Ballroom dancing is our favorite activity after retirement. We love to dance on cruise ships, mostly Cunard and Princess. We also dance frequently at many ballrooms and studios in Southern California.
We started our RU-vid channel @tonymariadance December 2022 because we wanted to reminisce our good times dancing on cruises. We also wanted to share a collection of songs and dances that were selected by the cruise line musicians for good dancing.
For example, this particular slow waltz dance on the Cunard ship Queen Elizabeth best illustrates the elegence of classic ballroom dancing, where so many couples enjoyed their evening together, showcasing their line-of-dance expertise in a most relaxed manner, with the mellow voice of Tom Harris performing the classic dance song, StarDust. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NdHnbCR3S_0.html
Please subscribe to our RU-vid channel to enjoy our collection.
Part of the issue with Queen Anne may be that Cunard have gone out of their way to market her as different from the others. They seem to think they need younger passengers. I don't quite get that, because the supply of old people is always being topped up so they're not likely to run short. You've experienced what seems like a policy to restrict the availability of dancing and that has been reflected in programmes for cruises before you sailed. Yet another thing I don't understand; I read comments from dancers that seem bothered if the floor isn't rectangular, perhaps that puts them off. We've danced on odd shaped floors over the years, and we see you dancing on other lines that don't have floors like Cunard.
Hi Tony, Do you recall the title of a swing song that was used in Zumba classes on Queen Anne? Apparently they used the same music each day. Someone on Cruise Critic is asking.
Spoiling us with two so quickly! Sometimes folk ask if they as novices or non dancers will annoy others and get in their way. There was a couple there that prove that idea is nonsense. I suspect that one of them had mobility issues, but I noted that all the dancers managed to negotiate a path avoiding them even when they were going against the line of dance.
We observed that almost all dancers on the Queens Room floor were polite and made space for each other. Once, however, on a QE Baltic cruise, I observed that a male dancer, in his road rage, executed a medium power wrist-twist punch on the back of another unsuspecting male dancer. The latter was shocked but did not stop to voice his objection. The line-of-dance moved on and the offender got away with it.
QA's Queens Room fits the field of vision on your videos quite nicely. The other couple chose to get a cha cha out of that music, which reminded me of a recent post on a forum. The poster seemed to be complaining that when a piece of contemporary music was played in the Queens Room dancers still did ballroom or latin dances to it, as if that was wrong and you should only dance disco to pop tunes! They didn't seem to get the concept of a shared space for everyone. 😀
Hi. I am not sure if you saw my last message but I would really like to get in touch with you. We are thoroughly enjoying the recent videos you have been sharing of the amazing Steven Tilley. I have sent you a private message if you are able to check if you have received it. Many thanks. Lana 🥰
Lana, We have not yet received your private message. For this channel, we use the email address: tony.maria.dance@gmail.com. We have more videos of Steven Tilley singing.
Thank you for the reply. We cruise often on Queen Mary 2 and heard it was different on Queen Anne and that they only had Ballroom from 6 to 8 in the evening.
After many people requested Ballroom music for dancing, they reviewed the situation and the band plays a lot more ballroom at 8:45 now. Hope it still holds true!
It is different daily according to the program that they give you. Read it carefully and plan your activity so you will not miss the dance lesson, tea dance and bands. Enjoy the beautiful ship and have fun!
I note a comment I responded to disappeared. We live in France but our 23 years of dance lessons were all taken in Scotland. There are differences between social dancing styles between UK and North America, and styles in France are different again. I suspect the couple that the comment related to are British. I doubt the comment posted was intended to offend, probably a British dancer seeing a style they are familiar with.
Hi David, We are not sure which one was your comment. We aplogize if your comment may have disappeared when we, for the first time, removed a comment from another person yesterday. IMHO, we considered that comment not appropriate for the spirit of our dance channel, not that it was offensive. Unlike most dance channels that wish to teach or show how well they dance, where critiques are appropriate, we only wish to show dancers enjoying dancing. To us there is no right or wrong, just dancers expressing from their hearts. We share everything there, all friends, no critics, no judgement. That's our spirit. We enjoyed dancing over 200 songs during 14 days on two Cunard ships. 🙂🙂
@@tonymariadance Hi Tony, I can understand why. I only said the couple commented on were present in other videos. The other poster had indeed gone into needless comment regarding technique.
Is it only me? There are lot of complex, well performed moves / but were is the smooth, romantic character, the harmony and the flow? Less could be more🤔
That was quite good to get so many tea dances. We only went to afternoon tea once in 14 days on QM2 in 2022. There was a harpist playing that day, not really music for dancing. I checked back and other days were the Bevis String Trio, a Pianist, and one afternoon was Brian Moore on his guitar. We don't really need tea and cakes but might call in more often on our next two trips to see if there is dance music on. edit: It was more like 12 days as they don't have afternoon tea in Southampton or New York.
Looking at the daily programmes more carefully, and checked my videos, we only had three Tea Dances in our 7 day Norway cruise, not six. The QA Orchestra played one and the Wave Duo played two. All were full of ballroom music. We did the QM2 transatlantic this June and there were no tea dances, but more great prerecorded sessions than we had time or energy to dance them all. The Queen Anne spent a lot of Queens Room evenings on non-ballroom dancing activities, making the sporadic ballroom sessions on non-gala days sometimes very inconvinent to attend. You can tell from our videos that sometimes only one to three couples were on the floor. It was like a piazza with wooden floor.
Is anyone in time to the music !?This is not strict tempo/International style but social dancing. The floor seems small. Not much room to practice floor craft. LOL>
Thank you for posting this. I am glad to see no dance hosts, i am aware that single ladies will rely on kind passengers to dance, my problem with Cunard dance hosts is, they think they own the dance floors, thanks again 👍
We did disco, it is natural to us from disco days to do a-go-go in disco beat. However, dance and steps are best from the heart. Some people may suggest that everyone may express their feelings the own way and need not follow "rules" mechanizally. 🙂
*** note added 7/6/2024: The dance situation described in this video has improved significantly in a report in Facebook, by Michael Morrison 5 days after we left the ship. While onboard, we felt our suggestions to the musicians and the entertainment director were rapidly responded to positively and efforts were made to bring back more ballroom dance music. They have been to this channel and played our favorite songs which we appreciated. Dancers have to speak up! Go Cunard go!
@@pedrorodriguezmartin We agree. There is no royalty glamour, art or tradition displayed on the Queen Anne. A generic new cruise ship. Hopefully it is work in progress to earn its name as a Queen.
We where on board and enjoyed the excellent Ballroom lessons given. just wished the orchestra in the evening would pick up on the dances we had just been taught so we could try them out more. But great sound and very enjoyable
Cunard's management seem keen to get away from ballroom/latin to attract a "younger crowd". We can dance latin/ballroom to 80%+ of disco numbers, or disco using small latin steps rather than standing shaking ourselves or head butting into mid air. I know I'm repeating myself; floor looks fine to me, we've quickstepped on 3m x 3m postage stamps! Just takes Cunard to provide music. Another good video, thanks.
Very good information about the Queen Anne dance floor. I have heard similar comments. It was a good idea to request more ballroom music. Most people seem to prefer it.
Great video, thanks. From videos I've seen there doesn't seem much wrong with Queens Room. We'll dance on any floor, it doesn't need to be rectangular. Biggest issue I'm picking up is using the room for other things and not offering dancing. We don't mind a party band/disco in the mix we'll still do ballroom, latin or disco if we have a space. We won't be on her though, QM2 is our only interest with round trips booked next June and September of 2026. Looking forward to more videos, and particularly if you do any from QM2!
We just took the QM2 to the QA. Very enjoyable cruise. We even met Monty Murry on that cruise. I have 40 GB of QM2 dance video and will surely be putting them out. Thanks for watching.
How nice to have met you both recently on Queen Anne at the afternoon tea dance and to see your wonderful dancing again. Keep dancing ... Darren & Mark
Thank you for pointing this out. No wonder the song was so hard to sing. The original Nat King Cole record is a slow foxtrot. Here he sung it the same way but the band played the music in 3/4 time as a waltz.
@@tonymariadance You’re joking right? Deliberately creating musical mayhem? No. This is people who went to music school who really have no talent. Conductor had no clue that there was anything wrong with what is obviously a musical train wreck.
We are finishing our Queen Anne Norway cruise tonight. We shall have a lot of observations to share soon. In short, we complained early in the cruise but they made compromises. We think we understand their position now.
