Celebrity Constellation in Bonaire
Celebrity Constellation had entertainment in the form of live bands scattered around the ship playing at various bars or by the pool at different times of the day. The outdoor movie screen usually had a couple different movies each day, some with a second showing available. There were a variety of scheduled activities each day and sometimes parties. The main entertainment was of course the nightly shows.
The first night’s show was a family-friendly comedian. He was pretty good other than making fun of Carnival cruise passengers, which the audience didn’t seem to appreciate. We’re not the only ones who sail with other lines. I wonder who he makes fun of on Carnival’s ships? Carnival used to be our go-to line, but we haven’t sailed there recently because most of the other lines are more restrictive with smoking and Carnival’s ships have gotten way to smokey for me. Not because passengers there are a bunch of criminals as implied in his routine.
cruise ship show
On the second night the ship’s own cast put on one of their production shows, a pretty typical cruise ship show with singers and dancers. The best dance act had a lot of lifts and acrobatics. The show included two aerialists who performed just with ribbon, no ring. A male went first by himself using both ribbons, then his female partner joined him using one ribbon each. They performed together, mostly but not always in contact with one another. Our first cruise on Celebrity several years ago was the first time we had seen an aerialist on a cruise ship. They seem to be becoming more common on cruise ships now and are usually included in Celebrity’s production shows, and often on other lines now too.
Broadway Boys
Night three’s show was the Broadway Boys, an outside act of 4 former Broadway performers who now do their own thing. In this case singing way way-way off Broadway on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The show consisted of tunes originating on Broadway that made their way out into the world and shows that started out elsewhere and worked their way into Broadway. Stage lighting effects have come a long way from what they once were in terms of enhancing the show, but they still manage to shine the lights blindingly out into the crowd no matter where you sit. Not that there was a crowd. With the ship at significantly less than half capacity (more crew than passengers that sailing) nothing was crowded. And yet, in a theater lightly sprinkled with people and open seats all over the place, – nearly all the seats were open – a group of 4 managed to wander in 15 minutes after the show started and plop down right in front of us. Or at least the tallest guy in the group did. If they had moved along another couple feet before sitting or gone down one row (all of the rows in front of us were totally empty) they would have been out of the way. With the top of his head apparently not enough for blocking the view, he even raised his arms up above his head to clap at the end of the first song after he sat down. At least he didn’t do that through the whole show. Social distancing anyone? Yeah, they could have sat just about anywhere else and had nothing but open seats all around them. This cruise was taken shortly after cruising resumed following the covid pandemic so ships were only sailing at about half capacity. Between several storms around the country cancelling multiple flights just before that cruise and other flights cancelled due to lack of crew nearly half the people booked for the cruise didn’t make it so passengers were very sparse.
Night four had a trumpet player. Whether it was him or the microphone turned up way too high, whenever he played the trumpet it was earsplittingly loud. So loud it hurt our ears and we walked out on his second song. We weren’t the only ones. We ran into other people just outside the theater who left for the same reason. We could still hear it for quite a way down the hall into the shop area of the ship. We went to one of the bars that had a singer and guitar duo who played at a much lower volume and listened to them and watched some other passengers dancing instead. The music was nice and some of the passengers were pretty good dancers. The microphone in the theater was overly loud on most of the shows, but the trumpet was the worst of all as he played right into it.
Rock City aerialist
Night five brought a production show called Rock City with the ship’s cast of singers, dancers, acrobats, and an aerialist. Most of the songs are familiar to anyone old enough to have grown up with them, which is probably the majority of the people onboard since Celebrity generally caters to an older crowd. Though still less than a third full, the audience had the most people we’d seen at a show on that cruise. Only the male aerialist performed in this show, his female partner was nowhere to be seen. The last couple numbers had boys in skirts with 3 of the acrobatic type dancers.
fiddle player from New Zealand
The show night six was a fiddle player from New Zealand, with 8 years playing in Lord of the Dance and world tours under her belt. She had a lively show with a variety of music, and sense enough to stay away from the microphone in the center of the stage unless she wanted to say something so she didn’t blast everyone out of the theater like the trumpet player did. Maybe she had seen his show.
Company Men
Night 7 was a quartet of singers called the Company Men. Our stateroom steward said they were staying in the section of cabins he takes care of, and that they are really nice guys. They all had very good voices. Their schtick in the show was song mashups, so bits and pieces of a bunch of songs, but never a complete song other than that they put the bits and pieces together to make their song. We’d have preferred whole songs, but it’s their show and they do their thing.
cabaret show
Night 8 brought a Broadway Cabaret production show with the ship’s orchestra and singers. It would have been better if the volume had been turned down a bit from people in distant cabins wearing earplugs could probably hear it to something a little more reasonable. Sometimes things are too quiet to understand the words, this was quite the opposite. Too loud to hear many individual words. It seems like whoever was in charge of the theater sound system on that ship has a hearing problem they are unaware of and turned the volume up so high people with hearing aids take them out and still think it’s too loud. Seriously, we talked to another passenger who actually did that.
dueling pianos
On night 9 there was a piano duo billed as man vs women pianos. They both played very well. The guy was the better singer of the two. Their show would have been really good if they’d have stuck to playing songs, but they ruined it with their fake bickering over whether Billy Joel or Elton John is best and whether men or women are better piano players. They played songs or parts of songs from a variety of piano greats of the past few decades.
Night 10 the Company Men were supposed to perform again. Instead of the usual ship’s orchestra for background music they had pre-recorded music for this show, but their computer system crashed. They got a couple songs out before, and did one acapella after, but then ended the show early and said to come back for the late show in hopes they’d have it fixed by then. They were actually quite good acapella but didn’t want to do the entire rest of the show that way. This time they had done whole songs rather than bits and pieces in a mashup so it would have been better than the previous one they had.
opera singer
The last night’s show was a singer who had previously been a sub for a variety of parts in Les Misérables. Pretty much everything he sang sounded like opera, whether it was supposed to or not. Even an Evanescence song. Which I suppose is fine of you like opera. (Not a fan.)
acrobatic dancers in the Rock City show
Overall the entertainment on the ship was good, but as far as the theater goes turning down the microphone would have made it a whole lot better.
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