Wanderung 15

Volksmarching through Germany and a Cruise to get back.

September-November 2007

Monday, November 5th - At Sea.

Bob:

We settled into a shipboard routine that seemed to keep us busy, entertained, and, most importantly, earned us enough ShipShape dollars that we could not only get the T-shirts we had originally wanted but also the Royal Caribbean towels! It was just another sorry confirmation of the old adage that human wants are never really satisfied. Our routine consisted of the morning stretch class at 7:30 a.m., the Walk-A-Mile at 9:30, a ballroom dance class from 10:30 to 11:15, a line dance class starting at 1:30 p.m., and another Walk-A-Mile at 3:00 p.m. Our meals, of course were fit in between all these activities. On this day we learned the foxtrot in ballroom dance and the "Hot, Hot, Hot" and "Fuzzy Duck" line dances. Actually, the ballroom dance instructors were not very effective, so I ended up more confused about how to dance the foxtrot than when I started, which was a bit discouraging. Still, we continued to attend in order to have some time to practice each dance and to glean whatever we can from the instructors.

It did, however, make us yearn for the instructor team of Ken and Marion that we had on the last cruise (Wanderung 14). When faced by too many students for the dance floor, Ken and Marion volunteered to teach the classes twice a day rather than once a day. That doubled their workload but certainly benefited us students, particularly those of us who then attended both of the classes each day (i.e. "Big Foot" Bob). But they were clearly unusual. When faced with too many students, the instructors on this cruise just made 3 circles of dancing couples on the crowded dance floor, which helped but certainly did not eliminate the problems caused by the congestion.

Our deviation from our routine was to attend a "behind the scenes" tour of the Coral Theater. We were introduced to the stage area, the lighting system, and the sound system by the people actually running each department. The theater itself seats about 1,000 people and extends from Deck 3 at the bottom to Deck 10 at the top. Seating for the theater is basically on decks 3 through 6, but the space above is cleverly used for overhead storage of all the curtains, scenery, and large props for each performance. Anything that drops down fits into slots on the floor where it is locked in so that it does not move when the ship rolls.

The lighting system differed from a land-based theater in having fewer fixed lights but far more moveable, programmable lights. I believe he said that they had over 80 of the computer-controlled lights whereas a normal theater would have only 20-30. However, there were two follow-spots used in each performance that where being manually guided by two guys perched on the catwalks at the roof of the theater. With the ship pitching and swaying, that would definitely not be a job for anybody with vertigo!

The sound system was a huge mixing board layout with well over 100 inputs. We were surprised to learn that they even programmed in a small delay in the sound piped to the front of the theater so that all members of the audience were hearing the same thing at the same time. I had not realized that a sound delay could be a problem even in a 1,000 seat theater.

The evening dinner was formal, so we gussied up and met the other folks for dinner, after which we saw a comedian/musician by the name of David Pengelly. This guy played a ukelele, sang, and told jokes, and he was really quite good. His humor was gentle rather than sarcastic or satiric, which I much prefer, and he could actually sing and even yodel quite well. He played several medleys on his ukelele, including "Dueling Banjos" from the movie Deliverance for which he played both banjo parts, and I thought that was rather a tour de force. And so to bed.

Monika:

We settled in to our 6 days at sea with a definite schedule: 7:00 breakfast, 7:30 stretching, 8:30 aquadynamics, 9:30 Walk-A-Mile, 10:30 dance lessons, then lunch, 1:30 line dancing, 3:00 Walk-A-Mile, 6:00 dinner, and 9:00 show. In between, each day provided us with some other interesting things to do. In fact, it really seemed, that we did not have very much "free" time.

For instance, today our free time between 12:15 and 1:00 was taken up by a backstage tour of the theater. We started out with a question and answer session with some of the performers of the previous night, the production manager and the guy in charge of lighting. The theater is in the front of the ship between decks 3 and 7. The pit is on deck 3 right next to our cabin and the stage on deck 4. That explains why we can easily hear the bum-bum of the drums and thump-thump of the feet when the cast is practicing. After the question-and-answer session, we got to see the stage in detail. Then we went up to the lighting booth. It was amazing that only one guy was in charge of all the lighting effects. He told us that for the production shows the lighting was computer driven, but for the individual guest shows, he had to choreograph all the lights. He told us that some entertainers come with very detailed instructions on lighting, whereas others just leave everything to him. In general, for the guests, they have only two hours of rehearsal the day of the show. That really amazed me, not only for the rather well choreographed lighting we see each evening, but even more for the band that accompanies every one of the artists. Someone asked, whether they saw the music beforehand and where told, no, a requirement for the band is sightreading...I bet. My appreciation of the members in the band (2 trumpets, 1 trombone, 1 woodwind (sax, clarinet, flute), 1 percussion, 1 guitar, 1 bass guitar, and 1 keyboard, who is as good on the piano as on the synthesizer) rose. The soundboard guy was also by himself with what looked like an enormous soundboard. He said, he could have up to 48 individual channels from the stage. In addition, he could add pre-recorded stuff. He said, in a production show, he could put in a pre-recorded track, if one of the singers where sick or something but so far had to do it only once when they had mike problems. Altogether, I was quite impressed by the state of the art technology that was behind the scenes of the shows.

The evening was our second formal night with a reception for repeat customers beforehand. We did not make it beforehand, but did go there after dinner, so I did get my free glass of champagne and we even managed a couple of dances.

The evening show was a singer, comedian, and ukelele player with the band as backup. He was quite good, could even yodel quite well and was outstanding on the ukulele. The jokes were a little stale, but funny and not biting.

Copyright 2008 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
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