Honolulu Blue

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.

Let's see, where was I? Oh yes, describing my day in Key West. Be patient; this could take a while. After a good breakfast and some knocking around, I went out about 10:30. That was the time StarVista Live told us the shuttles would be starting. I didn't want to have to settle for a lawn seat, so part of the plan was to get out early. I followed the crowd and actually got on the first shuttle to the amphitheater. We got off and joined the (at that time short) line for us from the cruise ship to get in. This was about 10:45. Much of that time was spent listening to the others in line and their stories about this cruise, other cruises, and their lives beyond this experience. Half an hour later they let us in. I scoped out the seating situation. Half the seats were reserved for our group. The other half were for the locals that bought tickets. There were a few covered seats on the berm and some lawn space beyond that. I ignored them and headed to the main seating area. I actually got a nice spot in row 4. We had a DJ entertain us for about an hour until the main event. They actually premiered a new KC and the Sunshine Band single for us. I thought it was pretty good. KC and the Sunshine Band played for us for about an hour and 20 minutes. They played most of the songs you know them for. And yes, they played my favorite song from them, the relatively obscure "I Like to Do It". A lot of the stories and jokes KC told were familiar from my last experience with him at last year's UDC. P.S. I thought the dancer on the far right was a stunner. She didn't photograph well because she's such a lively dancer that I always got her out of position. They brought up George McCrae to sing his big hit (which KC wrote) "Rock Your Baby". Before I forget, I'd like to thank the lady next to me for sometimes dancing with me. She had decent moves and she had the good manners to not LOL at my attempts to shake my booty. No pictures of her, sorry. Like all good things, this concert came to an end. This really was a good show, worth all the extra hassle and energy I put into it. Did I mention that the sun was beaming down on me the whole time? Well, it was. It was only about 80 outside and there were occasional cooling breezes, but it was still an exhausting experience. There was a long line for the shuttles back, so I decided to walk back to the ship. I must have taken the scenic route, because it lasted longer than expected. Half an hour later I made it back to the cabin. I skipped out on the ex Chic ladies because I was so tired. I was sorry to do this, but I wanted to save myself. By sunset I was ready to mingle again. I had dinner in the OVC and again I had no issues finding things I liked. One of many nice things about the Cafe is there are lots of windows where you can see random things like this: I spent some time talking to a cruise buddy I had previously met in that KC and the Sunshine Band line. We split to go sit in separate sections but hooked up here. We discussed our musical plans for the night. They didn't match up, but I was able to point her in the right direction for what she wanted to do. After seeing her off, I killed some time before the Ashlie Amber concert in the Sky Lounge. I arrived 15 minutes early and quite literally hady choice of seats. I chose one in row 2. At show time the lounge was full - 300 or so Whitney Houston fans looking to be entertained. And I don't think any of us were disappointed. We'll, I was, kind of - "So Emotional", my favorite song from Whitney, was played early but got cut short. As for the rest, Ashlie showed a big voice and a diva-esque presence. I wouldn't be surprised if bigger things are in her future. She was another singer that went into the audience for a song, but she moved too fast for me to capture it. Sorry. Moving along, I went back to my refreshed room to plan out the next day and wait for my date with Cara Lee, who would be doing Cher in the Rendezvous Lounge. The Rendezvous Lounge turned out to be an open area with more distracting background noise than normal. I arrived 15 minutes early and again I had my choice of seats. I chose row 3 center. It took a while for the front row to fill. I'll tell that story a little later. I was greeted by a gentleman who had sat next to me at the Ashlie Amber show a couple of hours ago. He had seen Cara Lee twice before. That he was seeing her again seemed to be quite an endorsement. This was a different experience in that there was no band behind Cara here, just a backing music track. She did quite well. I was quite entertained. The most fun I had was when she picked a random guy out of the stands and had him play Sonny Bono on "I Got You Babe" I suppose "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves" is my favorite song from Cher. Cara played it and did a fine job with it. The front row did eventually fill and we got people dancing to some of Cher's greatest hits. After the show was over I went to sleep. My next post will cover the events of today. I've got some Earth Wind and Fire on mimd, among other things.

Jenni Fielding from Cruisemunmy.com did what I thought was almost impossible - compile a list of Carnival's all-time top 10 cruise directors. You can see the list at this link: https://www.cruisemummy.co.uk/top-carnival-cruise-directors/ I thought it was well worth the time to read. It includes lots of details about each of the people picked. About the list itself, I trust that few veterans here are going to be surprised at her #1. Each of her picks I've heard of and they have their fan clubs here and elsewhere. But I've had the pleasure of sailing with 12 different CDs, and NONE of them made the list. I guess I'm sorry to miss them, if I don't happen to catch them sometime in the future.

This is a quick post to explain some things and try out some things. I'll go into much more detail in a few hours. I broke down and got the basic Internet plan for the rest of the cruise for $54. The good news is, as others have reported, Starlink is up and running. The bad news is that it's severely throttled: I had a great day in Key West, despite it mostly being about these guys: I skipped out on the ex Chic ladies by the pool in the afternoon, but I did keep my evening dates with Ashlie Amber... And Cara Lee All three concerts were wild and wonderful in their own ways. More about these and other stories soon. Stay tuned.

I had a hefty post on the Taylor Dayne concert all ready to go, but it was wiped out. My fault. Here are the highlights: * I thought she was good * She played my favorite song from her third * She went into the crowd to sing one of her songs * The concert was short - only 1:03 * Theater was close to full * Some left early - I don't know why * I saw the second concert in my cabin on the live feed * It was mostly the same Taylor, but... * She skipped a song! That made this second concert only 58 minutes. * I went to the OVC between shows * It was up to expectations - good selection, good quality My next post will cover the Key West experience - including the KC and the Sunshine Band concert. Meanwhile, here are some pictures.

Greetings from Key West! While I have 5g access, let me wrap up the rest of day 1. They gave me a free lanyard along with a bunch of other gifts: The second to last item is a mat - most useful for not sitting on the bare grass during the KC and the Sunshine Band concert. I'll discuss that more later. They did give us more written instructions on this concert. We don't have any reserved seats as a group. This surprised me. But with early access to the amphitheater just for us, it shouldn't be an issue for me to get a seat. And I do want one, because that mat is smelly. We left on time (4 PM) and arrived here on time (7 AM). We were cleared by 7:20. I barely felt anything midship on deck 2 in my interior cabin. Good job Captain Dimitri! I'll do the Taylor Dayne concerts in a separate post.

The top of page 4 is an excellent place to start my adventure. This will cover my pre cruise travel, the hotel, and boarding. Future posts will cover the rest. We had a nasty little ice storm in southern Michigan on Wednesday. I never lost power, though many other Michiganders weren't so lucky. Here's how bad things got at its peak on Thursday: We got a glancing blow here. This is what it looked like near where I live: Things were better by the time I left on Friday morning, but you can see why I wanted to get away. I had a Southwest flight (insert scary noises) to Miami through Nashville. Thankfully, all legs were eventless - though one of the gate agents at Metro noted that she was still without power. Nashville seemed like a nice smaller airport. I wouldn't mind stopping there again sometime. After arrival at MIA I searched for the hotel. Miami International Hotel was right inside the airport, which was the convenience I wanted on this trip. It was a bit of a hike from where we landed. Unlike last time I was here, there were only a couple of people in line and my wait at the desk was only a couple of minutes. They gave me my key and told me about the breakfast voucher my booking earned me. I'd have to pick it up at the desk the next morning. I'll tell you about that meal a little later. My room on the 5th floor was small by modern hotel standards with only a twin bed. I could lie in bed and almost change the channels on the TV with my feet. The bathroom was surprisingly roomy and well stocked with toiletries and towels. Overall I thought it was a good room and met my needs. It cost $190 for the night, which surprisingly was one of the lower rates I saw for the Miami area. The breakfast was at Air Margaritaville, which was across from the check in desk from the hotel. I had eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast, butter, and water. It was good, well worth what I paid for it (just the tip). Thanks guys. After cleaning up I left the hotel and took a Lyft to the port. I was a little worried that I didn't pick to the right terminal, but I picked exactly the right one. And the Summit was already there. Rideshares are expensive these days; I paid $36 for this one. Ouch. Also ouch was the considerable line I found myself in to enter the terminal. The COVID-19 test and vaccine checks were done outside by StarVista Live staff. My passport, ID, and boarding pass were checked at various places as I wound my way to the ship. I didn't have any particular issues, though again I wish I had printed out my boarding pass. After I got onboard I went to the casino for my brief briefing (I had watched the video back at the hotel). They checked me in. I hope it takes and I don't have to do this again. Then I dropped off my bags at the room. I briefly met my cabin steward who gave me some instructions. I hope he doesn't think too ill of me; I'm never at my best on embarkation day. By 11:30 I made it to my "secret" hiding place and started working on this post, among other things. This is the earliest I've ever been onboard any ship. I'm not even hungry yet. I'll eventually go feed myself at the trough. Next I'll cover the rest of day 1 and possibly a bit of day 2.