Which HAL sailings (if any) have Dance Hosts?

[Dancer Bob]

My agent likes to travel on HAL. He doesn't dance but books dance groups and knows what we want. He says he will no longer book dance groups on HAL, we won't be happy, he foresees an even greater move away from dancing.

QM2 does not have the largest dance floor at sea, that claim was abandoned years ago. And QM2 used to have 6 hosts, 3 is a clear cut-back there, too. I recall a number of years ago a Social Hostess saying they were having great difficulty finding hosts and one would have to be really bad to be thrown off.

[ontheweb]

On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:21 AM, Dogstar said:

 

Agreed. In our early days of marriage, as cruisers we were very much below the average age of clientele aboard. We thoroughly enjoyed the various dancing but couldn’t keep up with the ‘oldies’ doing their thing. It was, & still is, magical to watch them dance!

 

So so we made it a point to take “beginner ballroom dancing” lessons before a subsequent cruise many moons ago. Despite my having the proverbial “two left feet syndrome” to this day Mrs. Dogstar & I still laugh, giggle, trip & stumble our way together across the cruise ship dance floors whenever the opportunity presents itself.   It’s not the quality of dancing, it’s the opportunity to dance together,  particularly on vacation, we enjoy. 💕 

 

For us, ballroom dancing is part of the charm of cruising.  Are we looking forward to the new Rock Room venue?  You bet!  Surely there’s still room for both, old & new? I hope so.  💃🏼 🕺🏼 

We also started ballroom dancing on an early cruise, maybe 2004. We had no idea what we were doing, but the experienced dancers just made us feel so welcome. later we took lessons, but DW and I have a different idea about dancing; she wants to do the steps perfectly, while I just want to let the music move me.

 

On our last two cruises, we got very little dancing on the Maasdam, Boston to Montreal and a whole lot on the Carnival Fascination roundtrip from San Juan, Puerto Rico. I think the lack of dance opportunities and general lack of activities soured DW on HAL.

[marylizcat]

Do HAL offer line dancing? It is always very popular when offered on other lines.

[Randyk47]

6 hours ago, marylizcat said:

Do HAL offer line dancing? It is always very popular when offered on other lines.

 

The problem again is a lack of dancing venues and relatively small dance surfaces for the one or two that exist.   Never say never but I don’t recall much if any line dancing.  

[*Miss G*]

There was line dancing on the last 3 or 4 sailings I was on, all within the last year on different ships.

[marylizcat]

21 hours ago, *Miss G* said:

There was line dancing on the last 3 or 4 sailings I was on, all within the last year on different ships.

Thank you, that is good to hear as we are considering a HAL cruise. Did one a few years ago, but couldn’t remember whether or not they had line dancing.

[CruiseLady88]

On 10/20/2018 at 12:51 AM, Carnevale said:

That’s a surprise as our impression is that HAL has moved away from ballroom dancing altogether so dance hosts on any HAL ships really is not what we expected.  

 

We were on the Noordam earlier this month and were extremely disappointed that there was no ballroom dancing until we requested it and then we got a grand total of one set on part of the floor in the Ocean Bar (1 table was removed but 2 remained on the dance floor).  We asked for dance time on day 2 and finally had this little opportunity on the last night of our 6 night sailing.

 

We don’t understand the thinking behind this.  The floor is there and while we prefer live music we aren’t picky - canned is ok or a pianist who can play in strict tempo (the musician from the band we danced to was great but the regular pianist was hopeless).  It would not take much to support dancing in the Ocean Bar...really no cost to HAL that we can see and a way of providing a different activity that many enjoy.  

 

Given this recent experience we have decided that unless things change, this was our last HAL cruise....a hard decision as we are three star so get a few perks and as we are about to retire we hope to spend a good amount of time cruising now.  It just can’t be on HAL anymore except perhaps if we do a Grand Voyage on Amsterdam but that’s not going to be a regular thing.  And a disco after 11pm does not do it for us and BB Kings is far too loud to stay in that venue for any length of time (we value our hearing) and what they play is rarely suitable for ballroom (we tried).

 

So fellow dancers, if you value dancing as part of your daily cruise activities then I cannot recommendation HAL.

 

We have excluded HAL from our cruise shopping after we came back from our Koningsdam cruise. We love the dance floor in the Queen’s Lounge. But then we disliked having BB King band there every night. That was our most boring cruise and my husband said “no more HAl cruise”.

 

we have switched to Cunard ships. We can dance every night in the Queen’s room (pre-recorded music and live band music every night).

 

We recently heard from this forum that HAL has made some changes to the Queen’s Lounge. They have different bands to play in the same venue (trio band, Lincoln Stage, BB king blue). So, I will keep on monitoring and will decide if we should try the new ship. If the ship brings back some ballroom dancing programs back to the ship, I will inform my dance group. I notice that many ballroom dancers have excluded HAL from their cruise list already.

 

[CruiseLady88]

On 11/2/2018 at 4:54 PM, Sea Belle said:

We found ballroom music in the Veendam Ocean Bar in May  2018, none on the Eurodam in Dec. 2017, occasionally on the Amsterdam in May 2017 and the Oosterdam in Mar. 2017.  The dance floors were busy every time it occurred.  I don’t understand the theory behind omitting that style of dancing when it is obviously enjoyed by so many and the dance floors are still in the Ocean Bars.  I’m surprised the Maasdam didn’t have it.

 

Dancers don’t drink. They drink water to keep hydrated. When they dance, they sweat. This means cruise ships are losing revenue on drink. But they neglect the fact that dancers bring in other passengers to the area since some passengers enjoy watching them dancing at the same time listening to the live band music.

[Sea Belle]

On 12/23/2018 at 6:20 PM, CruiseLady88 said:

 

Dancers don’t drink. They drink water to keep hydrated. When they dance, they sweat. This means cruise ships are losing revenue on drink. But they neglect the fact that dancers bring in other passengers to the area since some passengers enjoy watching them dancing at the same time listening to the live band music.

Our experience has been that the waiters can hardly keep up with the orders.  Why?  The seats are filled with people who enjoy watching the dancers as well as those who are putting on the show for them.  We really do think HAL is missing the "boat" on this issue.  The days of booking the big bands has sadly passed, but those were great back in the '90s and early 2000's.

[tregatti]

On 11/7/2018 at 5:20 PM, *Miss G* said:

There was line dancing on the last 3 or 4 sailings I was on, all within the last year on different ships.

There was a line dancing class in the Crow's Nest when we were on the Veendam last week but I don't know if anyone was line dancing up there in the evening. We spent most of our time in the Ocean Bar listening (and dancing to!) the excellent Trio there. We were on the Eurodam last Christmas and there was far less dancing going on, so in my (limited) experience there was a better opportunity to dance on the smaller ship. My DH & I are not expert dancers by any means but we really enjoy it (with apologies to anyone who is stuck with watching us tho :)). 

[Sir PMP]

On 10/19/2018 at 9:29 PM, Copper10-8 said:

 

The Grand World Voyage on Amsterdam has dance hosts every year

 

We had six gigolos on our Asia cruise that just ended, in Singapore  they were replaced by 5 gigolos and one gigolette, most were from England..

[Nymich]

I am glad I got to see HAL when ballroom dancing was a big deal.  Since the BB King opening it seems to have faded away.

[RedneckBob]

20 minutes ago, Nymich said:

I am glad I got to see HAL when ballroom dancing was a big deal.  Since the BB King opening it seems to have faded away.

 

Based on the number of ladies that were dancing together on the BB King dance floor on the Oosterdam in December, Dance Hosts were not required.