Jazz Cruises

[Kevin Bresnahan]

This past January, after several previous aborted attempts, I was able to take my first Jazz cruise. I heard about Christian McBride's World At Sea cruise via his Facebook page and decided to finally give one a try. I had a blast. I posted the daily activity flyers here: 

Since my wife & I had such a great time on this cruise, we decided to book it again in 2027.

https://thejazzcruise.com/

The 2027 cruise will have some of my favorite players on it...

Performing Groups

Emmet Cohen (Host), Dee Dee Bridgewater, Christian McBride, Kurt Elling, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Sullivan Fortner Trio, Bill Charlap Trio, Catherine Russell, John Pizzarelli, Jeff Hamilton, Ann Hampton Callaway, John Patitucci, Joey Calderazzo, Dave Weckl, Houston Person, Tyreek McDole, Alfredo Rodriguez & Pedrito Martinez, James Carter Organ Trio

Featured Performers

Trumpets

Randy Brecker, James Morrison, Sean Jones, Terell Stafford, Bria Skonberg, Benny Benack III, Bijon Watson

Reeds

Eric Marienthal (Music Director), Anat Cohen, Gary Smulyan, Godwin Louis, Dylan Band

Trombones

Wycliffe Gordon (Gospel Show Co-Host), John Allred, Mariel Bildsten

Pianos

Renee Rosnes, Shelly Berg, Mathis Picard, Caelan Cardello, Ted Rosenthal, Ben Paterson, Tadataka Unno

Basses

John Clayton (Big Band Director), Nicki Parrott, Jon Hamar, Philip Norris, Dan Finn, Clark Sommers, Tal Ronen, Mike Karn, Martin Wind, David Wong

Drums

Lewis Nash, Herlin Riley, Kyle Poole, Tim Horner, Jerome Gillespie, Marcus Finnie, Domo Branch, Dennis Mackrel, Gary Jones III

GUITAR

Matt Munisteri

Vocals

Niki Haris (Gospel Show Co-Host)

Comedian

Alonzo Bodden (Comic)

The piano lineup alone is pretty mind-blowing, especially since it includes my favorite performing pianist, Renee Rosnes.

Weirdly, I was never contacted via E-mail about this 2027 cruise, even though I was on one of last year's Jazz cruises. I think it had something to do with McBride's World At Sea being a special "one and done" cruise. Anyway, I got one of the last "Veranda Plus" rooms. There were only 5 more of them left as of yesterday. Plenty of other rooms, but my wife really likes the balcony and I like the "Plus" part of the Veranda Plus room in that it includes breakfast in the Blu Restaurant, which I really enjoyed last year.

The week after this cruise, on the same boat, there's another Jazz cruise called Journey of Jazz, but that one doesn't have as many of my favorites like this first week. Apparently, quite a few people go to both weeks. That's almost too much Jazz even for me.  The biggest bummer about not going that second week is that it has a stop in New Orleans, where I have never been and want to go at least once.

[Dub Modal]

Sounds fun but I could never enjoy a cruise with the motion sickness I get. But you should definitely go to NO, and you should definitely go when it's not summer. 

[Rabshakeh]

Didn't we have a similar thread a few years ago?

I went down a rabbit hole at one point looking at the different music cruises available. The Smooth Jazz one looked incredibly fun 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I leave for a Rhone River cruise next week. Southern France in mid-August - what was I thinking?? I was thinking it was too inexpensive to pass up.

Last year when we went on our first Jazz cruise, we got the worst snowstorm since we moved to York Beach in Maine. 10 years and we never got more than 10 or 12 inches. We were in Mexico and our house got buried under about two feet of snow. It was not a fun return trip. Luckily a neighbor snowblew a path to our door. Hopefully, El Nino will prevent that this year but it may make for a rainy cruise... which doesn't bother me much as I am inside for most of it.

12 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Didn't we have a similar thread a few years ago?

I went down a rabbit hole at one point looking at the different music cruises available. The Smooth Jazz one looked incredibly fun 

I found several about certain Jazz cruises, including a thread about the 2010 Jazz Cruise that Mosaic sponsored. I tried like hell to convince my wife to go to that one but she worked in the school system as a teacher's aide, so getting a week off at the end of January when school has a week off 3 weeks later was close to impossible. Now that we're both retired, we can go whenever we want.

The Smooth Jazz Cruises (two consecutive weeks) are on the same ship as the one I am going on and they take place right after the two "regular" Jazz cruises, so technically someone could book four straight weeks on that boat. https://thesmoothjazzcruise.com/27-1/home/ & https://thesmoothjazzcruise.com/27-2/home/

Smooth Jazz is not my thing though. I don't think I've seen any of the performers on these cruises live before. My Smooth Jazz is limited to Kenny G at Christmas time.  

[Rabshakeh]

It just looks like a fun crowd. Everyone is in their late forties, wearing shirt sleeves and drinking iced brandy, listening to Marcus Miller.

Edited August 8 by Rabshakeh

[Dub Modal]

Brian Cuthbertson cracks me up with his moves while playing. It's like watching Liberace only he's standing up. 

[gmonahan]

This looks like fun! One question--if you go solo, do they charge you double for a stateroom? That's often been the case on other cruises I've taken, and for those of us doing that, it makes it kind-a-spendy.

 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

11 minutes ago, gmonahan said:

This looks like fun! One question--if you go solo, do they charge you double for a stateroom? That's often been the case on other cruises I've taken, and for those of us doing that, it makes it kind-a-spendy.

 

I am not sure how that works. I think there's a slight discount for a single, but you'd have to call to find out. 888.852.9987

If they ask, tell them I had you call and maybe we'll both get a nice gift out of it.  

I'm already meeting an old friend from the Jazz Corner forum, Steve TheLil on this trip. The more, the merrier.

[gmonahan]

22 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I am not sure how that works. I think there's a slight discount for a single, but you'd have to call to find out. 888.852.9987

If they ask, tell them I had you call and maybe we'll both get a nice gift out of it.  

I'm already meeting an old friend from the Jazz Corner forum, Steve TheLil on this trip. The more, the merrier.

Thanks!