Dance missteps - Letters

Cruise Travel, Sept-Oct, 2002 by Lew Creedon

Like most cruise line executives, Mr. Rick Meadows of Seabourn Cruise Line ("Company Profile," Cruise Travel, August 2002) seems to have little idea of the music appropriate for dancing. Neither "big bands" with their limited range of tempi, nor Elvis-style "bang and twang" are good dance music--whatever the musicians' skills. Cruise lines seem to customarily take expert advice on beauty parlors, spas, gymnasium design, etc., but neglect to take advice on dancing. The U.S. Amateur Ballroom Dance Association or a ballroom teachers' organization such as I.S.T.D. would, I'm sure, give advice freely.

I have yet to go on a cruise where the dance floors were not overcrowded--and this with "spot"-type dancers who move very little. In some cases (notably HAL's Amsterdam) floor space was occupied by empty tables. On Cunard's Caronia--where one could often hardly move, let alone dance--my remark that the floor needed to be larger was receive very coldly by the cruise director.

"Fitness centers" with their enormous areas for solitary, scarcely sociable, sweating, seem to be grossly overdone, while a little perspiration to rhythmic music in the pleasant company of the opposite sex is shamefully neglected.

Lew Creedon, Port Townsend, WA