Honolulu Blue

The Extra Special Announcement I alluded to above was an announcement about the lineup for next year's cruise. Since I had a hold on this cruise already, you could say that I had a stake in this. I went to Promenade to witness what the hubbub was all about. Eventually they quit beating around the bush and Gabe us the news. To make a very long story short, here's what they announced: They first announced people I didn't care for and I worried about where things were going. Then came SHEENA EASTON and I thought they might be able to salvage things. Then I heard STEPHEN PEARCY and thought this might be a good lineup after all. And it did turn out good, IMHO. Besides the two I just mentioned, I'm looking forward to seeing 38 Special, Air Supply, Debbie Gibson, Ray Parker Jr., and Wang Chung. I guess ECP can keep my money. 🏧💰🤑💲 The next post will cover yesterday's events.

Sorry for disappearing for a couple of days. I've been busy and internet has been in and out. Let's start with the journey to LA in American. It was a nonstop 6-hour flight. This was my longest flight in a very long time. It went very well. My body held up better than I thought it would. I suppose it helped that I kept myself busy. I landed at LAX and took a free shuttle to the rideshare pickup site. It was only about 5 minutes to ride there, but loading, unloading, and filling the shuttle took twice that. My Lyft driver was exceptionally quiet, a man of very few words. I didn't mind. Traffic was bad on the 405 and he had to maneuver through that. Better him than me. It cost about $65 to get to the Crowne Plaza, including tip. The Crowne Plaza was a decent enough hotel, suitable for ordinary use. This was one of the home hotels for The 89s Cruise and they had some banners ready for us. I especially liked these two as it reminded me of where I had just been. I spent an eventless night here. I couldn't get on one of the hotel's shuttles to the cruise port (I think it was $5.50 per passenger), so I took another Lyft. The terminal was less than two miles away, but the journey was twisty and I was unfamiliar with the territory, so I didn't want to risk walking. In a life filled with decisions both good and bad, this was one of the better ones. The ride only cost about $11, including tip. Some nice cruisers gently guided me to where I needed to go. This would start a sequence of stops and starts. The terminal itself was the same as the one Princess used when I boarded the Majestic Princess last year. I didn't expect that. My opinion remains the same - it badly needs a redo or a flat out teardown and rebuild. I was on the ship and checked into the muster station by noon. Welcome to The 80s Cruise! One small problem with boarding so early is that the cabin wasn't ready until 1. And unlike some other cruise lines I've been on, they didn't allow access to drop off bags. But there was actually a solution to this... I happened to be one of the few cruise ships remaining with an honest to goodness library. It was conveniently located on deck 7, where I would be staying. I've hung around here a lot the past few days, and plan to do plenty more 1 PM came and I dropped off my stuff, unpacked, and went through the usual blizzard of paperwork. Then I went to lunch at El Loco Fresh near the pool. I had a pork and a chicken fajita. Pretty good, but I couldn't find any nearby seating. So I had to go into the Solarium to eat and rest. Nice place. Less noisy than the surrounding area I also took a few random photos of the pier area. We took off right at 4 and headed to Puerto Vallarta. That evening we were entertained by Howard Jones. He was very good. My favorite song from him is "No One Is To Blame"and he played it in the middle. I stayed up for a couple of extra hours after the show to witness the Super Special Announcement that they were having. I'll address this in the next post.

Two quick notes: 1) I was recently on the Summit and dined at the OVC every day for dinner. The selection was good (few closed stations) and the food was of high quality. In other words, it was more or less back to where it was last year. I approved of this development. 👍 2) They were definitely charging the RS fee on all deliveries that weren't in the classes mentioned. I didn't partake on my latest trip.

To bend the topic around a little, I NEVER had Valentine's Day off when I was in school (unless, of course, it was a weekend). It was a good day for conversation hearts, chocolate, and cards. 🙂 More about the 80s themed cruise please! Pretty please? With sugar on top?🍭

Thank you for your kind words. Music charters are a lot of fun. I did this one, and I did two last year. I'm actually on another one right now. Be sure to stop by the Theme Cruise board for more from me and people who have a lot more experience than I do.

Thanks everyone. One more note for now: 21. The good news is we had Starlink onboard. More good news- it was relatively stable and reliable. The bad news is that the basic access I had was heavily throttled. This is the best I could do with it:

I don't know about the Millie, but I do know Starlink is installed on her twin, the Summit

This isn't going to be your typical review, but I wanted to talk about some hot button topics here and jot down some things I especially want to remember: 1. The dinner buffet was up to pre-2023 standards. The stations were all full of quality food every day. Whether this was because of all our complaints or instructions from the charter company, I'm not certain. But I very much appreciated it. 2. I didn't see or smell any pork and beans in the OVC. 👍 3. English bacon, mmmm. 😍 I missed it the last two days, though. 😕 4. I never dined in the MDR 5. I only saw my cabin steward on the first day, when I dropped off my bags and disappeared. 6. He did a pretty good job cleaning up, turning the room down, and providing daily chocolates. 7. I want to do a special shout out to some people that I met; * The lady from Alabama who had different life and cruise plans but was fun to talk to anyway * The lady who sometimes danced with me at the KC and the Sunshine Band concert and didn't laugh when I shook my booty * The lady who was a 10x vet of the Soul Train cruise and knew more about the major music charter players than I did * The guy who went to the same university I did, but a few years earlier 8. A couple of shout outs to people I didn't meet: * I saw the lead singer of Queen Nation as he hung out with us as we were getting ready to disembark: * This guy was randomly picked out of the stands to sing a Sonny and Cher song. You only get one guess as to which one it was: BTW, the singer was Cara Lee. She was good. I might not mention her again. 9. Nothing to do with Celebrity, but rideshares are getting expensive these days 10. Sample charter newsletter: 11. Sample Celebrity newsletter from the same day: 12. I saw 8 concerts on this cruise. I already mentioned KC and the Sunshine Band, Queen Nation and Cara Lee. The others were Taylor Dayne... Al McKay and his Allstars... Ashlie Amber (doing Whitney Houston songs)... Boogie Wonder Band... The Whispers... And Kool and the Gang... 13. I could have seen twice as many concerts as I did, had I had the energy and the inclination 14. The KC and the Sunshine Band concert was on land, in Key West. It was more hassle to get to and from this show than the others, but worth it, IMHO. 15. I thought all of these concerts were good. I rated Kool and the Gang's show the best of the bunch. Appropriately it came on the last evening. 16. The cruise director Jason Venner was a hired gun - not a Celebrity employee and not an employee of the charter. 17. Jason introduced many of the performers I saw, but he also told a dire story... 18. He had a message from the charter company to us: they were disappointed in our financial performance so far and there needed to be changes made in order for the cruise to continue in future years. Few details were given, other than we were to look for an email blast from them. Yes sir. 19. Overall I had a wonderful time and would recommend this and similar music charters to fans of the genre and era. 20. Did I mention that this was the Ultimate Disco Cruise? I guess I should do so now. I've tired most of you out, but for those of you who hung in there, thank you very much. If you have some questions about this cruise and my experience, go ahead and ask. I'll try to answer when I can. I will be boarding another cruise in a few hours (not Celebrity) and my Internet access will be limited after that.

I'm onboard my flight to LAX, so let me give a quick update on COVID-19 onboard the ship. There were no reports of anyone having it. I didn't hear about anyone who was quarantined. I don't know where the red zone was, if it existed. The Captain didn't mention it in any of his announcements (he only made one that I heard the whole voyage). Masks were worn by fewer than 1% of passengers and fewer than 5% of crew. The performers never wore them. I'm hoping for a similar lack of news on my next cruise. 🙏

Hi guys. I survived the trip off the ship and made it to Miami airport. First, Celebrity gave us instructions to meet in the Rendezvous Lounge at 7:25. This was for self disembarks. Then last night they changed the time to 6:30. Great, I said to myself, we're arriving extra early. We'll, not exactly. I went to the lounge but we hadn't yet docked. In the meantime, I met a couple who was a veteran of a couple of UDCs (like me) and an incredible 10 Soul Train cruises. I also met an alumnus of my old university. He even stayed in one of my old dorms. We also were graced with the presence of the lead singer for Queen Nation. No pictures of this encounter, but this is the guy at work: Maybe I'll see him again next year? Eventually, at about 7:30, our line started to move. I was among the first 30 passengers off. That's one of the nice things about how Celebrity treats me - they allow me to be one of the first people off. I choose NOT to think it's by design. I did the face recognition thing and got a quick thumbs up. I did a foolish thing and didn't preregister for a shuttle. There didn't seem to be any handy rideshare pickup options (another mistake was not researching this beforehand), so I stood in the taxi line. I got a good driver and we made good time, but the trip cost $45 (with tip). Yikes!! I don't think my trip to San Pedro from LAX is going to cost that much, but we'll see. From where I was dropped off I had to walk a long way to get to a checkpoint that would take unwashed peasants like me. The walk through security wasn't too bad. I think I was part of a trial - I had to walk with a completely random partner while a little doggie and his handler checked us for... Whatever. We were clean and continued on. My DL scan went well, and that's where my good luck ran out. It took a long time to get through the rest of security, partly because the scanner didn't like my belt and I had to fix that. After getting through that, I had a very long walk to my gate. I'm used to Detroit Metro providing a monorail and/or moving sidewalks for something like this. But MIA had neither of these conveniences. Sorry. Let's go back to yesterday. Not much of note happened besides the Kool and the Gang concert. And what a concert it was! This might have been the best concert I've ever been to, ever, in my life. Here are a couple of pictures. This closes the book on my Ultimate Disco Cruise. It's future may be in limbo, bit I'll always have the memories. Next time I'll cover the rest of today and possibly part of tomorrow as part of my coverage of The 80s Cruise.

Today we're heading back to Miami. For most on this cruise, it's the end of their adventure. But for me, it's merely the end of the beginning. Reviewing my day in Cozumel... I went onshore briefly to take a few pictures and see the sights, such as they were. If you look very carefully, you can see the Ruby Princess tucked in behind the Carnival Valor. Two stories here: 1) I'll be on the Ruby next month on another musical adventure - it also goes to Cozumel 2) My first cruise was on the Valor way back in 2014. It didn't go to Cozumel. I meandered through the day until I got the chance to see Boogie Wonder Band by the pool at 4. They're a general disco eta tribute band from Canada of all places. They fit in a lot of songs and put on a high quality, high energy show. It was impossible for me not to boogie along. Here are some of the pictures that weren't ruined by my dancing: Not too long after this, The Whispers played in the main theater. Recall that they were a last minute replacement for Billy Ocean. The theater wasn't quite full for the show, but it was pretty close. We did have one special guest - let's call her the neon butterfly lady: Sorry, this was the best I could do here. She really did look better in person, even from a distance. Anyway, The Whispers put on a good show, and the crowd got into it once they found songs they could recognize. Also, I noted a few posts ago that Taylor Dayne's late show was 58 minutes long. This show clocked out at only 57 minutes. Quick but lively. And that's it. I think Kool and the Gang will be the only show for me today, so I'll report on that tomorrow. Until then, try not to be too jealous. 😁

Spring break starts earlier for many colleges - some as soon as mid-February.

I forgot to add Christine Duffy's name as Carnival President.

Forgive me for not reviewing that big discussion, but I'm sure the point that Carnival has had a minimal European presence for at least a decade has been brought up there. And often Carnival's presence in Europe is related to its newest ships being built there and shown off before departing for its true home. After the Jubilee, there are no more new builds scheduled from Carnival - and guidance from them hints that it may be several years before they build any more new ships. And Carnival Corporation is well represented in Europe already. Princess and HAL are there seasonally. Cunard, P&O UK, Aida, and Costa are there year round. This has been a roundabout way of saying don't expect much from the whale tail in Europe. Fir your sake, @dkmarionaz, I hope I'm wrong . 🙏

Thanks for sharing. I haven't seen this particular letter (my next scheduled Carnival sailing is in November), but Carnival President covered most of this territory in a video a week or two ago. There's a thread about it around here somewhere; I'm too lazy to go looking for it.

It seems you have your answers from others about doing this side-to-side. Have fun! Please allow me to briefly share my somewhat related stories. My first side-to-side (sort of) was last year when I had one cruise sailing from Miami, then I disembarked and got on a cruise two days later in Port Canaveral. That was a fun adventure, but neither cruise was on Carnival, so I'll cut it off here. My second sort-of side-to-side is happening now. I boarded my first cruise in Miami and will disembark there tomorrow. The next cruise is on Friday... in Los Angeles. That promises to also be quite an adventure, but that story has yet to be completely written. BTW, neither of these cruises are on Carnival.

Bonus coverage! I stopped by the future sales desk earlier this morning. Unlike regular Celebrity cruises, this one is set up to only sell future StarVista Live cruises. Since this one has no future ☹️, they had little to sell. And as I went by there, the agents were like Maytag repairmen sitting around and talking to each other. There was one gentleman that stopped in who got part of the memo about the UDC being canceled for next year. I didn't stick around for his full answer. Anyway, they had some nice banners around advertising their music charters. I recognize the band on this one: I found a business card advertising next year's Rock and Romance cruise. Here's both sides of it: This ends my bonus report. I'll follow up tomorrow with how the rest of this day went.

I assume they used category guarantees to go over capacity. They don't guarantee a specific cabin, only one in that class or better.

Thank you for following along. I'm starting to become a bigger Cara Lee fan. Maybe I'll see her again on future sailings. Speaking of future sailings, let me start with that. Our CD Jason always gives us a morning message that's available to watch as a VOD on the ship's TV. This morning part of it was about the UDC's fate. To make a long, mostly circular story short, StarVista is disappointed by our sales, they want to try some things and put the pressure on us to drum up support somehow (few details yet), there's a small chance it could be added to the schedule sometime in '24, better chance for '25. No commitment and no promises. I like the UDC and look forward to seeing what they plan to change. If I like what I see, I'll book it whenever it is. Otherwise it's given me some wonderful memories. Memories like an afternoon by the pool stage listening to Queen Nation. This was another recommendation from @GeorgeCthat worked out well. I liked them even though they didn't play Queen's most famous song (understandable; they knew their audience liked to dance and that would have put some of them to sleep). They also played too many of their newer songs, which I didn't like. But I got a good seat and even recorded pieces of a couple of their songs. They're definitely not ready for prime time, so don't look for them to be published anywhere, ever. The pictures were all right, even though I did some pointing and praying. It helps that I got some nice seats. BTW, my favorite Queen song is "Another One Bites the Dust" and they closed the show with it. I chilled out for a few hours and then it was time to see the Al McKay Allstars. Mr. McKay was a founding member of Earth Wind and Fire. They put on a great show. The theater looked full and they got the people standing and dancing. Two songs from EW&F stand out for me - "Serpentine Fire" and September". They opened with the former and saved the latter for their penultimate song. That was it for me, other than planning out today. We traveled through the night and got to Cozumel a little before 7. We've been cleared for a couple of hours. I haven't left the ship yet, but plan to stretch my legs later on. I don't have any excursions. We do have company. Off in the distance I saw some cruise ships, and right next to is this behemoth: That's all I have to say for now. Thank you for stopping by. I'll continue this adventure tomorrow.

$35 per night sounds about right for Celebrity's premium access. Basic should be less, though you'll get less use out of it. I'm on the Summit RIGHT NOW doing a run from Miami to Cozumel. I have basic Internet provided by Starlink. Here's my latest test: If you go without, you're not missing much, IMHO.

For a wild moment, I thought CC stood for Cruise Critic and I wondered about waving that card around to solve whatever problems I had. Then I saw the next post... And never mind. I'm just silly. 🤪

The question seems to be answered, but in summary there are four ways to find out what activities are on a specific sailing: * Join the roll call and ask * Ask on the general board for the cruise line * Look for threads from others on the same or a similar sailing; sometimes they post daily newsletters * Check on the app; Celebrity and Princess will load some activities early and they can be previewed In addition, on music charters, the charter company will make available a detailed schedule of it's events. I used to be much more interested in the specific events that were happening, but as I've gained experience, I find that a lot of the activities are similar from sailing to sailing - even across cruise lines. P.S. Yes, Carnival offers more than belly flops and line dancing.

Fair enough. I still don't agree. I've dined in many restaurants solo on my life and seen many others do the same. I don't apply the sadness label to them and I hope it's not applied to me. Because it's just not true.

I can think of a hundred things sadder without breaking a sweat. On my personal patheticness scale, either reading a book or seeing someone else do so barely rates. But it's interesting that you think so, and I'm sure you're not alone.

That's the M.O. of most of their CDs, I've found. I'm comforted to know this hasn't changed.