Riverdance

Away from the cruise posts for a change. I will finish them off soon. Last night I went with Denise and my brother Martin and his wife Mandy to see the brilliant show Riverdance in Cardiff's St. Davids Hall. We had bought the tickets for my brother and his wife for Christmas.

We were treated to an amazing display of dance of several kinds not just Irish dance. For the one person in the world who might have seen this type of dance, here is a YouTube video to get some idea of the type of evening we had.

The hall was just about packed. It holds 1800 people and there must have been at least 1500 there.Some of the dance was slow and with haunting music, and then they broke into the hard fast Irish Riverdance style that is known the world over.

Much of the evening was that style with a superb dancing with feet moving so fast you could not catch up with them.

Then there was Cossack style, Flamenco style, and a good old fashioned brilliant American loose tap dance with two black guys who could only be described as dance geniuses. They had a 'dance off' against the Irish style dancers and it was probably the finest display of tap I will ever be privileged to see.

All in all a fantastic night, and they got a well deserved standing ovation at the end.

On board entertainment

Cruises of course to not want you be feel bored under any circumstances at all. If you are bored you might well decide not to go back to them or to cruise with another operator. Which is why there is a variety of things to keep you entertained all day long.

Every day on  the P&O ships there is a paper delivered to your cabin detailing the next days activities and a suggestion of wear for the evening meal, perhaps a black tie evening or casual dress code.

And then there may be an art exhibition, (yes they have their own art gallery that you can purchase from) or a talk perhaps on WW11, (very well attended). Maybe a seminar on jewellery, dancing lessons, Yoga, indoor cycling, tennis, a bridge game, shuffleboard, quoits, acupuncture, bingo, and everyday a film in one of the theatre venues, and they would be modern ones from this or last year.

In the evening of course the entertainment is built up even more. On the Oceana there are two main venues, the Spotlight and Footlights. The Spotlight is a more of a nightclub with comfy chairs and Footlights is more of a retro theatre that can seat getting on for a thousand I would think. Both of course have waiters hovering to make sure you have drinks while watching the acts.

The acts on the whole are first class. Not everyone was to our taste of course, but they were all good from comedians and magicians to singers and classic piano players etc.

And if that was not to your taste there was always something else and other places you could go to on board pubs and a casino and more music in the Atrium. All in all, keep the punters on the go at all times.

And of course as well there are the on board shops, selling clothes and watched and jewellery just in case you had not bought enough. Cigarettes and spirits as well as sweets etc. Anything to get you spending.  

For us, well we did go to a lot of the evening venues, but on the whole stayed away from the rest. Shuffleboard and quoits did not do a lot for us. But we could not complain about the choice as there was always plenty to. When we go to a port we had excursions booked at just about all, so were out and about anyway.

I will post about the excursions next time I think.