Nieuw Amsterdam in Puerto Vallarta
September 11, 2026 9:15 am
Nieuw Amsterdam in Puerto Vallarta
Like most cruises the nightly shows on Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam were a mix of production shows with the ship’s cast and other shows with guest performers. Being a longer cruise there was a higher percentage of guest performers than you would find on a short cruise. The cast usually has 2 or 3 shows per cruise so if it’s a short cruise you don’t need a whole lot of other shows, but the longer the cruise is the more guest performers are required. We did not go to the show every night, but we did go to some of them. Some of the shows we skipped were because it didn’t sound that interesting and others because we just didn’t feel like going that night or had something else we wanted to do instead.
first production show
The first night’s show was called Humanity. It was the same show we saw on our last cruise on the Oosterdam. Cruise ship production shows in the past were generally uniqie to a particular ship, but apparently now Holland America has what they call the One Step Dance Company performing on various ships of theirs rather than the song and dance crew they used to have. The dance group had no singers. They had one show later in the cruise which had a singing part and they borrowed one of the ship’s lounge singers for that. There were 6 performers in the dance troupe. One of the male dancers was injured sometime during the show, but nobody in the audience knew it until the end when only 5 of the 6 dancers came out for accolades at the end of the show,
impressionist singer
The next show that we went to was a girl who did impressions of other singers and performed some of their songs. We thought we had really good seats because we had a full view of the stage, but soon wished we were sitting somewhere that blocked the top of it since there was an obnoxious bright white spotlight that kept aiming at the audience periodically and blinding us whenever she sang so we spent a lot of that show with our eyes closed. After that we made sure to sit in an area where the top of the stage where those lights were was blocked by structure in the theater so we could actually watch the shows without getting blinded by a spotlight in our eyes.
Cello the cellist
The next day’s show was a cellist whose last name was aptly Cello – or at least her stage name anyway. She actually played some rock songs on the cello and not just all classical music – with help from the ship’s back-up band.
production show
Somewhere along the line we went to the second production show. There were only 2 male performers that night so the injured one was still out. That particular show had parts involving each dancer dancing in a different colored spotlight. The lighting was obviously pre-programmed because there was one empty color whenever they did that where the missing dancer should have been.
theater show
Another of their guest performances came from a group called The Divos. They were billed as a Latin singing trio, though they tried to insert some comedy into their performance as well. The next one after that was a guitarist, but we didn’t go to that show.
last production show
Following that they had the third production show of the cruise. The female dancers each stood out in their own way, but the males were the type who just sort of blended in and could have been anyone so we weren’t sure if the third male dancer at this show was the original one who had been injured and was now back or if they had replaced him at one of the port stops with a new guy.
pianist
One night the show was a piano player. Or at least he appeared to be playing the piano. The background music was so loud we really couldn’t hear the piano at all for the most part so he could have just been wiggling his fingers above the keys for all anyone knew. Definitely would have been a better show if they had left out the background music and just had the piano.
Later there was either another guitar player or maybe the one we didn’t go to the other time did another show. Sometimes the guest performers do stay on the ship long enough to do two shows. He was supposed to be a guitar player anyway. He spent a lot more time talking than actually playing the guitar so if it was the same guy we definitely didn’t miss anything by not going to his show the first time around.
comedy magician
The next show was a comedy magician. Comedy and magicians can both be kind of hit and miss as to whether the show is worth watching or not. Sometimes they are really good. sometimes OK, and other times really awful. This one was pretty entertaining.
The last show that we went to was a singing group. They were not memorable for being either good or bad, just kind of there.
Posted by LBcruiseshipblogger
Categories: Holland America, Nieuw Amsterdam, Shipboard Life
Tags: cruise, cruise ship shows, Holland America, Nieuw Amsterdam, photos, shows, travel
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