Celebrity Eclipse -New Production Shows, oh dear.

[neverbeenhere]

Now, I'm going to have to go to this show so that I can hear Frank, Fred, Freda, Frieda, Fritz, Fanny(Oops) sang, again and again.

[riclop]

We are just off the Eclipse, the first time on her since the production shows have changed. We saw the previous ones 4 times.

 

The new shows are called Topper, Rock, and Chandelier. We saw all three. Each was equally awful. Topper and Chandelier attempted a storyline linking the unconnected songs. The stories were terrible. Such that a child would be bored given their banality. Rock was a straightforward sequence of songs without any connection. All three shows suffered from terrible sound. Like it was muted and subdued such that you would struggle to believe it was live. The male lead in Topper and Chandelier had a screechy voice that had a limited range.

 

Having recently experienced Royal's entertainment on Anthem, Celebrity have taken a retrograde step with its production shows. Apparently the shows are rehearsed for 3 months in Miami but rehearsal is irrelevant when the storyline and production values are so weak.

 

The previous shows were way better. Celebrity please treat us like adults and give us something of quality and substance.

 

 

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There shows are usually bad, so no surprise.

[kevinyork]

I would guess that Celebrity will have planned for the new shows to be in place for at least 2 years, maybe three and that changing them will take a long time. A quick alternative would be to remove them and have more guest performers.

 

The nightly guest performers were actually quite good on our Eclipse trip. Jane Curry was good as always, a British comedian went down well but the best was a magician that did a set linked by movie clips and songs. One of the best things we have seen at sea.

 

 

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[Wiltonian]

Wow! Rarely have I read such a unanimous thread on CC. Clearly, the jury is unanimous, and the accused has been found guilty. A pity it will take so long for Celebrity to correct their mistake. Shows on the Equinox in 2014 were very good IMHO.

 

Stuart

[iandjm]

I have to agree with all the comments. I liked the previous shows, but last November experienced the new shows for the first time. In comparison they were dreadful. Such a shame :(

[BMT]

Interesting - we will also be on the 31st July.

 

If the "two brothers" or one bro, are/is in charge of overall entertainment at Celebrity, this comes as no surprise to me.

 

IMHO - talked the talk, but never walked the walk.

[dst87]

This is quite interesting, and I largely agree with Kevin.

 

We saw Topper and the Rock show at the start of May, but missed Chandelier. I thought the Rock show was dreadful in terms of the singers - they didn't have a rock quality to their voice, though the song selection was at least mainstream enough to appeal to a winder audience.

 

The Topper show was quite colourful and there were aspects of the staging that I enjoyed, but I agree that the attempt to tell a banal story was unnecessary and detracted from the music. Talk about shoe-horning a story around songs.

 

As we were sailing in a group we often preferred chatting in the lounges or watching the CMOG Hot Glass Show under a blanket at night. More entertaining than some of these shows (to me), and there are always musicians in the lounges.

 

EDIT: I was also glad to not have Sue Denning as CD as I found her totally disinterested in anyone under the age of 40 (as if they didn't belong there). We had a Canadian guy instead who was annoying in his own way, but probably preferable to Sue!

Edited June 7, 2016 by dst87

[Cruise a holic]

We are big fans of Celebrity. However, the one area that is sorely lacking is the entertainment on all of the ships we have sailed on. I feel as if I am watching a grade C variety show from TV. The comedy shows used to be very good- but now not so. We have sailed on RC, and the shows on the Oasis and Freedom class are the best at sea IMO. Quantum class is also not great.

 

Fortunately, the shows aren't the most important part of our cruise- so celebrity will remain our favorite.

[fozzybear1980]

You know, I'm glad someone brought this up. The shows are absolutely dreadful. It's a case of Celebrity trying to save money, yet again and cheapening their product. They're very good with their P.R. machine, "We're happy to introduce brand new shows that our guests will love." Give me a break. By doing the productions in-house, they're not having to hire union actors (which is extremely expensive) and they don't have to pay rights fees for certain songs. Do you ever notice that each popular song gets less than 1.5 min of actual playtime? This is because if a song is performed for more than 1.5 min, there's a cost that gets paid to the original artist of that song. By cutting the popular songs down, they are saving money, yet again, but in the process, cheaping out their product. It's disgusting. Don't get me wrong, I really like Celebrity, but the cutbacks as of recent have gotten a bit out of hand. They never really had decent production shows - at least nothing like RCCL.

[CruisingChick]

Wow this is terrible. And to think I was just on Summit last week wishing they had the new shows as we are tired of seeing Sirens, Stars in Their Eyes and iHollywood.

 

I guess we were lucky they don't have the new shows.

 

For us attending the production shows is a big part of our cruise and it does matter if these shows are terrible.

[shoreham01]

Out of curiousity, are most of the seats in the little theatre Celebrity Central I think it was called on the Eclipse still broken? They were broken for at least two years running and most uncomfortable to sit on. No-one seemed to care when we asked about them.

[dst87]

Out of curiousity, are most of the seats in the little theatre Celebrity Central I think it was called on the Eclipse still broken? They were broken for at least two years running and most uncomfortable to sit on. No-one seemed to care when we asked about them.

 

I was only in Celebrity Central twice in my last cruise, and none of my party sat on a broken seat either time. Of course that's only 8 seats out of the whole theatre, so perhaps we just got lucky?

 

Talking of broken things, I'm reminded of another annoyance in the theatre. One of the speakers on the left hand side of the stage was horrible distorted and very very unpleasant to listen to. Did anyone else notice this recently?

[smtcan]

We have quite enjoyed the shows on Celebrity in the past although they had become repetitive. On the Silhouette TA, the new shows were dreadful. Unfamiliar music, probably too current for us and most of the audience, weird story lines and poor sound quality. It was noticeable that the songs were shortened, I was aware of the payment issue because my son created websites for restaurants in a previous job and explained to me how he could use snippets of well known music. This probably focused my attention on the short songs, so I felt like timing them.

 

Sheila

[PRH]

Celebrity central seats, especially in the front, are "broken" in that the seat cushions tilt forward as though sprung by a very heavy person. Don't notice until you flip it down. Gets uncomfortable after a while as you try to sit further back into the seat and the seat doesn't really let you do that for long. This was true for our March 2016 cruise.

[Jack Staff]

Ohh Dear....As I am traveling on Eclipse with two young musicians who do like their shows on a cruise Celebrity may be losing future clients! The shows are major part of the cruise experience and expectations can be high. Not a place to cut back!

[harz99]

Another voice in agreement with Kevinyork. We were on the recent Iceland cruise, first time seeing these shows and last even if they are still on our next two cruises on Reflection and Solstice. Every night we heard and spoke to people who neither understood nor enjoyed them. On our sailing the ships company was very talented and tried hard but the duff material couldn't be overcome, these performers were due to leave the ship after one more cruise as their contract had nearly ended.

 

Not happy as the shows really do make a difference to our enjoyment of each cruise.

[Baron Barracuda]

We were on Ecliplse in April, last sailing before the ta. We always sit on the bar stools at the rear of the balcony. Makes for an easy unobtrusive getaway. Have to agree with all said above. New shows really bad with contrived plot and mostly unfamiliar (and not very good) music.

 

To be fair, the blonde featured female singer did have a great voice which unfortunately was wasted. They should have let her sing every song and fired the light haired brunette who was always off-key. The male singers couldn't hit the low notes, and to make matters worse they gave them their own matinee show later in the cruise. I do think the featured acrobatic couple were pretty amazing. Unfortunately they got too little stage time. Bottom line, next sailing we'll be joining the folks drinking bbc's and watching the waves.

[vickykay]

Sorry to hear this. We have always enjoyed the shows, even the corny ones, with familiar music (I think people enjoy most Broadway tunes, other familiar music) , etc. No it wasn't Broadway (and we go to Broadway shows often) but an enjoyable hour. We also miss the other cutbacks recently, i.e., string groups, Accapella, music in the MDR on formal nights. Hopefully Celebrity/RCI will read this thread.

[hppytrvlr]

I'm afraid i have to agree with these posts. We always enjoyed the production shows in the past but since they have taken them "in house" we have not enjoyed them. The music isn't familiar and the story line makes no sense to us. We were on the Equinox in January and on the Solstice back to back in March and we didn't enjoy any of the production shows. In fact, on the back to back Solstice we didn't brother to go to the production show second time around which we would have done in the past if we had really enjoyed the show. We are people who like to go to the evening shows but perhaps in future we will be sitting on our balcony instead. To us part of cruising is the live entertainment but it isn't what it used to be and we really miss the party bands which were always fun, the DJ's just aren't the same. Is this Modern Chic?

[Cruise a holic]

I agree. We are booked on the summit in August- then our next cruise on the Harmony of the Seas- perhaps the following one might be a back to back on the Allure-Oasis or the Harmony again. We really wanted to go on the Eclipse as we like the Caribbean itinerary. If the entertainment on the Summit is really bad- we will start moving over mostly to RC.

[Emmandjay]

Agree with the OP - the production shows were awful. Rock city in particular was very 'shouty' and the choreography could have been better.

Damian, the CD was a little over the top -calm down dear! He could be good if he was less frenetic all the time.

[Jack Staff]

I hope Celebrity are reading these comments and remedy matters very soon.

[bEwAbG]

I hope Celebrity are reading these comments and remedy matters very soon.

 

Don't be fooled -- the old shows were just as terrible. They should be embarrassed by the quality but apparently they're not because it's been this way for a long time. The "new" shows were supposed to be a reaction to the poor reviews of the old ones. I've found that 2 of the 4 singers are generally good-ish and the other 2 are passable at best, if not downright awful at worst (caused in part by the bombastic and over-the-top arrangements that they expect them to perform every day). The dancers tend to fare better. The aerialists are impressive only because it's such specialized experience that you need. A lot of what they do is repetitive, though.

 

Beyond management's ability to overlook how many performers are struggling with the material, they seem incapable of putting together a revue that makes sense. It would be better to just have a concert of songs without the story, but, for some reason, there's a very yesteryear approach to what constitutes a "show." Any competent choral director could put together a production with a through-line in song selection and concept (because they do it several times a year) so I cannot understand why it's so difficult for Celebrity to do the same. They're just wasting the money they spend.

[bookitdanno]

Ohh Dear....As I am traveling on Eclipse with two young musicians who do like their shows on a cruise Celebrity may be losing future clients! The shows are major part of the cruise experience and expectations can be high. Not a place to cut back!

 

I'm afraid that the powers that be have the attitude that you can't satisfy everyone.

I hope they would begin to figure out from this thread that they have succeeded in satisfying NO ONE.

In trying to appeal to a demographic which is almost non-existent on their ships, they are alienating those of us who are a little older and prefer "Old fashioned luxury" over an as yet undefined but to me un-luxurious "Modern Luxury".

We were on the Silhouette in April. The shows would have been great for any Miley Cyrus fans..... exactly my point!

[ECCruise]

I hope Celebrity are reading these comments and remedy matters very soon.

 

Very unlikely. These shows generally have a "life" of between 4 and 6 years. They would never spend the dough required to replace or totally revamp a show within months of its release. They claim that each new show requires an expenditure of $1.0 - $1,5 million give or take, for sets, costumes, choreography, musical rights and the like.