pakarinen

Ironic. DW and I haven't sailed since the Crown Princess Noro Cruise to Nowhere. Our vacations have all been flights to wherever and hotels. I thought I'd check back in to see how things were going.

We left Lauderdale late b/c the Crown was being disinfected. Didn't do any good. But we were lucky and / or took adequate precautions - no Noro for us and we did get a full refund.

Aside - somebody mentioned airplane armrests, etc. Supposedly, the seatback pocket is the filthiest part of the plane. Don't know if that's accurate or urban legend.

Anyway, good luck and may all your cruises be Noro free! The Crown is a beautiful ship and the food was excellent.

They sure do make it a PITA to sign up for Pre-check. The closest enrollment office is 120 miles from my home.

 

Global Entry I have to drive to Charlotte which is two hours the other direction.

 

Maybe one day.....:rolleyes: I wish they shared databases with other agencies as I am a CAC holder but not through DOD. Already went through quite a background check, but I am still one of the unwashed....

Interesting. DW got Pre-check without even asking for it. But she does fly about once a week for biz during her high travel season. Last time we flew on vacation, she booked the tix and *I* was cleared for Pre-check, probably because the tix were purchased in her name.

Geez, you have a CAC? I'm a Fed contractor and some others in my company were saying how tough it is to get that. I've just got Public Trust.

Oh yes, that was the cruise right after ours. I hope that you've been able to book a future cruise where you can actually travel...somewhere!!

Thanks!

What can one do about elevator buttons or stair rails?

Elbows, forearms and a pencil. Don't stir your drink with the pencil after punching elevator buttons. ;)

Just looked up Noro in my Merck Manual for the heck of it. Then I noticed it's the 16th edition. LOL! Guess I better update (unless the MM has been replaced by an LCD screen...)

Chlorox is now selling a hydrogen peroxide-based disinfectant which they claim kills noro. I have no personal experience with the product.

DW and I were on the Crown Princess Noro Cruise to Nowhere (2012) :( and we used a hand gel that explicitly claimed to kill noro; I've forgotten the product name.

I don't know if it worked or we were just lucky b/c we didn't get sick. But then we were obsessive-compulsive about not touching rails, elevator buttons, etc.

Best advice is to do some Googling of your own or ask your family doc and see what you can come up - anything on an Web board is probably best taken with a grain of salt. ;)

Good luck!

but does Princess allow smoking in the lounges?

AFAIK, there is no smoking inside now except for the cigar bar and the casino. I never saw anybody smoking in any of the lounges nor did I see ashtrays. You can smell smoke by the customer service desk next to the casino, but aside from portside outside, that's all I saw / smelled.

I think there's a sticky on the P. subforum on the smoking policy.

We appreciate the no smoking policy on Celebrity but may try Princess in the future because we've heard the dancing opportunites are better.

On the Crown, there was an outstanding band playing swing, rock, and some country in Explorers Lounge. Packed dance floor. There was another outstanding band in the Wheelhouse Bar playing jazz, but as soon as I asked them to play a rumba and DW and I actually dance to it, they switched to ballroom. Fewer people there.

We tried Latin / salsa in Skywalkers but the floor is a panel floor and since the seas were rough, I felt like I was offbalance most of the time. Very hard dancing up there IMO. Plus the DJ eventually devolved to booming trance / techno music, so we left.

Club Fusion (aft) has the biggest floor and it's quite nice but they only had a sad little quartet playing ballroom one night for about an hour. It was sort of funny - the band had the enthusiasm of molasses when we were there. But since we had the floor largely to ourselves, we hung around before heading to Wheelhouse.

(Sorry for the hijack!)

[...] unfortunately Celebrity doesn't have much interest in ballroom dancing, and has designed their Solstice class ships to the detriment of ballroom dancers. In addition, their opportunities for ballroom music have degraded over the years.

 

[...] we have switched mainly to Princess, which offers better live ballroom music and better dance venues.

Thanks, BD. Good to know. We were considering HAL but decided against them b/c of their smoking policies. Looks like we might have to stick with Princess if we want to dance onboard.

Please post how things go dancing-wise on the Eclipse once you get back. Tnx!

Late night dancing normally offers few ballroom dances but if you like gyrating there should be some chances to meet others.

Ah. We also do dance club dances like swing and salsa, but I assume there's not much chance of hearing a waltz or foxtrot in any of the lounges?

I'm curious to see if you get any answers and any comments about the dance floors on X. My wife and I were with a ballroom dance group on the Crown Princess and danced every night in the Wheelhouse Lounge.

We're thinking of a Celebrity cruise next time, but not with any particular group. Of course, it's less of an issue for us since we're partnered up, but we did have 4 or 5 single ladies in our dance group. I think there were a few single women who would wander into the Wheelhouse in the evening, but no idea if they danced.

Don't be so sure that Princess will never ban smoking in the casino. I think they will ban it there. They have done it on Celebrity. I noted that the non smoking casino was full on Celebrity Constellation without smoking. I do agree with you that allowing smoking in the casino is a contradiction.

We often noticed a strong odor of smoke by the customer service desk (next to the casino) on the Crown. Not sure if that would ever be sufficient for PC to make the casino a non-smoking area.

Just as a side note, the smoking areas were very easy to avoid IME.

As you know, the dancing availability really differs from ship to ship -- even within the same cruise line. I agree -- we are a group that is rapidly growing in number and we need to make our presence known. I think we need to have a sub-group within Cruise Critic to promote the availability of ballroom dancing on all ships. How do we go about doing it? [...] How can we unite and further our musical cause?

 

debby

Haven't visited this sub-forum for awhile...

Dunno, I'd guess the cruise lines would provide what the majority of guests want, which I suspect is NOT ballroom. And I suspect that a sub-forum would not get much traffic. However, if there's an opportunity to provide feedback to the cruise lines via postcard or Web or whatever, I'd certainly ask for BR music onboard.

Aside: we booked with a ballroom dance group, so there will be 60, give or take, of us onboard. Not sure if we'll have "private" venues or if we'll have to mix with the other passengers for dancing.

Dance friends were an Alaskan (non-dance) cruise and they said the band played whatever they requested because they were the "stars" of the dancefloor - other passengers came to watch them dance. I'd prefer not to be a floorshow, but if it works to my advantage... Heh heh heh...

Not familiar with Crown Princess. The company was set up on the pool deck (not as bad as it sounds) but Costa's music in all the lounges, not just the main one, was good enough most people braved the crowds of civilians.

Although I do International, most people were American.

Just to be clear, did they play a lot of ballroom in the lounges on Costa? I was under the impression most cruise lines played mainly disco and Latin club and a lounge with ballroom and Latin / rhythm was very rare.

Heh. We have a very popular venue here at which the civilians have absolutely no clue what LOD is. Frustrating but can be good for floorcraft practice...

What ship are you booked on? When I was on Costa few people went to the dance company's evening event, because Costa does such a good job on dancing.

Crown Princess. We're mainly American style ballroom, although we do some club, and we're not opposed to learning more Standard.

What kind of room did your dance company reserve for evenings?

Tnx!

Strict tempo jazz music? I admit I don't know much music theory, but I thought they were opposites. Can someone enlighten me?

Does sound like something of an oxymoron, but anyway...

Anybody have experience booking a dance cruise specifically? My partner / fiancee booked a trip through a ballroom dance company. We'll have lessons during the day, but I'm not clear on what to expect at night.