JFitzpatrick Travel LLC

 So, we received a last minute phone call from friends asking whether we wanted to join them on the “Soul  Train  Cruise “ departing in late February.  Even though we felt that we were at the maximum relative to traveling, we decided that this might be a lot of fun. We were surprised beyond our wildest dreams to discover that this was not only fun, but  GREAT FUN!

Do you remember “SOUL TRAIN”  from the early 70s with Don Cornelius and his famous ending, Love, Peace and Soul!  Do you remember just how many fabulous artists were introduced on that show and how much fun we had watching the soul train dancers and the line of people competing to do the weirdest dance coming down the center of the line?

Wonderful memories of this and more were provided on this cruise. Tony Cornelius, Don’s son, acted as host along with Time-Life Productions and we sailed away from Fort Lauderdale on February 22nd on the Holland America Eurodam.  We left the port with a great fanfare as a band called DW3 played, entertained, hooted, everything you could imagine, boogying out of the port.  If you know that port at all, you’ll know that they have, at any given time, six or seven other ships in port. This day was no exception and we had a great time looking at the passengers on other ships waving and dancing along with us as we partied really hard.  You could see the envy in their faces as they watched us partying, dancing, singing and having a blast.

 

The opening evening show had “The  Spinners”.  I last saw this group in Ithaca, New York in 1973 and at the time I thought they were just phenomenal. I remember people dancing in the aisles and singing along with every song they offered. I could not imagine that they could be as good  as they were back during the day! Was I ever wrong?

This new Spinners  group, which had in it one member from the old group, might’ve been even better than they were in 1973. As I looked around the largely gray-haired audience, I knew that each of us was remembering when we were much much younger and how much fun we had in  listening  to the music of this group.  They were just outstanding and we all agreed that our trip was off to a great beginning with such talent.

An early morning “Gospel Hour” set the stage with everyone being “taken to church”. Regina Belle, Valerie Simpson, and RudyCurrence performed in a big way. Not one person left the auditorium before being booted out.  Even if one  did not like gospel music, it’s hard to imagine not being entertained by these strong performers. Valerie Simpson’s voice sounded exactly like it did years ago and even without Nick, she was just wonderful.

The evening concerts featured “The  Stylistics” and “Frankie Beverly and Maze”. For Day Three (Feb. 24th), they repeated these two groups.Frankie Beverly, who David has absolutely loved over the years, was not as good as I thought he would be. The Stylistics sounded much  like they did in the old days. I thought the concerts for these two days were not so strong.

By the way, on day three, we also had a port call at Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos. For sure this is a port that offers really pretty beaches but little else. Providenciales is definitely the Turks and Caicos island that has been developed for tourists and the other islands have little else to offer except beautiful beaches.

San Juan Puerto Rico, here we come! By far, this was our best port call for this cruise. We scheduled a walking culinary tour in old San Juan and this was just the bomb! Led by a really good Guide and stopping at six different restaurants where we had an eclectic,  wonderful set of food, we all had a ball.  Note: we booked this on our own through Viator rather than through the cruise line. Although I don’t generally advocate booking independent tours, given that the ship was docked in port and we walked from the ship directly to our meeting location, I felt that the risk of missing the ship was nonexistent.  Through Viator, we had a longer tour and we paid less than through the cruise line.

Back on the ship that evening, we were entertained by “KC and the Sunshine band.”  What a performance! For an older, chubby guy we were amazed at how much the crowd enjoyed him. He can’t dance! His voice isn’t that great! But, he was wonderful!

Okay, another port call that was not memorable.  St. Thomas, US Virgin islands, another beachy place. So maybe I’m not a person who is so enthralled with Caribbean ports? Perhaps I’ve gotten to the point where they all seem to be one big beautiful beach with lots of T-shirt shops and lots of tourists.

I was really happy to get back on the ship because this night, we had Gladys Knight as the keynote performer. She was just amazing, the grand dame of this trip, the classiest ever. When she broke out with “Neither  one of us wants to say goodbye”,  bedlam ensued .  We were up on our feet, singing every word, swaying from side to side. We all looked around the room and knew that we’d been taken to a place in time that we didn’t want to leave.  For sure, this night, it was Gladys Knight and a night to be remembered.

A day at sea and James Ingram was the keynote performer. What a bust! Fortunately for us, Gladys Knight also did a repeat performance and some of us sneaked in to hear her again.

So, on this mid- evening ship on our way to Half-moon Cay, we heard Gladys Knight on her  “midnight train to Georgia”.  We could not have had a better trip.

Half-moon Cay was the Port call and it was another unmemorable place. Absolutely beautiful beaches, a Holland  America cruise line made up port with a few shops. This was a tender port so we had to ride a little boat over there but I spent about 10 minutes on the island and turned around really quickly to go back to the ship. I had a much better time listening to music on the ship and reading than I would’ve had at this made up port.  As an aside, David stayed on the island and participated in the barbecue offered by the cruise line. They have really good food and music.

Keynote entertainment this evening was Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes. I thought initially that no one could do as good a job as TheSpinners and Gladys Knight but we were absolutely surprised. Harold Melvin is deceased but the guy who sings the lead for this group is just outstanding and sounds exactly like Harold Melvin. They turned the place out! For the last night’s performance they gave everyone their moneys worth.

So those were the keynote performers but we also had some other folks there. Alonzo Bodden was a comedian and he was funny, funny.Doug E Fresh was a DJ who kept the crowd hopping. Rudy Currence was a singer we had not heard of before but he too was fabulous.DW3, a Hispanic band  from LA, could sing any and everybody’s songs in a spectacular way. I would go see them on their own just because they were that great.

The cruise was absolutely a joy and something that I would repeat gladly. The downside of it is that it sails the Caribbean and the ports of call are a little boring; this, however, is offset by the fabulous entertainment offered by the producers.

One thing we found was that there were a number of people who have done this cruise multiple times. It was interesting speaking to people from other countries, eg Holland, who traveled all the way over here just for this cruise.  Unfortunately for us, we can’t take this trip next year as they moved the date to later in February and it will conflict with another cruise we’re taking for Carnival  in Rio.  Oh well, there’s always the next year. (Smile)  For now, I have to live with my memories of this trip–one which was totally unplanned but oh, what a fabulous time we had!

PS.  FYI — The 2016 Soul Train Cruise Lineup includes, Smokey Robinson, The Ojay’s, The Whispers, Stefanie Mills, Sheila E, The Dramatics, Tavares, Atlantic Starr and more…  If you are interested in going, please let me know.