Ballroom Dance Lessons

[mummsie]

Hi Bob, Welcome. Normally the floors are quite small and depending on the seas the floor can sway quite a bit. Be prepared to go in a competely different direction to what you had planned. :D Just be careful and don't do anything really crazy as this can be a little dangerous especially if other peoples are on the floor. If you get a good band, they will play requests - pretty much any style of dance you want. We even had one band give us a tango.:) We usually find we have the floor pretty much to ourselves. Gayle

[smoothdancer]

We sailed on the Celebrity's Mercury and the dancing was very good. The bands of course cater to the crowd and on this cruise they played a lot of ballroom music. I would say 20 couples or so were dancing ballroom. Sure, like Mummsie said the dance floors are small but certianly large enough for the Cha and swing. Let us know what you think when you return.

 

Mummsie, thanks for going on over to Dance Forums!

 

OK... Well the big one is here. We leave this afternoon for California to the USABDA National competition. All of our smooth routines are new and only about 50% there right now, but we are going to dance them. The routines are by far the most challenging that we have ever danced. Last night I just could not sleep, these routines were running through my head! I am working on about 2 hours sleep right now. On the other hand we feel our international standard is about as strong that it has ever been in the last 10 years... Our competition is large... We will be competiting against 37 other couples...yikes!!

 

We will stay on in CA for a week. Looking forward to Napa Valley. We have never been before....... Thats it for now... Wish us luck!

[mummsie]

Wish you all the luck in the world especially with the new routines. I always think 'it will be all right on the night' :) Have a nice break as well. I am still getting over last weekend. We had out Superstars comp with couples from all over Asia - Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and lots of couples from New Zealand. Gee there was some good dancing especially in the 2 IDSF events. There is a Japanese couple - twins who have been coming to Australia for about 3 years for the bigger competitions who are a dream to watch and are very popular with the audience. I must have walked at least 15 kilometers a day. I forgot to make my pedometer.

 

Actually over on the Ballroom list I have found a common person. One of the girls at our studio is dancing with one of the boys she knows who is here in Oz for 4 months. Small world isn't it.!!!!:D Mummsie

 

***** G O O D L U C K *****

[tropicalsunset]

Bob: I would love to do a SA cruise and want to focus on the Tango just before we do it ... but that is a couple years in the future for us!!!

We were on Zenith last January... one night we had some rough seas... but we were excited to have the dance floor to ourselves and the group was playing lots of ChaCha and swing for us.... made dancing interesting and a little dangerous... but we had a lot of laughs!!!!

I find Celebrity always has a ballroom type band playing in the Rendezvous lounge before, between and after seatings for dinner... they play pretty much what the crowd is getting up to dance to.... ENJOY!!!

 

 

SMOOTH... wherever you are right now... Enjoy NAPA and I hope you amaze yourself and wow the judges!!!!:D :D Best wishes!!!

 

Mummsie: how is your foot doing?? did you do any comps yourself?? that sounds like great fun to watch that diverse group!!

 

I am having my best friend from my high school daze down this weekend... haven't seen her in 8 years when she came to our wedding... she lives on the North Shore in MA..... so lots of late night catching up in the hot tub!! :D

 

Have a great weekend!!

 

Do a little dance, make a little love, .... get down tonight!!!

I loved that chat on the dance forum that asked if Ballroom dancers had abetter love life!!! :D :D

[mummsie]

Hi Tropical, No I didn't do any dancing. Wasn't allowed to dance and help out - it wouldn't look right as I was in direct contact with the judges and the scrutineers. We are hoping to dance our first comp for the year in a few weeks - crazy I know but my foot is only just now getting to the stage where I feel confident at doing quickstep on a crowed comp floor. I will have to try my dress on this weekend - I have lost a lot of weight and I suspect it will need to be taken in quite a bit. Also got my daughters wedding in 6 weeks so things are hotting up around here. Went and got all her makeup yesterday - that was an experience and a half. I usually buy the cheapest stuff I can find but with her colouring - red hair and very fair skin we had to go to a specialist makeup place. Cost neary $200 for foundation, lipstick and eye liner. Still have to buy the eye shadows that were recommended. It was worth it though - she looked like a model when the girl had finished. We have the DJ coming over on Sunday to organise the music. Going to be interesting as about 20% of people are dancers the rest will probably get up and do a bit of a disco thing after a few drinks so we have to get a good mix so people won't be put off with the dancers.!!! Mummsie :D

[smoothdancer]

Back!!!.. We had a wonderful time in CA. Napa was fantastic!.. We drove coastal route 1 from San Jose to Napa, the coastal hoighway was just breath taking....

 

But Wow... it sure is expensive in CA.. One evening in Napa we had dinner, with a wine paring at a resturant at one of the wineries.. The dinner bill for 2 was $500.00... No typo, that is what it cost!! OUCH!!... Still a great week. I came back 5LBs heavier then when we left... Good thing I have no comps coming up soon.

 

We did OK at the comp. Our results were interesting.. It seemed either the judges loved us or hated us... In most of the resuts our scores in the same dance went from a first place from one judge to a last place for another judge.... As a result of our scores being all over the board, overalll we did not place very well..However on a personal note, we felt that we danced our new routines to our ability right now... They will get better over time, I am sure.

[abbydancer2003]

Smoothdancer - I'm glad you enjoyed our beautiful state. US 1 is a gorgeous road (and it gets even more spectacular both south and north of the bay area).

 

Napa, by the way, has some of the best and priciest restaurants in the state. I'm curious where you had dinner for 500.00 - we were there for part of our honeymoon and our most expensive meal was around 120.0, but that was for lunch! (It's the only time I've spent over 100.00 for lunch).

 

Also, what division did you dance in? We were at the comp on Saturday and wondered if we saw you.

 

abby

[smoothdancer]

We had dinner at Chandon. I should clarify that we chose the chef tasting menu, which I think was a 7 course meal, and wine paring with each course. It was just fantastic. Certainly not something you could do all the time, but in the end it was probably worth it. Such a shame we could not bring any wine home due to the airline security changes.

 

We danced Smooth on Friday and International Standard on Saturday mornings. We did not go back on Saturday night, we were just to wiped out after the long flight and up at 6:00 AM both days to get ready to dance! Were you dancing at this comp?

 

We made a one night stop in Santa Cruz and then ended our trip in SF and had the opportunity to go to Beach Bablyon.... That was a great show, such fun! Today we are still recovering from the long flight home and time change.

 

Was such a wonderful trip.

[abbydancer2003]

Chandon was where we had our 100.00 lunch as well. It was great, but not something I'd do very often.

 

We were not dancing at the comp, just watching. Our plan is to start with some local comps sometime in 2007. We're evolving into better smooth than rythem dancers, and currently mostly do American, although Quickstep is probably one of our stronger dances, and the V Waltz we do is pretty much International anyway. (lots of turns and little else). Our plan is to learn the International Standard dances and then compete in that division.

 

Glad you enjoyed your trip - and sorry I didn't get to see you dance.

 

Abby

[smoothdancer]

Your plan sounds good to me!!

 

We have spent years doing international standard.... This dance teaches you how to lead and follow as you are developing good basis dance frames and lead in follow.... From there we expanded to American Smooth.... We love smooth, but found that until we knew how to dance as one, we could not do smooth...... We actually started with smooth and gave it up until we could dance in a closed dance frame....

 

It looks so easy, but is not!!!...... Nothing, oh nothing beats the feeling of dancing with your husband and feeling like you are dancing above the clouds... It is the reason that so often getting advise to seperate us and dance with pro's that we alway say no...... How cool is it to dance ith your husband.... no pros on board, just us....

 

Good luck to you ... I am sure we will run into you guys soon!!

 

Smooth

[Keith Rita]

Hi all,

We didn't realize there was a dance thread on CruiseCritics. We usually only post on this site when we book a cruise and start or participate in a roll call. We belong and regularly post on another cruise site.

 

We started taking weekly private ballroom dance lessons late in life--two years ago. We always said we "We are not ballroom dancers, we are just bar room dancers!" After watching other folk's dance ability on our cruises, we decided to give it a try.

Now we have a new passion to go along with our cruise passion! We belong to three private dance clubs here in our community. We have two and sometimes three dances per month, which we really enjoy. We also practice ever Tuesday night with about 8-10 other couples at a private club that we all have joined just to be able to use their dance floor.

So far we have learned the Waltz, East Coast Swing, Rumba, and Fox-trot--which we are currently on. Dancing is great exercise and quite a challenge!

 

Our next cruise, which is on the Caribbean Princess, is our first Princess cruise.

Any info on the dance opportunities on this ship will be greatly appreciated.:) :)

[smoothdancer]

How many days is your cruise? We sailed on the Dawn Princess some time back on an 11 day cruise. The crowd was older...more 40ish and up and ballroom dance music was played often. Our experience has been that the longer the cruise the better/more frequent the ballroom music!

[mummsie]

Hi Smooth. Well done - always nice to know you danced your best even if the judges didn't agree.:) It always amazes me when I look at the judges marks - when I work at a comp I keep an eye on the people I know who are dancing and its very interesting seeing all the different place marks. Makes you wonder sometimes.

When I was working a few weeks ago, I was actually seated at the same table as some of the judges and the question came up about how do you pick who goes into the next rounds. They always just look at the top line in the first rounds. It isn't until the semi and finals that they actually look at footwork. Next time I know what to do. Just keep the top line looking good and work out the feet later :D Mummsie

[tropicalsunset]

Gcurry: hey, we miss hearing about dear ol' Lance....you gotta let us know how he's doing!! Hope all is well with you, too...haven't heard from you in a while..

 

We spent last night working on Foxtrot in a social setting...after attending a wedding on sat..and getting frustrated as there was No Line of dance!! we learned a couple new fun stationary steps and another formal wedding to attend over Labor day to test out our new moves!!

 

Keith Rita: welcome to our chat!! I like that "bar room dancers" which are pretty much what we are...but we still like to look good!!!

Our favorite dances are Cha Cha, Swing and Hustle....the longer we take lessons the more I like the Latin music... I just wanna dance!!! :D :D

 

Lorraine

[GCurry]

Yep, still here Tropical, reading about great dancers like smooth and mummsie.

 

We went last weekend to Kerrville, in the Texas Hill Country the Birkshires of Texas, for a special dance weekend. Five couples from our dance clubs attended a Big Band dance Sat. night followed by a Jazz Brunch dance Sunday. This happens once a year and is a good get away from our hot and steamy Gulf Coast to the hotter and dryer hill country.

"Let's go to Luckenbach Texas with Willie and Waylan and the boys", we went to Luckenbach, Willie and the boys had the good sense to stay somewhere cool as it was 103 in the shade there. I did pick up a new Plumeria on the trip to add to my collection.

The orchestra was very good, there was a very large crowd, with an average age of 70 as you can imagine. Everyone that could danced, and so did a number of those that couldn't, which made things difficult. The problem with authentic big bands is the speed of the music, I hate it when a rumba is a footrace.

 

We are between sessions at our Community College, so Ole Lance is at home polishing his fangs and getting ready to start again Sept. 12. We will be in attendance.

 

And speaking of cruising, we just booked Alaska on the Diamond June 2nd, 7 days from Whittier down to Vancouver. We'll spend some time seeing a lot of Alaska before the cruise starts.

[mummsie]

Hi GCurry, nice to see you around again. Looks like we will be going to Alaska too next year. Gary is at the moment looking into it. At this stage its going to be on 1st of May out of Vancouver. Not looking forward to the trip to Vancouver though. Looks like its going to be about a 22hour plane trip as none of the flights to the USA go where we want. We were hoping to fly direct to Vancouver but Gary doesn't want to fly Air Canada so it looks like we either go domestic to Sydney and then to either Hawaii or SF and then get another flight to Vancouver. Whatever it is - it doesn't sound like much fun. We even thought about going via Japan or Hong Kong but that is even longer. :eek: While we are there, I think we are also going to do the train trip across the Rockies. Figured we probably wouldn't be in that part of the world again so make the most of it. Going to be an expensive holiday though - so far up to nearly $25K and thats without spending money.!!! :eek: Mummsie

[clofty]

Hey Mummsie,

 

My sister is also researching a tour of the rockies and Alaska cruise from Sydney for next year, but will have to travel in the Sydney July school holidays.

 

I have tentatively already booked a cruise with my sister in law who has relocated to Seattle. Of course I want to travel with both but the same aged cousins would battle for my kids attention and the families are really very different.

 

However a few passport and immigration issues and capital gains stuff may need attention, so we may be heading back for a Sydney winter.

 

It has been a really hot dry summer here in Northern Florida and my electric bill has been over $450 per month and I have it set to 80F (26.5C). Now I thought taxes were bad in Australia, but the utilities here and property taxes are a shocker. And to boot I have a water pipe leak in our concrete slab under ceramic tiles! My wonderful insurance company won't cover the fixing because it hasn't damaged my floors yet. Well the plumber will be smashing the cermic tiles and concrete to get to the pipe. Do you think they will take that damage as resulting from the leak? I doubt it!:eek:

 

On the dance side, we recently went to a Ballroom dance function at a Georgia Plantation. We got to practice our Vienese Waltz which doesn't happen very often. It was organised by the Tallahassee USBDA.

 

Anyway, good luck with the planning of Alaska!

[mummsie]

thanks Chris. We are almost into level 4 water restrictions here in Brisbane - if we don't get rain soon it will be implemented in October. No outside watering at all - we have a pool with a leak so that will be fun. I said the same thing to Gary - will the insurance cover our problem when the leak causes the water levels to drop that will cause our pump to blow up. I think not. I guess we will end up emptying the pool until the rains come. I guess we can always use it to water the yard.!!! We haven't really had a winter this year in Brisbane. I think a couple of nights it got down to 4 or 5C but during the day its been lovely. Hope it stays nice - my daughter gets married in 4 weeks :D I am just in the middle of making her wedding dancing dress - she will have to change at the reception as they have a full on production number with lifts for their wedding dance. :D

I have started to think about what we have to buy for Vancouver as I believe in May its still quite cool - I bought a coat half price last weekend from Rivers. I have no idea what else I will need except I guess beanies and scarves and gloves. I hate the cold so it will be an interesting venture for me. Will just have to keep an eye out now that winter is finished and buy up when I see warm things. Will probably also have to go to Damart and buy some thermal underwear :p Going to be interesting packing all the winter woolies into our 2 small suitcases unless I wear quite a bit of it on the plane and shed it later :) Gayle

[smoothdancer]

So glad to see you again McG... I thought for sure we lost you to the HAL board!!

 

Mummsie please tell me that 25K is not in USD... I just cant even think about one trip costing that much.

 

Well we are done competiting for a while.. California was our last one for the year. I am really looking forward to the breather. We will of course continue our lessons, but with the pressure off it will be a great change in pace.

[Keith Rita]

How many days is your cruise? We sailed on the Dawn Princess some time back on an 11 day cruise. The crowd was older...more 40ish and up and ballroom dance music was played often. Our experience has been that the longer the cruise the better/more frequent the ballroom music!

 

smoothdancer, Our cruise is 7 days. Our next one, for New Years, is 10 days.

[Keith Rita]

Keith Rita: welcome to our chat!! I like that "bar room dancers" which are pretty much what we are...but we still like to look good!!!

Our favorite dances are Cha Cha, Swing and Hustle....the longer we take lessons the more I like the Latin music... I just wanna dance!!! :D :D

 

Lorraine

 

Lorraine, Thanks for the welcome! Our favorite, so far is the Rumba.

[mummsie]

Hi Smooth, Thats $25K AUD so when we convert to USD it takes it up to over $30K!!! pretty scarey $4K of that is air fares. Think yourself lucky you have lots of choices for cruises. We have 3 ships only crusing out of Australia so we basically have to go overseas to have any sort of choices. We are just lucky that as of 2 months ago we are completely debt free so we can now use all our earnings to go on nice holidays.:) Mummsie

[smoothdancer]

WOW oh WOW!!.. I will never complain about the cost of a cruise again! Seems to me a person would have to be debt free to afford a vacation!

 

We did something cool recently. We refinancied our home that we bought 4 years ago from a 30 year to a 15 yr so it will be paid off when we retire... After some research I re-financied with Citibank, and each loan dollar is a point on my Citibank American Airlines FFaccount.... I am counting on not paying for flights for a long time!

 

Keith... never been on a 7 day Princess, but our 11 day had a lot of dancing. Both of our boys will not be able to make it home this year for X-mas, so we said what the heck with the flight cost that I will save to get them home we booked a Princess cruise over X-mas. This one is a 7 day, and then I will see first hand what the dancing is like!... This cruise is going to be just filled with kids so who knows.

[Keith Rita]

Keith... never been on a 7 day Princess, but our 11 day had a lot of dancing. Both of our boys will not be able to make it home this year for X-mas, so we said what the heck with the flight cost that I will save to get them home we booked a Princess cruise over X-mas. This one is a 7 day, and then I will see first hand what the dancing is like!... This cruise is going to be just filled with kids so who knows.

 

We cruised on the NCL Sun for a 10 day cruise this past New Years. They had some good dance music, however the floor, at times, was very crowded.

The HAL ships have a pretty good, and not usually crowded, dance floor in the Ocean Lounge for pre and post dining dance music. The Crows Nest, where they have the theme dances, are usually fairly crowded. The best ship we cruised for dancing was the RCI ship Rhapsody of the Seas, however the music stunk!

 

Your Christmas cruise with your boys sounds nice. We've cruised for New Years the past 3 years, but never cruised at Christmas.

[GCurry]

Lorraine, Thanks for the welcome! Our favorite, so far is the Rumba.

Welcome Keith/Rita, love to Rumba the music is beautiful and it's got more moves than Ex lax. Through the happenstance of life long ago, I spent two weeks in Evansville at a tech school. It was winter with wet freezing rains, I was a young Lasso from El Paso, I enjoyed your town and your people.

 

Alaska approves cruise tax

 

 

Alaskan voters have approved taxing each visiting cruise passenger $50 and further taxing the cruise lines.

Initial reports from the Alaska primary said Ballot Initiative 2 got more than 52 percent of the vote. The initiative requires further state government approval before its provisions can take effect.

The initiative's key features:

• Requires each Alaskan cruise passenger to pay a $50 tax.
  
• Taxes cruise lines' corporate earnings.
  
• Taxes gambling in Alaskan waters.
  
• Requires reporting of cruise line shore excursion profits.

The tab just went up Mummsie!