Nicole schreibt...
The Broadway Cruise 2024 |
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Remember that vow to never set foot onto a cruise ship again? Yea, so about that... it went out of the window when the Broadway Cruise was announced, a five day jaunt from Miami to Key West and Grand Cayman with ten Broadway A-listers including my current favourite and my Mom offering to finance the shindig as a present for my big birthday last year. So we booked and luckily decided to book two additional nights in Miami ahead of the cruise to have some wiggle room "just in case things went awry" and we didn’t want to risk missing the ship.
And then things went spectacularly awry with Germany descending into unforeseen strike chaos – when it wasn’t local public transport it was the Bahn (or rather the train drivers) or various small groups around the airports and Lufthansa. It became a tense weekend, waiting for new strikes to be announced and by an amazing coincidence both the train drivers and Lufthansa’s cabin crew announced they would go on strike on Tuesday, so both our train to Frankfurt Airport and the flight to Miami went ahead as planned on Monday. WHEW!
We made it to Miami Airport in good time and to the pretty average airport hotel we had chosen for the two days. The original idea had been to just spend the free day at the hotel pool, but the pool area was a construction site and being in Miami, it also seemed a tragic waste of time to not see anything of the town beyond the airport, the port and the hotel.
So next morning after a very chaotic breakfast with about a 100 people all descending on the buffet at the same time for an early pick up for their cruise, we took an Uber to Miami Beach to spend some hours on South Beach, one of the most beautiful beaches of Florida, which is also famous for its iconic Art Deco district. When we had visited Miami during a bigger Florida trip some years ago, there was some "urban hip-hop festival" going on, which had made the area slightly weird, now it was spring break and South Beach was awash in young college folks.
But the vibe felt far more chirpy and peaceful and I actually enjoyed the young crowds, not to mention the gorgeous beach itself and the opportunity to swim in the sea. After some leisurely hours we went for a stroll up and down Ocean Drive to fully take in the Art Deco architecture, then enjoyed a lovely Cuban dinner, before finally Ubering back to the hotel.
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The real adventure began the next morning – time to board Nerd Heaven, or rather the Norwegian Pearl for the five-day Broadway Cruise. It was with some trepidation that I returned onto a cruise ship but a lot of things I had at least half-guessed/anticipated soon turned out to be true.
It was WAY more laid back and fun with an American crowd that doesn’t turn everything from tables at the restaurant to sunloungers into a Battle Royale like tense Germans, forever afraid of being short-changed, a balcony stateroom is an entirely different experience from an inside stateroom (which I already knew from the luxury cruise in the South Pacific, but yea) and a smallish vessel doesn’t feel half as gross and ridiculous as those floating theme park cities with +4,000 people.
According to one screen I saw there were around 1,500 passengers on the Norwegian Pearl, so basically one bigger Broadway Theatre filled and that was just the perfect size, especially since people spread around so much in various locations and with various activities. And even though one pool had been covered up and half the pool deck converted into an open air theatre, it was never diffcult to find loungers, chairs or have some space in the pool.
After boarding we sat down for lunch in their Irish-themed O’Sheehan’s pub, then went for a first wander. Since we had to sit down somewhere anyway, we picked seats on the upper deck with a prime view of the stage where later on the first Pool Deck concert would be happening and enjoyed the Floridian sun until it was time not just to set sail for the Caribbean but to also have the first concert with the entire A-Team present.
Some I had already seen on the Broadway stage, others were new names for me, so initially it was a bit hard to tell them apart, especially since they seem to have a perchant for sprouting godawful facial hair the moment they're off the stage. I had already mentally braced for my man Reeve Carney's bizarre Johnny Depp snotstopper that emerged after his departure form Hadestown, but Christian Borle and Matt Doyle had also gone for the scruff after departing Some Like It Hot and Little Shop of Horrors respectively. At least Cheyenne Jackson still stuck up for womankind looking as devastatingly dashing as ever and Santino Fontana was quite a cutie, too. The lads were completed by senior statesman Norm Lewis and by the ladies Kerry Butler, Abby Mueller and Ali Stroker, the latter two subbing for Daphne Rubin-Vega (boo!), Eva Noblezada and Philippa Soo after they jumped ship respectively.
They all teamed up for a variety of fun duets to kick off the cruise with a much celebrated Xanadu reunion for Kerry and Cheyenne (minus the rollerskates) before we finally had a chance to head to the cabin to unpack, shower and settle in before dinner and the surprise coup of the cruise: They had somehow managed to lure Bernadette Peters, one the last great Broadway divas, onto the ship for a gala concert on the pool deck, seen here with all seats filled to the brim with people while we awaited her.
Unfortunately I don't have any decent photos of the lady (and very few of anyone else) since I had forked out for a new smartphone with a great camera to film as many performances as I could, so I have a lot of video material, but hardly any photos.
Bernadette showed her class with an amazing concert that lasted nearly two hours and consisted of a mix of American musical theatre classics and Sondheim, oh so much Sondheim (but in this case I didn't mind because she sure knew how to sell the man's bangers like "Send in the Clowns" and "Losing My Mind" and it was just great to see her live now, especially since I couldn't be bothered with the Old Friends Sondheim celebration in London, in which she had starred as well).
Next morning I could watch the ship arrive at Key West from our own balcony, which was one of these uncomfortable moments of a stupidly oversized vessel docking at a small town and blocking so much of the horizon (and the Pearl being a fairly small ship!), though in this case I simply wonder why they put the cruise pier smack in the middle of town beside famous Mallory Square and not a bit further to the side. It was still nice to watch the sunrise with the sky gradually lightening until the tropical sun finally came out.
After breakfast ont the ship we headed out and through the beautiful historical district with its old-style Caribbean houses to the Southernmost Point of the USA, right beside a large US naval base with large spy satellite dishes monitoring good old Cuba just 90 miles further south.
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We followed famous Duval Street on the way back, another street filled with gorgeous Caribbean houses, some Art Deco buildings like the old Strand cinema (which now houses a Walgreens of all things) and famous boozers like Sloppy Joe's, which came into existence during the Prohibition era when rum smuggling from Cuba to the Keys was rife. We didn't go in, but more by accident stumbled over the bakery where Key Lime Pie was invented and which made for a great place to pause.
There was one last place to explore, famous Mallory Square where everyone comes together in the evening to celebrate the sunset with music and other live performers, food, drinks and more. Since we had to be back on the ship by 3.30pm the latest, we missed it of course, reinforcing my opinion that cruises only ever enable you to scratch the very surface of the places you visit, but never really see them properly.
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After a break in the cabin to freshen up, it was time for a triple treat of beautiful men – first Matt Doyle on the pool deck, a guy I only knew by name, but who did a rather lovely rock-heavy show and was really easy on the eyes (though I didn't manage a better pic than this one), then hunky Cheyenne Jackson in the Spinnaker Lounge, which clearly hadn’t anticipated demand as there was some chaotic crowd management and me ending on the side with the biggest most obnoxious guy right in my field of vision (I know he can’t help his height, but do you really need to sit in the very front then, blocking so many people’s view??). Cheyenne proved himself a charming raconteur of delightful stories and sang mostly jazzy showtunes and I enjoyed him very much.
And having seen the chaos at Spinnaker now, I hurried with dinner, so I could get back in line for the second show there early (which was a wise decision since the line had already started to form an hour before the start!) and my own baby’s first show. I had quite anticipated Reeve doing the “sings the Divas” show which I already knew from a NY stream, so it was great to see him do these off-the-wall versions of musical theatre classics from “Maybe this time” to “My favourite things” live and with such an appreciative hyper audience of Hadestown fans. Props to the utterly insane lady who took the “pajama party theme” for the evening to extremes by turning up in a self-made pajama printed all over with hearts and Reeve’s face and to sit in the front row with it – it made me feel oh so much saner that my only crazy involved flying to New York for his final performance as Orpheus (not to mention that to keep up with his new awful Johnny Depp look, she started drawing moustaches on all the faces with a black sharpie...).
It might have been All The Pretty Boys or that I had finally caught up with jetlag, but it was also the first evening in which I felt truly refreshed and awake and had a great night of sleep. Just in time for the busiest day of the cruise, which we’d spend all at sea and which turned into “conquer your demons” day.
For most theatre fans meeting performers at the stage door is an absolute highlight, but for a neurospicy introvert like me it’s more hell on earth, because I can’t spout mindless small talk and have no idea what to say. So I’ve only done it on very few rare occasions in London in the safety of a bigger herd lining up to meet A-listers where all you need to do is shove a programme under their nose and say thank you when they scribbled their signature. The whole thing gets amplified for special people who I may or may not have borrowed for adventures in outer space, so as easy as it was to meet Rob Fowler at Bat in London pre-arranged through a mutual acquaintance, I lived in mortal fear to accidentally bump into Andrew Polec as well (and God what a sweetie that guy turned out to be). So, yea, you see where this is going. The ship had arranged two “stage door experiences” where the artists of the cruise would sign stuff and conveniently sold posters of the cruise to get signed, so naturally it would have been stupid to not get it signed by my man Reeve as well as everyone else. He was part of the first batch, so this morning turned into an introvert’s scaling of Mount Everest.
I went to the Summer Palace where things would start at 10am by 9.15am and already found a long line halfway down the ship. Which started shuffling forward by 10am and finally into the night club, from where batches of a few dozen were called forward into the room, where some spectacular bad organization was on show. All five artists had their own line instead of placing five tables along one line, so you had to queue for one person, then join another queue for the next person. Being nervous anyway and not having brought my glasses, I ended up in the wrong queue first for Matt Doyle, which I only noticed when it was almost my turn, but he turned out to be a good trial run (and did I mention yet what a gorgeous specimen he is?).
The performers were all happy to chat with their fans and so many of them seemed eager to share god knows what and there was me going “hi”, shoving the poster under his nose, him a little confused, signing the poster, me going “thank you” and fleeing. A procedure I could then repeat when I found the right queue for Reeve, who looked just as confused to not even get a compliment from me, but my dear dude, let me do my worshipping from afar in silence, please and thank you. After the long wait I couldn’t face the equally long queue for Kerry Butler (whose performance in Beetlejuice I had enjoyed very much), so I met Ali Stroker and Abby Mueller first and by then they had closed the lines, so sadly I missed out on Kerry, but at the end of the day I accomplished a major mission to come face to face with a favourite performer without internally combusting. When I left the Summer Palace, I promptly got lost on the ship trying to find my cabin and once I had stashed the poster safely, hit the bar for a very strong drink (and then another).
The rest of the day went leisurely after that, being spent on the pool deck where first a tribute to choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler happened, then one to composer Jeanine Tesori (who were both there and while I don’t like Jeanine’s music much, boy did I like her taste in dress), before it was time for a repeat of yesterday in another location with Cheyenne and Reeve reprising their sets on the bigger pool deck (making it much easier to film, thank you, boys), before it was time to finally visit the Stardust Theatre for our first ticketed show after having missed out on Norm Lewis the day before.
It was a new area of the ship that I can only describe as Las Vegas hellscape with a bar, a garish casino and then the theatre itself, where Christian Borle was awaiting us. Who stayed true to his image as Broadway’s funny man with a show that was more comedy act than concert and made me wish he’d shut up and sing. It was also “showstopper theme night” where people could dress up as their favourite characters and the cosplay was just amazing from a whole gang dressed up as the Hadestown leads to a set of four “Annies” in red curly wigs, two girls in wonderfully recreated costumes of Six and so much more – and just seeing them all reinforced once more what a wonderful nerd heaven this cruise was (no, I did not dress up as Orpheus, although I counted at least four, but I did wear my Strat t-shirt in a “if you know you know” way).
Next morning we reached our second stop, Grand Cayman. The island is more known for tax dodgers to stash their money in than any kind of sights, so we took the (well-organized) shuttle bus to gorgeous Seven Mile Beach nearby George Town for some leisurely hours in the Caribbean sunshine. It really WAS a very beautiful beach, not yet blighted by big resorts (though those are already being built) and crystal clear Caribbean waters that were a joy to swim in:
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After a detour to a duty free shop to buy the famous Cayman rum cake (and the rum as well) we were back on board for another busy evening of entertainment. This one started with the British Barricade Boys, a quartet of lads who had all been in Les Miserables at some point – sadly no names were given to those on board since they keep rotating the cast. All four of them were great though, presenting an hour’s medley of great British rock hits from Elton John to Tom Jones and Rod Stewart (and how fitting to hear them sing “Sailing” on a ship). After all the American concerts which are so perfectly rehearsed to the last note, gesture and joke landing, it was great to see some of the British “taking the piss” attitude on stage and they came across more like four lads on a boozy holiday in the Canaries than show stars on a cruise.
After dinner it was time to see a personal heroine of mine, Ali Stroker, who had taught me when I saw the Oklahoma! revival on Broadway that being in a wheelchair is really no handicap at all when it comes to delivering a fantastic performance. She offered an hour of wonderful showtunes, many with some sort of inspirational theme, and I do hope that she’ll be able to play a few roles where she can sing those on stage in some form.
From Ali on the pool deck it was back down to Las Vegas hell and the Stardust theatre for Kerry Butler, who I had only encountered live when she starred in Beetlejuice, but who had already been looking back on a fabulous career, originating parts in shows like Hairspray and Catch me if you can and most famously Kira in the stage adaptation of cult movie Xanadu. She, too, delivered a great show and mercifully one with a lot of (great) singing and not so much talking and after all the earlier sausage fests it was great to hear two female Broadway stars at the top of their game singing some of my favourite musical thatre songs.
I had already been impressed by how many people went along with the theme nights on board and following the pajama party and the showstoppers theme, this one was jukebox theme night with lots of amazing outfits from the 70s and 80s on display. So after the concert we lingered in the rather gorgeous Art Deco styled cocktail bar, where a sing-along to showtunes played on a baby grand piano was taking place and we could gawk at all the creative costumes over a frozen margarita. The last day and second day at sea started with another stage door experience session, but luckily this time it was all a bit better organized with just two lines for two people each, so I first went for Cheyenne Jackson and Christian Borle and witnessed one girl plain collapsing in front of the latter when she reached his table (it did earn her him jumping up and coming around to help her up and usher her to chair, but jeez). Having collected my full set for the day (and Norm Lewis saying nice things about my t-shirt, lol, as if I didn’t love him already) I went up to the pool deck for some chilling ahead of the first show for the day, a selection of “I want” songs from various musicals and following in Norm’s steps, Reeve truly made my day by picking, of all songs in the world, “One Song Glory” from Rent, my favourite song from one of my all-time favourite musicals (and why DID he never play Roger?).
Another long break followed, plus a very green St. Patrick’s Day themed dinner, before the cruise went onto the final mile, first a tribute to (set designer) Scott Pask with songs from the shows he designed, including an excellent “Independently Owned” from Shucked by Camryn Hampton – one of the five support singers (and who I actually saw in “Little Shop of Horrors” one and a half years ago) who I inwardly called the B-Team and who actually sang more at various “mixed” concerts, where the A-listers only ever turned up for a single song (if at all). Which would be my only complaint of the cruise, that the A-Team could have worked a little harder for their indubitably fat paychecks since people had booked to see THEM.
For the grand finale we got Abby Mueller at the Stardust Theatre and while I hadn’t known her at all (and she jumped in as last-minute replacement for Daphne Rubin-Vega, who I would have REALLY liked to see!), she gave off strong Adele vibes and did a lovely hour mostly of modern showtunes, including her big showstopper “Heart of Stone” from Six, since she had originated Seymour on Broadway.
And so the cruise ended next morning with disembarkation in Miami and a transfer to Miami Airport. Luckily the strike chaos in Germany had simmered down, so the trip back was hassle-free and pain-free (with a final fun moment of sharing an elevator at the airport with Santino Fontana, who had apparently brought wife and two little daughters along and was now travelling home like all us regular Janes and Joes).
Was it worth it all? I’d say yea – I truly did have the time of my life in “Nerd Heaven”, a ship filled with eager, positive musical lovers, many of them wearing t-shirts and hoodies of their favourite shows and even dressing up in character and being able to see so many Broadway A-Listers within five days in concerts. I do wish they had spread showtimes further to get a chance to really see everyone’s solo concerts and as I said before, for the A-Team to be more involved in the mixed concerts and tributes, but at the end of the day it’s a minor niggle, considering just how much they all DID do – not just the concerts, but the long signing sessions that must have given them cramped hands as well as panels or live versions of popular TV game shows. The theme nights were fabulous fun too (try that with sour-faced stick-up-their-backside-Germans!) and there wasn’t a single second’s boredom.
Does that mean I’ve softened on cruises? Not really. Granted, an American ship was a far more laid back experience, so if I’d ever go at all, it would be on an American ship again, but as a means of traveling it still sucks – having caught only a brief glimpse of Key West instead of spending a few days exploring the town, its museums and the other nearby Keys properly – so I really don’t think I’ll be on a boat again. In the meantime I will treasure these incredible five days on board the lovely Norwegian Pearl as one of the best holidays ever.
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