The Beginning of the Grand Voyage

Hello everyone,
I have decided to write a blog on our 67 Grand Voyage cruise which goes to the South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. This is because so many people are interested in it and quite frankly I have so much time to do it. For those of you who are reading this for the first time I am dancing on the M.S. Amsterdam of the Holland America Line in the production shows. We have 4 full production shows and one opening night “bumper” show. We are not learning any additional shows for this cruise which means (if you do the math)

5 shows – 67 day cruise = about 60 days off = 2 months of vacation. (2shows are repeated towards the end)

After doing the shows for 20 weeks in Alaska our bodies and voices can use the rest. Now you might ask, “How can someone tae a 67 day cruise?” Well, it is a life style for the passengers on this particular cruise. A lot of them do every Grand Voyage cruise, which are about 2 a year, and then our world Cruise which is once a year and is 114 days long. Hearing this you might imagine that the passengers are an older and retired crowd with lots of money. This is true but a lot of them are very nice and very fun to be around. The first leg of this cruise has been 6 sea days heading down to the French Polynesian Island of Nuka Hiva. 6 days at sea have gone by fast as we have only 2 left. Our last show was on the first sea day so the last couple of days we have been catching up on tans, reading, the gym and eating. I helped out with the first of many tournaments over the last three days. This was a miniature golf tournament and was a lot of fun. This is also a great way to meet the passengers.

After Nuka Hiva we spend two days in Papeete, Tahiti and then our third port is Moorea and that’s followed up by Bora Bora, which is also a two day stay. As the cruise goes on I will update this blog with pictures and details of each stop as best I can. Due to our “In Port Manning” schedule, which means at every port 3 members of the cast have to stay on the ship for emergency reasons, some ports I will not be able to get off in…but I think I will be able to offer a good representation of each port.

As in previous blogs if you have any questions, comments are requests or anything please write a response on this website, email me at danny.hochman@gmail.com or find me on Facebook. I would love to hear from you all and I cannot wait to get home. As of right now we are scheduled to get home on January 16th...if everything goes well because we are disembarking the ship in Lima, Peru. Anyways I hope everyone id well and I miss you all. Take care and talk and see you all very soon.

Danny