Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Celebrity Cruise to Bermuda

In front of the Celebrity Silhouette
in Bermuda.
Several months ago, a YouTube personality who hosts an old-time movie review channel announced a classic movie-themed cruise on Celebrity to Bermuda. Of course I signed up right away and convinced my brother who is not a huge classic movie fan, but is a huge cruise fan, to accompany me. But not enough people signed up to meet the required minimum and so the classic movie portion of the cruise was cancelled. The travel agent volunteered to refund my deposit, but my brother and I decided to go anyway since the cruise was still going to take place, just no old movies. Besides, I had my own mini-classic film festival in our cabinet by watching two Betty Gable flicks on the video-on-demand channel. 

Day 1

My brother Jonathan drove us to Port Liberty in Bayonne, NJ (He lives in Delaware and drove up.) We got on the Celebrity Silhouette and watched the Statue of Liberty drift by. There was a LGBTQ passengers' get-together and we met several other gay travelers (I remember on my first cruise they called such meetings Friends of Dorothy so as not to upset the straights.) There was an "adult" comic who told sexually-oriented jokes. Mildly funny. She dressed in an orange housedress and sneakers. Her big claim to fame was she did a robot dance in front of Simon Cowell at a restaurant and it wound up in the National Enquirer when he gave her a thumbs-down.

Carole Landis, Robert Cummings, Jack Haley,
Betty Grable and Don Ameche in
Moon Over Miami (1941)
Before bed, I watched Moon Over Miami with Betty Grable, Don Ameche, Robert Cummings, Carole Landis, Charlotte Greenwood, and Jack Haley. The kind of movie where dirt-poor Betty, Carol and Charlotte pretend to be ultra-rich and go husband-hunting in Florida. Lots of silly musical numbers with titles like "Oh Me, Oh Miami." The highlights: Haley and Greenwood's comedy-relief number, "Is That Good?" and Betty breaking into an elaborate tap number at a party with two perfect strangers.

Day 2

Dinner at LePetit Chef at LaQuisine. The gimmick here is they show an animation on your plate related to each dish. A little cartoon chef explains the influences and ingredients. For dessert they had dancing strawberries. It was cute. We also played Trivia (cheap prizes) and attended a presentation on future cruises.

Day 3

In an unusual programming choice, the cruise director Michael (who tells bad granddad jokes in a broad Essex British accent) delivered a lecture on the Titanic (not the first topic that leaps to mind for a pleasure cruise). It was actually pretty interesting and included some conspiracy theories such as the speculation that it wasn't really the Titanic but another ship which was switched in at the last minute. 

After a magnificent dinner at the Tuscan Grill specialty restaurant, I went to the 9 pm show of the magician-comedian who made a $20 bill disappear and reappear inside a grapefruit. He was pretty funny and employed several members of the audience to comic effect.

Day 4

Our first day in Bermuda. We had breakfast from room service as we had to be up early for our excursion to a secluded beach. The trip included a mini bus tour of the island and about three hours on this lovely beach call Woodhole, just beyond Horseshoe Beach, complete with provided beach chairs and umbrellas. I'm sure I visited this same spot about 20 years ago on my first cruise. In the afternoon, I walked around the Dockyards area which is now stuffed with gift shops and restaurants in fake pirate ships. 

The evening's entertainment was the first full production show called simply Life featuring four singers, six dancers and four acrobats/aeralists/gymnasts, a good-sized orchestra, and a stage that lifted and descended. It was a medley of pop songs with the acrobats leaping around and tying themselves up in fabric while hanging from the ceiling and then unravelling. After dinner at Sushi on Five (which was extra and the food was decent), we took in another show, a singer-pianist delivering a one-man autobiographical journey on his adventures in show biz including playing a bear at Disney World, understudying in the 2006 Broadway revival of Company, and working as a production assistant for Ellen DeGeneris through which he got to hang out with Billy Joel. Both shows were enjoyable.

Before bed, I finished Moon Over Miami and started another Grable 20th Century Fox tuner--The Dolly Sisters--best known for the parody Carol Burnett did of it on her variety series, The Doily Sisters. This was the only time the entire hour was given over to a movie satire.

Day 5

On our second day in Bermuda, we went snorkeling which I hadn't done since I went to Puerto Vallerta. I saw one tiny fish, but lots of coral. It was fun to take a ride on a catamaran. At trivia that afternoon, there was a Star Wars question and the couple I was playing with related they had the same question on another cruise. One of the passengers they were playing with later revealed he was in one of the Star Wars movies. He was a British actor who played Wes Jensen in The Empire Strikes Back

The entertainment was provided by a juggler who had been with Cirque du Soleil. Very energetic and funny. I would give Celebrity high marks for the shows which were varied. There was something different every night. There were also fun game shows in addition to Trivia. At 10pm after the juggler, I attended an adult game called Majority Rules. The audience is asked sexually frank questions like "What's another name for penis?" or "How could you describe your lover and a pizza using the same words"? If you write the most popular response you get a point. It was good dirty humor.

June Haver, Betty Grable and John Payne
in The Dolly Sisters (1945).
I continued watching The Dolly Sisters before bed. I remembered watching it in black and white about 50 years on Channel 48, the Philadelphia UHF channel. The ship's video channel was showing the complete version which included a shocking blackface number which I'm sure Channel 48 cut. I don't remember seeing it. As the titular vaudeville siblings, Betty and June Haver were performing their act in Paris to the song "The Darktown Strutters' Ball" and they don blackface as do the chorus girls. 

Day 6

It was our last day in Bermuda. We had to be back on board by 3:30pm so we decided to take the ferry from the Dockyards to Hamilton at the other end of the island. Many of the shops were closed, so we just strolled around. The nicest part was sitting in a cafe and drinking macchiatos. 

The second big production show was Boogie Wonderland, a revue of 1970s hits. (At the same time, there was also a screening in the Art Gallery of a rare cartoon collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali with a lecture, but I found it on YouTube and figured I could watch it there. It was only 7 minutes.) The highlight of Boogey Wonderland for me was the medley of TV themes of the era including Maude, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Wonder Woman. After dinner in the main dining area, we joined the friends we met at the LGBTQ gathering and danced at the Silent Disco.

Day 7

On our way back to NYC, the ship was pitching like crazy and it was hard to maintain your balance. This was a day for resting. The final big show was called On Broadway and featured numbers from everything

Celebrity's On Broadway revue.

from A Chorus Line to The Producers to Hairspray to The Who's Tommy. The high point was provided by the aerialists who were flying around to "All I Ask of You" from Phantom. Dinner was in the specialty French restaurant Murano. I had a crab and salmon parfait, Dover sole, cheese selection and chocolate mousse with a brownie. 

Day 8

Back in NYC. We had to be out of the room by 730am, but we could eat breakfast in the buffet. We hauled our luggage to the 14th deck and had to sit outside on a windy day because everyone else had the same idea and all the tables were taken inside. Getting off the ship was amazingly easy. Our bill was sent to the Celebrity app on our phones and applied to our credit cards. Since we didn't check our bags and didn't need a transfer to an airport, all we had to do was swipe the ID card the ship gave us, walk off and go to where Jonathan had parked his car in a long-term garage.

The cruise originally appealed to me because of the movie programming, plus it was leaving from New York, so I wouldn't have to take an airplane to get to the ship. I had a great time. Food was good (not as great as Oceania but I'd say 8 out of 10), the room and service, excursions and onboard entertainment were A-plus. I would take another cruise on Celebrity.


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