Thoughts from a long-time PPUSA attendee from a first 70k.........
Ocean Manor hotel – room was a dump for over $250 a night. The parties in the Tiki Lounge were fun, but smoky as hell. There wasn't really much of a “beach party” as most of the people were in the too small Tiki Lounge.
Ship – Beautiful. It was much nicer than the Celebrity ship we were on during a previous, conventional cruise. The room was nicer, and maybe bigger. The bathroom was definitely bigger, with a MUCH nicer shower.
The food OTOH, was much worse.
The buffet was very hit and miss. Powdered scrambled eggs? Really? There were options that were pretty good though. For example, they had sunny side up eggs and bacon for breakfast, nice ham and salad stuff for lunch and dinner. Otoh, there were some options that were pretty nasty. The corned beef hash was gross. They had very limited drink choices in the buffet (water, iced tea, lemonade I think). You couldn't even buy a Coke at the buffet. You had to go to a bar to get soda. It was great that the buffet was open late and served breakfast late.
The main dining room was a bit better, but still not great. The apps were good, but the main courses were just okay. The service was pretty weak in the main dining room. Eating at the main dining room was comparable to eating food at an average wedding reception. Eating at the main dining room on the Celebrity Cruise was more like eating at a high-end restaurant.
On the Promenade, the Cafe had good, little sandwiches. I think it was my favorite place to eat. I loved the Ben & Jerry's! The pizza wasn't very good, but I'm from Chicago, so…..
The drinks were very reasonably prices (though the total was still a big bill!)
The crew was awesome the entire weekend. I loved watching them watching the shows, or getting into the music. We were standing next to some crewmembers recording parts of At the Gates show, and saw some recording Paradise Lost on the main deck. There was a guy working in the buffet who was playing drums on the hand-sanitizer dispensers and doing some growls. He yelled out, “I'm one of you!” while throwing the horns. It was cool. The ones that weren't into it, were still pleasant as hell though.
I think most ProgPower USA attendees wouldn't be interested in this cruise. There is a very high percentage of extreme vocals in the bands on the cruise. There was some power metal and thrash, but clean vocals were definitely in the minority, by far.
Sets that stood out for me, in rough order of how much I enjoyed them (though I saw more than these)...
Samael – Watching Samael was, to me, like watching Leprous the first time. I was mesmerized. Their stage presence was great. They were super tight, sounded great and were different. I wasn't expecting the kind of music they played. I stayed up until 4am to watch their second set. Both sets were my favorite of the weekend.
Rotting Christ – I watched both sets of these guys and loved both of them, even though they were almost the same set. I like their last album. It's very atmospheric and interesting. Their older stuff sounded like generic death-metal to me. Live though, even the older stuff: Holy crap. Tight, energetic, and just cool grooves. Watching them, I kept thinking things like, “Death metal bands aren't supposed to do finger tapping,” or “Death metal bands aren't supposed to play rock riffs like this.”
Moonspell – Going into the cruise, this was the band that I liked the most. I was very afraid that Fernando's vocals wouldn't translate well live. I was wrong. Both shows were great. The second show started plagued by the same sound problems that all bands suffered in The Alhambra Theater; vocals and drums were too loud, while the guitars were lost in the mix. In addition, I couldn't hear the keyboard 99% of the set. I was disappointed in their choice of song off of Alpha Noire. I think they chose the weakest song on that disc. I would have preferred Lickanthrope.
Jag Panzer – I've been wanting to see them for ages, but never got the chance. I got to see them twice on the cruise. They were nothing like I was expecting. They were WAY more fun. They sounded great and put on a great show. Harry is a madman on stage. The best part of the All-Star Jam was watching Harry getting into the other performers from the back of the stage. I can't wait to see them live again.
Katatonia – Awesome show and great music.
Thyrfing – Another band that wasn't what I was expecting. On disk, they are good, but nothing special. Live, they are awesome. Very intense show, and fun.
My Dying Bride – Very cool show. Intense and grim.
Fallujah – Great, atmospheric music. The mix in The Alhambra hid the guitarist's mastery. Once in a while you could hear it though. I will be checking out their CDs.
Eluveitie – I wasn't expecting to like them at all, but they put on a great show. They had a lot of variety in their songs. They were really good. Fun. I don't think I'd like them on disc at all, but live they were fun.
I saw some bands that I didn't care for. For example, Belphagor. Their drummer was amazing. But I could only take two and a half songs of pure blast beats. Not my thing. Paradise Lost were boring live. I was really looking forward to them, but they were not much to watch. I saw bits of a lot of other bands.
The crowd was generally very cool. Crowd surfing was tolerated. You don't want to see crowd surfing during Eluveitie though. Crowd surfing dudes in kilts can't be unseen. Moshing was also tolerated and encouraged by the bands. It was never a big deal if you knew enough to stand in an area that would be clear of it. Typical mosh pit though. It wasn't overly aggressive or obnoxious.
One thing that was very cool on the cruise was to watch the bands when they started their set. Because there were so many bands playing and the ship was a bit confusing to navigate, most sets started out mostly empty, then people would trickle in during the set. It was cool to see how bands handled having a small audience. Most did a great job. Some struggled without a decent audience.
As other people say, there's never enough sleep. The last night was supposed to end at 2am, but the high winds forced them to close the pool deck stage. As a result, they had to shuffle and shorten sets to fit them into the other three stages. It resulted in shows going until after 5am on the last night, and you had to be out of your room by around 9:30am. Ugh.
The metal karaoke was pretty cool. We caught it Saturday night. We saw the singer from Susperia (they had a very good set) sing Led Zepplin Black Dog and kill it. Fernando (singer) and Ricardo (guitarist) from Moonspell did Green Jello's Three Little Pigs. It was hilarious. Finally, we saw Fabio sing some kind of hymn in what I imagine was Italian. It was very impressive. The dude can really, really sing.
We will be back next year I'm pretty sure.
