Best ships for ballroom dancing?

[mcloaked]

Having experienced Ventura, Azura, Britannia and Queen Mary 2, we have some experience and views about how good or not the ballroom dancing is on those ships, but I wonder if experienced cruisers can relate their experiences of how good the dancing is on other ships, as that might guide choices for the future?

 

Considerations that are useful are size and shape of dance floor, how much seating around the dance floor, whether there is a band or not and how well they play suitable music to dance to (is the tempo suitable for dancing or do the band not really understand the best tempo or choice of music for the classic 10 dances?). Are there dance hosts both for generally hosting the dancing when the band has breaks in their sessions, as well as dance hosts that dance with single passengers who would like to dance. What is the ratio of standard ballroom and Latin dancing to sequence dancing that seems to be increasing relative to the normal ballroom dances? Are there dance lessons on board on sea days? How do the various ships in different cruise lines differ in respect of dancing? Are British and American ships very different when it comes to dancing?

 

It would be useful to have a comparison by as many CC members with experience of dancing as possible.

[Keith1010]

Having sailed on QM2 there is no question that it has a very special dance floor.

 

A cruise line that has a nice sized dance floor with a live band are the Crystal Serenity and Crystal Symphony.

 

Keith

[Dancer Bob]

If your priority is dancing then Costa (most ships) is by far your best choice. Some factual information is on the Best Ships thread on the Theme Cruises board.

Cunard's dance floors are good, but far from "very special", Costa, Crystal, even some Royal Caribbean, Princess and Holland America ships have acceptable floors, enough for Quickstep when it's not busy. Most American ships provide almost nothing beyond drunken flailing or zombie dancing. I believe Oriana is regarded as the best P&O ship by knowledgeable British dancers. Cunard's music is the subject of many posts on the Cunard board, it seems to vary wildly from cruise to cruise. Only on Costa do I hear Paso Doble played regularly.

Sequence dancing is unknown outside of UK and Australia, and seems mostly for over-65's. Dance lessons vary widely in quality.

Dance hosts are a lengthy and vexatious topic. On the QM2 over Christmas, one very experienced lady said only one could really dance, 3 could not even keep time with the music. That seems consistent with other reports I have heard and which I saw on Crystal.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Dancer Bob