Cunard ballrooms are they bigger than the one on Princess ships?

[Dancer Bob]

Question for our UK friends- I was recently talking to a UK ISTD Examiner, she used the term "bread-and-butter teachers". Not completely sure what she meant, it sounded a bit disparaging. How would you interpret the term?

[Slow Foxtrot]

Question for our UK friends- I was recently talking to a UK ISTD Examiner, she used the term "bread-and-butter teachers". Not completely sure what she meant, it sounded a bit disparaging. How would you interpret the term?

 

Generally speaking, they would probably mean 'run of the mill' teachers. Nothing pretentious, just ordinary dance-teachers of which there are many hundreds in the UK.

[Colin_Cameron]

... you may find the Sally-Anne Cha Cha a little tricky at first.

Agreed.

 

A popular dance at almost every UK dancing venue is the Saunter Together.

I knew I had missed an obvious one.

 

Regards, Colin.

[Colin_Cameron]

... "bread-and-butter teachers" ... How would you interpret the term?

I'm not disagreeing with Slow. Depending on the context it could also be taken as someone who earns their living (their bread and butter) from teaching as opposed to someone who teaches for a couple of hours in the evening.

 

Regards, Colin.

[Dancer Bob]

Thanks, I think she meant something like Foxy says. Which, to relate to an earlier post, Cunard ought to be able to find teachers who can relate to passengers who just want a vacation very easily, if they were willing to try.

[fantasy51]

I had dinner with my dance teacher last night. I wish I'd seen this post to show him and ask his reactions. However, I learnt a few interesting things.

 

Not all dance teachers are the same. He was judging in a freestyle comp along with teachers who only knew freestyle and were amazed to learn that David had his own premises and it was his full-time job and he taught from 10 in the morning until 11 at night. They thought they were busy if they taught from 4 to 8 in a church hall for which they had paid a £10 donation. Now, which of those would be considered 'bread-and-butter' teachers? Is it the ones who only have a limited knowledge of dance and teach it as a sideline, or the one who knows so many different dance techniques that he can stay busy all day?

 

As for employing them on cruise ships, I suspect that if they have worked hard all year then they need to rest their feet and muscles on holidays. While teaching wouldn't be too onerous, the show dances would take a lot out of them.

[LongTimeTvlr]

My wife and I are dedicated ballroom dancers. We choose our ships based on their dance floors.

We have tried NCL (Star), Princess (Star), Crystal (Symphony), Celebrity (Century, Summit, Solstice), HAL (Vendam, Masdam, Statendam), RCL (Liberty, Radiance, Serenade), and Cunard (QM2, QE, QV).

 

Based on our experience Cunard is by far the best. The Radiance class RCL ships also have a great dance floor, but is often used for Bingo and Karaoke, and the bands are hit and miss, with a bias towards miss.

 

When we were on the Symphony the floor was smaller and round, but there were not many dancers so it worked out alright. They may have upgraded the floor since our trip which was in late 2011.

 

We just returned from a 12 day QM2 trip to the St. Lawrence and Canada.

 

We traveled with some friends who were just leaning to dance. We had 6 sea days and a 45 minute lesson each day, with each being a different dance. The instructors were Sergey and Olga and I believe they were new. Our friends found the lessons to be very helpful and they were able to transfer what they learned to the dance floor each night. They were so pleased with the instruction that they asked Sergey when he and Olga would next be on the QM2 as they might book that cruise to continue their lessons.

 

We have also taken two cruises on the QE with Eugene and Daria, and we found them to be excellent dancers and teachers. Our friends were not with us on these cruises so we were looking for a little more content in the lessons and were not disappointed. We also took a couple private lessons from both Eugene and Daria and they were very helpful.

 

It is hard to generalize these opinions because we are all different dancers at different levels and looking for different things, but our view is that Cunard does far better with ballroom dancing than any other cruise line by a wide margin.

 

The only problem we encountered on this last cruise was there were two dance groups on the cruise and floor was always crowded, even during the recorded sessions. But in a sense it is hard to complain because the more people who dance the more support and therefore hopefully there will be more opportunities to dance.

 

One final note, I am going to post a separate thread about this but this was our 9th Cunard cruise and the food in the Britannia Restaurant was outstanding. We had lobster tail twice, Beef Wellington once, sirloin steak twice and many other great meals. Very pleasantly surprised. As always we found the ship and service to be above other lines.

 

Hope this is helpful. That is the intention.

[Tangoqueen]

We too enjoy the dance lessons with Daria and Eugene and enjoy their evening dance displays too. We would like to see a bit more of them in the Queens Room in the evening perhaps for the pre dinner session occasionally. We wondered roughly how much would a private lesson with them would cost as would consider for a future cruise? Thanks

[LongTimeTvlr]

We too enjoy the dance lessons with Daria and Eugene and enjoy their evening dance displays too. We would like to see a bit more of them in the Queens Room in the evening perhaps for the pre dinner session occasionally. We wondered roughly how much would a private lesson with them would cost as would consider for a future cruise? Thanks

 

We have taken lessons from several of the Dance teams on the Cunard ships. The price is generally around $75 US for a 45 minute lesson. Often this included both dancers which is very helpful for us as it is much easier for us to visualize the instruction if we can see two experts dancing it correctly. We were allowed to video them and we have a library now of great lessons from the various dance teams on the Cunard Queens. This price is actually less than we pay our instructors here in Dallas so we think it is a great deal. The only hitch is finding time when they are free, we are free and most difficult, the dance floor is free. That often required early morning (8 AM ship time) lessons for example. We are early diners so we couldn't use the 5 or 6 PM slots which were also available on occaision,

[fantasy51]

I can see that prices of dance lessons vary. From my UK perspective, I find the shipboard prices high. Here in Oxford we pay £30 per hour (and £15 for half an hour, whereas Nadia and Volodomyr on QV charge an extra $10 if you only have half an hour). You might think that my low prices also mean a low standard, but I find the quality of teaching of my Oxford dance school is far higher than that of Volodomyr. After all, my dance teacher has had to sit teaching exams and knows how to dance as a woman. He also regularly judges national and international competitions. He was invited recently to take part in the charity special of Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars). Posts like that of LongTimeTvlr remind me of how fortunate I am to have an excellent dance teacher at a price that I can afford.

I've had three lessons altogether on board ship. I learnt the Viennese Waltz from Dan and Olena and that was money well spent! However, in future I will save my money for extra lessons with my Oxford teacher.

[Slow Foxtrot]

We have taken lessons from several of the Dance teams on the Cunard ships. The price is generally around $75 US for a 45 minute lesson.....

 

As 'fantasy 51' says, the shipboard charges for dance lessons are quite expensive. However, as many competent dancers know, and just as a matter of possible interest, there are now some wonderful free dance lessons and advanced tuition of Youtube. Some of the tuition is from ex World Champion ballroom dancers and this would cost a fortune if negotiated privately. Of course, one must be well grounded in the basics of good ballroom dancing to take advantage of it, but it's all on there. And it's free!

Edited November 3, 2014 by Slow Foxtrot