit more than this cruise. 🤑

Thanks for sharing and thanks for your kind words! These 80s cruises must be good if they got you to book twice in the same year! 😃 We'll ignore those other considerations. It's too bad you didn't see Hollywood U2, but we couldn't expect you to take one for the team like that. As I've said before, I hope and expect Princess will do more of these 80s cruises - it's just a matter of when they will put them on the schedule. I'm less certain the comedy themed cruises have a future, but we'll see. It continues to amaze me how many people were on a cruise like this and didn't know about the them. It's in the title of the cruise!! Enjoy the last 80s cruise for a while! Tell the boys in the band I said hi!!

I heard several reviews of the Pat Benatar Experience on another Princess 80s themed cruise. They also seem to be well liked. We were also sold out, more of less. The Discovery is a newer ship with a better (IMHO) buffet layout. You should have a better experience in that department at least. Have a great cruise! Wish I could make it!!

Fun fact: I've never had a car payment in my life. I've always paid cash for used cars that I run around in until the repairs and their bills stack up too high for my tastes. Also a fun fact: I booked the Michael McDonald and Patti LaBelle Cruise. I'm slowly moving up in the world. I booked an oceanview cabin. More details are in my new thread at

Thanks for the amplification and detail. This will help me as I plan for my visit there.

It's official: I've booked a place on the McDonald LaBelle Cruise. Allow me a few minutes to talk about the nuts and bolts; some will be more interesting than others: It's scheduled to run April 10-13, 2024 It will be on the Norwegian Pearl, a popular charter ship for Sixthman, but... This isn't a Sixthman cruise. I'll tell you about the charter company behind it in a little bit. The itinerary at this time is somewhat incomplete. All that's mentioned is that we leave at 4 PM from Miami, sail to Nassau the next day, dock in Nassau the day after that, and return to Miami at 7 AM on the last day In addition to the headliners, we have appearances from comedians George Wallace and Alonzo Bodden There are also other musicians that are scheduled to be onboard, whom I'm ashamed to admit I don't know This cruise has free shuttles to Miami from Tampa/Sarasota/Naples and The Villages/Orlando/West Palm Beach. I haven't heard of this for domestic cruises, even charters. The fact that The Villages has its own shuttle makes me wonder about how old some of these cruisers are going to be. I also wonder a bit about the ethnic diversity of the passengers. Mr. McDonald has a soulful voice, as does Ms. LaBelle. And jazz has historically had fans of every color. This is my first cruise with the charter company Jazz Cruises, which split from Entertainment Cruise Productions (ECP) a few years ago. ECP runs The 80s Cruise, along with a couple of other charter experiences. This will be my first sailing on Norwegian. I've tried a couple of other times, but they didn't work out. I'm looking forward to figuring out a new ship and a new cruise company. This will be my shortest cruise by far. My previous shorties were 5 days. I have taken 3-day trips to Las Vegas and Reno, so the whiplash won't be an unknown feeling. I got an oceanview on deck 4, a little too close to the medical center for my tastes. But better than an interior on that deck or the one above, IMHO. The cabin price was $1500, plus $170 in port fees + gratuities = $1670. Not bad, all things considered I'm putting $417.50 down and paying $125.25 for the next 10 months It's possible that I could book cruises around this one, but I don't think I'll bother. I'll keep you updated if I do. I picked the first show seating, as I've done for all my music charters so far. That one has shows scheduled for 6:30. My favorite song from Mr. McDonald, besides the ones from the Dobbie Brothers and Steely Dan, is "Sweet Freedom". I assume he'll play it, though it' more peppy and poppy than jazzy. My favorite song from Ms. LaBelle is "New Attitude". I assume she'll play this one. That's all I have to say about this cruise at this time. I'm looking forward to it. But I have a bunch of other adventures to get through first.

I haven't sailed on Carnival since the pandemic, but in those days, I never got a separate players card for my casino play. I assume this is still true. I'm sure I'll get jumped on if it isn't. Also, it might be a different story for known gamblers and/or those with free casino drink privileges.

I primarily said it was "boring" because others would likely think it was boring, not that I actually thought it was boring. I'm sure I'll have a great time that's not a bit boring. 😁 My California Coastal started in LA and had port stops in San Fran, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and the token foreign stop of Ensenada. I thought it was fun, despite not doing a whole lot on land. You'll probably have fun on yours too. Safe travels! 🙏

First, to pick nits, Panama is part of NORTH America or CENTRAL America, but NOT South America. Second, when was this visit to Colon? I have an upcoming cruise that visits there instead of going through the Canal and I'm wondering if things have gotten better since then.

The flip side to this is, since you've already paid the port charges anyway, then it doesn't matter what you do while there. And as @George C probably knows, my next TWO music charters have only 2 ports, and they're both 7-day cruises.

I'm surprised you haven't done this already. On two of my first cruises after the restart (one music charter, one not), I didn't get off at any of the offered ports at all. On some others, I only did a short appearance on the dock to stretch my legs, take pictures, and maybe get some souvenirs. On another of my themed cruises, I probably would have stayed on the ship in port, but one of them had these guys make an appearance, and I was too weak to resist:

First of all, I've read the replies here and they've been very interesting. Thank you for sharing. My next cruise is a boring one that was booked primarily to use up some FCC that had a hard deadline. It's in November in the Western Caribbean. My humble suggestions for your possible next destinations, without knowing whether you're interested in these places: Pacific Coastal. Cruise ships sometimes have free time before or after sailing to Alaska, so they do these. They can go from Vancouver to Ensenada. I did one last year. I didn't explore the cities that much (we were still under pandemic rules). I'd like to go back sometime. Mexican Riviera. This is a closer look at the "real" Mexico than Cozumel and Costa Maya. It helps if you know a little Spanish. I was impressed by the one cruise I took to this area last month. Hawaii. I preferred the one-way trip from Vancouver to the other options (one-way from Honolulu, RT from SF, LA, or SD), though that flight back from HNL was pretty bad. Themed cruise. My last three cruises were music themed cruises where the itinerary barely mattered (though one of them was the Mexican Riviera). If you can find a handful, or more, acts that are playing that you'd like to see, then it might be worth pulling the trigger. Keep in mind they're mostly a lot more expensive than ordinary cruises.

Thank you! I'm glad I enjoyed it too. And I'm certainly glad I enjoyed things. Future adventures... SPOILER ALERT... probably not on Princess, unless they 1) run more 80s themed cruises in the future (fairly likely; I have faith that TPTB are not complete idiots), or 2) they have reasonably priced cruises on itineraries that I'm looking for and Princess serves well (always possible).

Thank you for your kind words and thanks for sharing your experiences. I must have gotten to the port at the wrong time. The shuttle dropped us off around 1. Yes, I checked both sides. Neither of them had any food at that time. I haven't heard ANY reviews of Hollywood U2 here. They were only scheduled on one ship. The other 80s tribute bands that Princess hired seem to have been well liked (WANTED, DSB, PBX, RC, Double Vision). Your taste in music seems to be the opposite of mine. U2 comes in near the bottom of my personal list. But that's why they have a variety of bands on these cruises.

I haven't heard any rumors of any Celebrity ship being sold. The Summit is a very popular ship to charter, but charters are rarely run from San Juan. So I wonder what ship(s) they'll use for 2025.

I was on the Summit and a Royal (Navigator OTS) ship in consecutive weeks in late February and early March. Both were charters, which may or may not have made a difference. I thought the buffet on the Summit was as good as it always had been. No cuts were noticeable here. I thought the buffet on Navigator had a superior selection to the Summit, but the food quality was better on the Summit. The Navigator did the pre-filled drink thing, which I had mixed feelings about. YMMV.

Congratulations for being able to cruise more! Here are my thoughts on your questions: I've sailed on Celebrity 5 times (2 charters), most recently in March on the Summit. I've sailed on Princess 3 times, most recently last week on the Ruby Princess. I wouldn't worry about loyalty. Just choose cruises based on other factors that are most important to you. I never bother with guarantees. I think the $$$ spent to get a cabin that's where I want and has the features I need is worth it. That said, Princess has given me complimentary cabin class upgrades on each of my sailings with them (obstructed balcony to regular balcony, regular balcony to mini suite, interior to obstructed OV). Don't depend on this. I haven't sailed on either the Equinox or the Caribbean Princess, so I'll defer to others about the exact features of those ships I'm guessing the average Princess cruiser will be very close to 67. Celebrity will probably average 10-15 years younger. For food, I think Celebrity has the clear edge. Ambience is even. I really like the cabin stewards I've had on Princess, so I give them a slight edge in service in this category; otherwise they both aim to please as much as possible. Both run very clean ships. Princess' smoking policy is that smoking is allowed in the casino. They may have nonsmoking areas within the casino. Those are my two cents, worth about what you paid for it. I hope this helps.

Easier said than done. SO MANY PEOPLE here and elsewhere got started with Princess either directly or indirectly because of that show. Eventually those passengers will drift away, but why not trigger their nostalgia while they can?

Thanks! Your perspective is always invaluable. On my first look I saw Alonzo Bodden, but not George Wallace. That's a great selling point, and your endorsement is helpful. 👍 Sigh, another car payment on my CC. 🚗 When will it end? P.S. When did you see Mr. McDonald? Was it on one of your Rock & Romance cruises? Or on land?

Thank you for your kind words. And thank you and your friends for taking good care of the ship for us. I think that there would be a higher portion of 80s fans if it wasn't before the PC transit. They probably took this into account when planning which cruises to make 80s themed. Oh, one other thing I'd like to mention. The staff said this was the Ruby's first ship to Progreso. This usually means a ceremony and a plaque. Nobody mentioned anything about either for this stop. And I couldn't find the new plaque, though the Ruby's other trophies were all over the place.

I did a summary post on the general Princess board. I'll link it below. TL,DR: I saw DSB (Journey), WANTED (Bon Jovi), and Red Corvette (Prince) on this cruise. I saw Red Corvette twice. All were great in their own way, the highlights of this adventure. DSB ("Who's Crying Now") and Red Corvette ("Take Me With U") both played my favorite songs from their respective artists. Red Corvette played it during both concerts and was a huge surprise. I continue to recommend these cruises for fans of the 80s

Not a true trip report, but more of a listing of what I thought was worth noting about my trip back to the 80s on this cruise. It may be helpful for those of you who are thinking about taking one of the 80s themed cruises in the future (spoiler alert: I do think there will be 80s themed cruises in the future, though there's only one on the books now - sailing in a week and probably already sold out). Well, here goes nothing: I booked it almost as soon as it was announced that it was, in fact, an 80s themed cruise. This was back in August. I liked having lots of notice about this; it cut down on the people who were ignorant of or hostile to the theme (but didn't entirely eliminate them, as I'll note later) I canceled and rebooked it once. My interior room ended up costing me about $730, including port fees. I got a refund onboard of my port fees of about $27. We didn't miss or change any ports on this cruise (unlike the one just before this one), so I assume it's because one of our ports decided to charge us less. I appreciate Princess doing this. SOME lines make you grovel and beg for refunds like this. I prepurchased airport shuttles from Princess both ways from IAH to Galveston for $29 each way, which turned out to be a real bargain (Princess increased the price to $54 soon after). The shuttles did their job; they could've been worse. I prepurchased Internet access for $25 for the whole trip, which was $5 a day thanks to legacy pricing and a Platinum discount. It's hard for me to complain about cruise ship Internet at that price, so I won't. 🤬 I'll just note that streaming on ESPN, YouTube, and Hulu worked, at low to medium resolutions, most of the time. Stuff like e-mail and posting here worked fine. No Starlink. Here's the first of several pretty pictures showing a typical speed test, one of the things that I could only get to work sometimes: I didn't have any significant issues with the Medallion. I actually attended a lecture on using the Medallion that was designed for new cruisers to Princess and/or things like apps. It was actually interesting and I learned a few things. After getting dropped off at the port, I had to pick up my Medallion since I didn't have it sent to me prior. I regret this, as I had to snake around in a very long line like 90%+ of those who were checking in. It took about half an hour to get my medallion. If you get nothing else from this post, I recommend those that are embarking from Galveston get their medallion prior to boarding if they can do so for free, and I highly recommend it even if it costs the $10 to have it shipped. Otherwise embarkation was quick. Not much to say other than that. My cabin was not the original one that I picked. I was originally in an interior, but somebody at Princess decided that that was not good enough for me. They gave me an obstructed ocean view cabin on deck 8. I liked being close to the public locations on the ship. I was less than thrilled with being farther away from the trough. But I like OVs in general and this one in particular, though this one had a much better view of the lifeboat than of the world outside. I liked the cabin, so thank you Princess! Yes, there's a story behind that plushie. No, it didn't come with the room. Let's just say if you know, you know. 🙂 Best part of the cruise? Seeing Red Corvette perform twice. They're a Prince tribute band. Over half the songs they performed were from Purple Rain - including my favorite from the Purple One. It you don't like this movie or that soundtrack as much as I do, then you probably wouldn't have liked them as much. Second best part of the cruise? Seeing DSB perform. Only once, though I would have been better off seeing them twice. They're a Journey tribute band. Third best part of the cruise? Seeing WANTED perform. They're a Bon Jovi tribute band. Even though I've never thought much of BJ's music, the musicians here did the best they could with what they had. At that they were similar to Slippery When Wet, a Bon Jovi tribute band I saw on a previous Princess 80s themed cruise. The other good things about this cruise I won't attempt to rank. Breakfasts were consistently good at the buffet. I met some very interesting passengers - including one gentleman who wore the same shirt I did with logos of many iconic rock and roll bands. The two nights in the main theater that weren't filled with tribute bands had sets from our comedian for the week. One night he had a PG-13 performance, which I heard good things about. One night, the night I saw him, the show as strictly adult. He didn't abuse the privilege of using dirty words, IMHO. I thought he was good. The weather was very nice on this trip. The one exception was in Merida, where we got a heavy shower that was extremely localized. Progreso didn't get any rain. We did have two ports on this trip and we visited them both, unlike the previous cruise. Our first stop was Cozumel, a port I had been to many times before and plan to visit in the future. I didn't do much here besides walk around Puerta Maya and do some shopping. The next day we visited Progreso. I had never been here before, and the reviews on this place were decidedly mixed, so I wanted to check things out for myself. They had a 4-mile-long pier, which we were not allowed to walk on (except for a very small portion near the ship), so Princess set up some special bus shuttles to take those who didn't have excursions to town to do what they wanted. I was one of the ones with an excursion here. There were three basic excursions for me to choose from - Chichen Itza, the mack daddy of Mayan ruins, highly historic but far away; a closer Mayan ruin that I'm too lazy to look up the name of; and a trip to the big city of Merida. I chose the latter. We met in the theater and then were led to our bus. We had two guides an a driver. We made three stops - one to a roundabout with a carving that was loaded with historic messages, one to where the state's Governor worked (they weren't in). and a restaurant that smelled like a kickback but actually had good food if you ordered the right stuff, IMHO. I recommend the mango smoothies. I attended two lectures from former tour manager Leo Rossi. One was on his general adventures in tour management, and the other one was on the Beach Boys 50th anniversary tour back in 2012. He was very good and very interesting. I was working on his autobiography at the time, and that's also great. Alas, he had two other lectures in the evening that happened when I had conflicts. Perhaps I'll catch them some other time. The good news is I got invited to my first Princess Captain's Circle Party. The bad news is that I wasn't impressed. It just seemed like an excuse to drink and for the old salts to chin wag with each other and the officers. The stats were nice; I'll get to those in a little bit. But the most cruised passenger had over 1800 cruises on Princess. I'd need 10 lifetimes before I cruise that much on any cruise line, I estimate. General stats - there were about 3100 passengers onboard. 2200(!!) were new to Princess. About 230 were Platinum (like me) and 198 were Elite. Cruise Director Micca was good. He had a lot of energy and did a lot of introductions. He also managed the Wake Shows well and kept them under 20 minutes per day. I thought those shows were interesting in the way they covered the major events of the day and the things we needed to know about the ports we were heading to, among other things. There were three basic groups on Princess that I could see. I'll give each their own bullet point. The first group were the 80s diehards. They were easily identifiable by the clothes they wore (either 80s themed or stuff that was popular in the 80s). Their age range was roughly 45-65. Some were couples, and some were solo. Most didn't have much experience with Princess, but a few did. If you haven't figured it out yet, this is where I fit in. The second group was the core group you think of when you think of Princess. They showed up in force at the Captain's Circle Party and I saw them elsewhere around the ship in some quantities. They were generally 65+ with white hair, almost always couples. The third group was multigenerational. Some were relatively young couples with kids, some had parents/grandparents and their children, and I even spotted a few grandparents with kids. There were quite a few children on this cruise. I'm used to sailing on cruises where kids are either banned or there's a low quantity of them. This one had about 300 kiddos under 18, which is the most that I've had on any ship I've sailed on in several years. I didn't mind them; they were mostly well behaved. Danito, my cabin steward, deserves a special mention. He did a good job of keeping my room clean and giving me those newsletters, flyers, and excursion tickets. I've found Princess has had the best cabin stewards for my needs and wants. Now comes to the stuff that I don't think Princess did as well. There won't be many pictures here, so those of you in denial can safely skip out. Thank you for reading this far. For the other three of you... Dinner was a definite pain point. On embarkation day, late afternoon, I decided to grab a burger and drinks from room service. It took about 45 minutes to get to my cabin. This was acceptable, though worse than the other Princess room service performances on other ships at other times (with fewer passengers, of course). Another day, Princess chose a dinner theme of a country that's not known for its theme on cruise ships. This was the one day I couldn't find any main courses worth eating. So I grabbed whatever scraps I could and ate those. On the same day, I was a little bit hungry, so I decided to gamble on chicken tenders from room service. After an hour and a half of waiting, I messaged GS to ask what I should do. The rep said call RS directly. So I did that. The lady I got there was sorry, but they were extremely busy. I told them to cancel my order and they did. I've heard of people... elsewhere that also had problems with slow room service. On another day, it was after 6 and the buffet should have been open, right? It wasn't open. There was no food to be had. One section had employees that were meeting, but it didn't look like they were prepared to serve food even if they had any to serve. That day I went to the Salty Dog Grill and had another burger and fries. It was hot, well prepared, and perfectly fine. But I still wonder what happened to the buffet. The Ruby's buffet layout was, to put it nicely, substandard. It's not an open area like most buffets I've seen. The port side and starboard sides are cut off from each other by walls, which makes it hard to judge where to sit and probably made the seating areas needlessly crowded. The Royal class Princess ships I had been on previously were much more open and I liked much better. To give the devils their due, the two or three days I could find a decent meal in the buffet were good. I had to miss out on the most interesting trivia sessions because they liked to schedule them during the shows. Voice of the Ocean was on the initial schedule for two days but ended up not happening. We didn't get that or any regular Princess production shows this week. This is what I preferred (refer above to best things #1, #2, and #3). For my first several cruises, the facial recognition technology liked my pretty face and waved me through. This time my luck ran out and I had to see an agent. I didn't have to do much to get by them, but it was a bit of a sour note. I don't blame Princess or ICE for this. So, in conclusion, I really liked this cruise and recommend waiting for Princess to release more of them for fans of the 80s. The theming was strong enough for me, but obviously not strong enough to turn off others who really didn't care about the 80s at all. Thanks for reading.

I'll do a summary of it in this thread in the next few days. In the meantime, check out the new thread I've done about my upcoming 2024 musical adventures:

I'm back from my 80s themed cruise on the Ruby Princess. You can read about some of my adventures on that cruise at

Hi everyone. In this thread I will be chronicling my adventures on music cruises in 2024. This is a continuation of my thread on 2023 at First, the lineup for TEC 2024: I'll take the time to discuss the acts I'm interested in, my favorite song(s) from them, and my estimates on how likely they are to play it: 38 Special My favorite - "Teacher Teacher" (20% chance they'll play this during the show I'm watching) Air Supply My favorite - "Making Love Out of Nothing At All" (90%) Debbie Gibson My favorite - "Out of the Blue" (75%) Ratt My favorite - "Dangerous But Worth the Risk" (20%) Ray Parker, Jr. My favorite - "The Other Woman" (90%) Sheena Easton My favorites - "Telefone" (50%), "You Could Have Been With Me" (40%), "Are You Man Enough" (10%), and "Jimmy Mack" (5%). Odds she'll sing at least one - 65%. Odds she'll sing all four - 2%. Wang Chung My favorite - "Dance Hall Days" (80%) Midnight Star My favorite - "Operator" (90%) Animotion My favorite - "Obsession" (LOCK) I haven't seen any of these acts live, ever, on any of these cruises, or indeed ever. I did see Jessie's Girl and Trial By Fire on last year's TEC. Here's the lineup so far for the 70s Rock & Romance Cruise: Foreigner My favorite - "Down On Love" (5%) WAR My favorite - "Low Rider" (90%) Melissa Manchester My favorite - "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" (LOCK) Queen (Queen Nation) My favorite - "Another One Bites the Dust" (LOCK) The Eagles (Hotel California) My favorite - "I Can't Tell You Why" (60%) There are other acts of interest on the above list; more research is needed to figure out my favorites and/or what else they've done. I saw Queen Nation on the UDC, and I'm looking forward to seeing them again. They didn't play "Bohemian Rhapsody" there, and I'm wondering if they'll do it this time around. I think this will be less of a party hard crowd, so I think there's a good chance. I'd put the odds at 60% if they're by the pool and 90% if they're anywhere inside. Here's a shot of them live: I saw the REAL John Fogerty live a couple of years ago. He played almost all the CCR songs I knew and liked. And I saw Lou Gramm, ex lead singer for Foreigner, on this year's edition of The 80s Cruise. He skipped over "Waiting For A Girl Like You" for... reasons. I don't think Foreigner is going to skip it here; let's peg the probability at 90%. Here's Lou in fine form on TEC: Both of these are 7-day cruises going to Aruba and Curacao as their only ports. The really funny thing is I will have a cruise next January (not a music themed cruise) that ALSO goes to Aruba and Curacao, though it goes other places. TEC sails February 29-March 7 from Port Canaveral. R&R sails March 14-21 from Miami. I could find a cruise to plug the gap between them, but I'll probably just pack and head home in between. I'm not thrilled that they're both Thursday-Thursday, but it is what it is. I'm considering booking another music themed cruise. This one would be in April, using a new charter company, on a ship that's new to me, with artists that I've never seen live before. Go see the previous thread for more details, but I'll tell you more about it if and when I book. This introduction has been much too long already, so I'll cut it off here. I've loved my experience exploring my musical favorites - especially on cruises. I expect my experiences in 2024 to be just as good. Wish me luck!