ballroom-cruisers

My wife told me that with great authority there is a holiday law that states, "All food when you are on holiday is completely devoid of any calories", which I accept completely as the whole truth. So we eat what we like on holiday but are a little more careful once back home.

Displaying calorie counts is quite usual in British cafes and restaurants, and hotels, so that people can avoid over-eating.

If you want to see an even more impressive waterfall than Niagara, set off on a trip to central Africa and visit the Victoria Falls, now known as Musi-oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders). You will find you have lots of space and it is nowhere near as crowded as Niagara! (PS you can't get there on a cruise ship though unless it is mounted on wheels for the 4000 odd miles drive from the nearest ocean!)

It is nice to chat and mingle, but the drinks are not a major factor for me. But as already stated these events are not a make or break deciding factor when choosing a cruise.

This is one reason we tip staff directly without going through the managed on board account. It is do nice to see the smiles and happiness that the direct approach gives.

Right now Cunard cruises still are what we prefer, and although ballroom dancing is our primary enjoyment on holiday of course we love the life at sea, the elegance and environs of the ship, the ports of call, the dining, the theatre, the lack of any need to drive anywhere, and meeting lovely people as part of the experience - but so much will depend on how things change in the coming years. But if ballroom dancing becomes tortuous, then all those other things will not be enough to replace being able to dance as well as enjoy the other lovely aspects of a voyage.

There are different dance breaks available by flying from the UK into European countries - Spain does have some, as do other countries like Portugal and Cyprus and a more careful search will find a few others too. I guess your local 'ballroom' dances in the Cote d'Azur sound a little different to those in various parts of the UK. Ballroom dance evens are a different animal to sequence dance dance events, and indeed there are line dance events as another flavour again.

Yes you are right about no 14 night consecutive dancing on a land based break (none that I know of either). What has become fairly easily available are 3 or 4 night weekend or midweek ballroom dance breaks though, and some land-based 7 night ballroom holidays but with a need to fly to get to them. However whilst at the moment a two week voyage with Cunard still provides the opportunity to dance ballroom and Latin in the Queen's Room every night, there does seem to be a push from the top to limit that by dilution and it all depends whether the gurus in their offices in Southampton wish to push that further, or not, that will govern how people feel about paying for two weeks at sea, if they can't do ballroom dancing every evening, even if the remainder of the experience, is still 'life aboard not too dissimilar to the previous experiences. Over the next year or two we will all get to know if the experience on board is changing in a way we feel we can continue to enjoy, or not. Equally the land-based ballroom holiday organisations will quite likely increase availability if they see a profitable market with a ready made supply of dancers who wish to enjoy that, even if it is 3 or 4 nights at a time with other more local dances to go to from home in between those times.

If you do a quick web search you will find Butlins is still alive and functioning well. One thing that is noticeable with posts both on this forum and various others not just on CC is that all have some level of spread of posts that are of three main types - glowing positive reports of lovely experiences sometimes littered with nice pictures that people are happy to share, grumbling posts that often generate a huge thread of 'me too' posts with a smattering of those who feel the complaints go too far, and innocent questions in need of real information in reply. Some of the latter end up as people disagreeing from two opposite ends of the spectrum. However it is interesting that there are forums where there are many controversies and disagreements of opinion, whereas there are other forums where there are very few complaints about service or facilities, and where the majority seem very happy with the holiday(s) they have enjoyed. Even on CC the forums for some cruise lines are generally quiet, with most posts pretty positive when they do appear, even if the numbers of passengers who are on the ships is not too much different to those on Cunard. Whilst a lot seem quite happy with the Cunard offering, it is clear that there is a significant level of discontent. How Cunard runs its operation into the future and how passengers respond will be interesting to see.

I would not be surprised if more ports get added to the no-go places after some Norwegian fjords, and as you say, Amsterdam, and of course Venice has now limited which ships can go in to the centre via the Grand Canal. It is certainly possible that the cost both financial and in pollution of the big ships coming in, and the need to provide a very costly berth facility and port-side terminal, and security, with all the attendance financial, maintenance and staffing costs, is not offset by economic benefits from the large disgorgement of human cargo for a day at a time. No doubt we will all be following any changes in ports where cruise ships are no longer welcome.

Of course those on this forum are probably all here because we do like being at sea, and we do like arriving at multiple ports over a period of a week or two, and enjoying going ashore. But at the same time a lot of us like the on-board life, and the enjoyment of a high quality hotel experience, with lovely meals, as well as great entertainment in the evenings and daytime. If the latter are diluted beyond some level, so that the entertainment we love so much disappears, then the experience of being on board a wonderful cruise ship is no longer as attractive for us, and therefore if the primary enjoyment comes from the life aboard, with delightful cuisine, and excellent entertainment can be experienced elsewhere, but without that extra dimension of being at sea, walking the prom deck, or having nice ports of all to visit, then the appeal of the equivalent of on board life that can be experienced on land, may be enough to persuade some fraction of passengers to swap the cruise experience for high quality land experience. The short comment about sounding like Butlins above will certainly be valid at some UK resorts - but certainly there are now experiences available on land that are nothing at all like Butlins, and staying in a resort built upon long standing classic stately homes has no connection with Butlins at all. The comment above about it being more difficult to find the ideal space for dedicated ballroom dancers, is less so as time passes because there are an increasing number of holiday organizations that are now seeing a market for those who do enjoy ballroom dancing who want to do so as part of a more extended holiday. We are enjoying more of those each year, and it is nice to see that happening.

There seems to be so much angst in the cruise forums, with quite a lot of posts complaining about one or other issue on cruises, and the Cunard forum is no exception. There was a post on one of the forums on a well known media platform, about one of the UK land based holiday companies, who provide what has been called a 'cruise on land', with comparable entertainment activities, including theatre shows in the evening, ballroom dancing, and other 'sporting' activities in the daytime, as well as choices of dinner venues, and offered them a visit with the chance to video and put out public reviews. One of those holiday companies was recently invited by the owners of a web presence which has cruise reviews and provides cruise information, to visit and film, with a view to comparing land based 'cruises' with cruise ship sea cruises. So it looks very much like the land based holiday companies are seeing a potential opening to a market share for those cruise loyal passengers who could be tempted away from the voyages that lead to so many grumbles, and perhaps try a cruise-style break on land, where the issues they find on the cruise ships are not a problem. This is particularly the case for the UK where there are increasing opportunities to have an easy journey to a land based resort, where the atmosphere, meals, and entertainment are comparable to those on a cruise, and often in quite elegant surroundings - which would appeal to the traditional cruise passenger. So it will be interesting to see whether these alternative holidays become more popular relative to cruises.

Hopefully it won't deteriorate to become Magaluf-at-sea.

From my own experience I think talking to a live human being on the phone is way better than emailing customer services. The real human can log in directly on their computer and change the settings there and then if you ask them to do so. Whether or not some random agent responding to email would do the same seems less likely. Also in principle I believe that it should be possible to change your own 'promotion/contact' settings if you log in to your Cunard account. If the settings are indeed changed, then you will still not get a questionnaire retrospectively, but should do at the end of your next voyage. One other point of information. It is believed that dance hosts (as opposed to a professional dance couple), will be on most of the QV voyages for the rest of this year, and they will be required to dance with solo dancers in the evenings, as well as run the group beginner dance classes in the middle of the day on sea days. Others may get trickles of information about whether the same will be happening on the other ships for the rest of this year, assuming the professional ballroom couples all resign. One other interesting observation was that recently on QM2, a gaggle of theatre girls were at the beginner ballroom classes trying to learn how to dance basic waltz, tango and some Latin dances.

In answer about announcements if the aurora is visible at sea, we had that experience last year in May on QE (same voyage that HH linked to). At sea and heading towards the north of Norway, it was a Gala evening, and around 11.30pm we were dressed up with tuxes, bowties, and ladies in ballgowns, and having a drink in the Commodore Club. Captain came on and said the northern lights were visible from the deck if anyone was interested. There was a mass rush back to cabins, the evening dresses were discarded, bowties thrown aside, sweatshirts donned along with winter jackets, and woolly hats, and crowds went up the lifts and stairs, to a very careful walk across the snow covered deck being careful not to slip on ice too. The clear starry night was painted with pale green flickering auroras and loads of people stood on deck getting frozen with phones taking pictures and video. The next evening also around the same time a similar announcement, and again we all rushed to grab winter coats and hats and back up onto the deck. I would imagine that would be the norm. Shame that the day we arrived in Tromso it was a snowstorm/blizzard, and those who had booked the excursion to the clear skies away from the town came back without seeing the aurora, but they got a very close view of a Norwegian blizzard. So the quick answer is - 'yes' - we certainly had a captain's announcement twice on that voyage when the aurora was visible at sea - though if it happened after midnight I am not sure there would be one as it would wake people up who had already gone to sleep.

Starlink is being installed but it is clearly not rolled out to all passengers yet.

A few years ago we had our settings 'reset' by Cunard, during a web server update that must have gone wrong, for where they send out questionnaires - so I phoned Cunard and the agent set them back correctly and they have sent us questionnaires at the end of every voyage since then. A phone call might do the trick for you also! Also make sure that they have the correct email address to send them to you, and also double check that they don't end up in your spam folder, and if so 'unspam' them.

Yes indeed, elmsliebev, but I expect Cunard will receive a fair few comments, both in the post-voyage questionnaires, as well as passengers collaring the entertainment managers while they are still on the ship. I have seen a few 'exchanges' of that latter kind on a few occasions in the past!

Like some musicals, some songs last decades, if not centuries, and others are a one-time wonder with no lasting appeal. There are songs that are regularly played from the middle of the last century, but others are created that barely touch the ears before being forgotten. It is the difference between music of greatness, and music that is hardly music!

Am I wrong remembering in the old days that if flying through an airport as a 'transit' passenger, that you got off your aircraft, went into the terminal, but didn't clear customs, and remained a 'transit' passenger air-side only until you got on the plane for your onward journey out of the country? I used to do a lot of flying in my working days, but I can't remember if in those times you also had to fully come into the USA, even if you were leaving the airport within a short time to leave the USA again? I certainly remember Redhook being a long-winded painful and seemingly unnecessary several hours to end up being back on the ship for an onward voyage to the Caribbean - though I also remember that, having been 'processed' on the outward voyage, coming back through Redhook, was much quicker and easier, and the ship I seem to remember did not need zeroing on the return trip back to Southampton.

The download speeds look like one would expect from Starlink, but the upload speeds are very low and should be nearer 20 to 30Mpbs, thiugh they could affected adversely if a lot of people were active on the same connection during your tests.. Also ping times are not great and would expect more in the region of 20 to 40ms rather than ten times that latency. So it is not clear the connection is actually going via Starlink in your tests.

Yes the professionals offered private dance lessons, which were usually in the Queen's Room during the daytime provided no other activity was already in the room. At the moment it looks like if the professional couple will not accept the new terms of contract and all resign, then that will no longer happen. Whether other dance teachers or dance hosts are offered and be prepared to run group dance classes, remains to be seen - but they may not offer private individual lessons the way the professional ballroom dancers have been doing for many years.

Hopefully, NE John, hopefully, it is not too late and hopefully the horse has not already bolted. Yes some of the theatre dancers may have had previous ballroom dancing experience at a reasonable level - but only a fraction.

Sadly that would seem likely - they may bring in some theatre dancers, from the cast who are on board doing the theatre dancing, to put on a 'show' on Gala nights in the Queens Room - but of course they are not professional ballroom dancers, so that would be no more skilled than the dancing they do in the theatre during some shows. So we will probably not have the top level high quality show dances - they may do some dancing that looks dramatic, and full of energy, but not likely to be the real quality of movement that we love to see in the professional ballroom dancers who have been past national champions and similar skill level. Oh, and Safarigal, yes on some loss, though saving by not paying the dance professionals, and there may be a loss of some loyal Cunarders too who may book on other lines, but maybe they won't mind replacing the passengers they lose with new passengers migrating in from other lines.

I guess that Cunard has not had as much feedback from people who want to continue ballroom dancing on board, as the vociferous feedback from non-dancers about putting other events on in the Queens Room, or the clamour about wanting disco dancing that everyone can do, and so on. In the end if there are lots of people who don't want to dance and make a lot of comments about it, and the dancers keep quiet, then eventually the managers will change things.... hopefully we will still be able to do enough ballroom dancing on the cruises we have booked to keep us happy - for now - but we will of course, like others, see how things change. We send in our feedback before and after every voyage, but perhaps we are a minority among the passengers. At least there are still other options that allow us to keep dancing ballroom, and Latin, regularly.