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INSIDE VIEW:
A CONVERSATION WITH CRUISE DIRECTOR RON GOODMAN OF REGAL PRINCESS by Richard H. Wagner |
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Ron Goodman takes a sophisticated modern approach to being a cruise director. Educated at a prestigous Swiss hotel school and a 25-year veteran of such prestigious cruise lines as Cunard, Crystal, Celebrity and now Princess, he is not out to be the center of attention or the class clown. Instead, his approach is more akin to being the entertainment host of the voyage. “I don't want to be that wild and crazy guy because I do not believe it is all about me at all. I think it is about the entertainers that we put on that stage, the comedians, the variety acts, the singers and dancers.”
This is not to say that he is remote or distant. “I like to be out and around. I don't like to hide in the office. I like to be available for the guests. We should always be available but not intrusive to our guests. I respect how much money people may pay to come out here and I want to make sure that we can go above and beyond. That is the bottom line, to go above and beyond.” “Some people may be seasoned professionals when it comes to traveling and might be able to [cruise] many times a year, but you are always going to meet those people who have saved up their entire life and can only do it once. We create these dreams. We are dream weavers. We weave the dreams and we create these incredible memories for the people. As we tell our team, always try and get to know your guests. Learn their names - - it is so so important. Everybody loves to hear their name and when you call someone by name and you have 3,400 people aboard the ship, that person looks at you shocked. Right there you have created a great memory for that person.” Mr. Goodman was tapped by Princess to be the first dream weaver on both Royal Princess and subsequently on Regal Princess. As cruise director, Mr. Goodman was responsible implementing the entertainment departments aboard the new ships. His marching orders from Princess were clear: “As the cruise director of this ship, you need to make sure that you create an unforgetable experience for the entertainment.” Significantly larger than previous Princess ships, Royal and Regal have more space and facilities for entertainment and thus allowed the line to evolve its approach to entertainment. “The Anytime Entertainment concept. More to do and more time to do it in. Giving the guests a lot of choice. One thing I have never heard is that there is nothing to do on an evening onboard because we are able to offer so much.” “Let's walk through it. The main shows are up in the Princess Theater. Once the Princess Theater is done, [the goal] is to keep the flow going around the ship, get [the guests] into a beautiful rhythm.” “Obvisously, the casino is open but there will always be entertainment in the Piazza. Whether it is a Piazza [variety] act, whether it is a band or whether there is a party going on down there, you have that to choose from.” “Keep on flowing back from there, the Princess Live will always be going . There will always be a big show in the Princess Live.” “Keep on flowing back from there, you might have jazz in the Wheelhouse Lounge at that time.” “Then moving back to the Vista Lounge, you might have one of the cruise cult classics, the 50s [night], or you might have a show because we put comedians back there, we put variety acts back there.” Meanwhile, up on the open decks, there is Movies Under the Stars and Water Color Fantasies - - shows in which the ship's battery of fountains dance to recorded music while colored lights are played upon the streams of water. “There is a lot of choice. I think it is great if you are up in the Princess Theater, you [see] a show and then a couple of minutes after that show is done, you can go to another show with a completely different act. Its about giving the choice, it is about giving the variety.” While there are now alternatives, the ship's theater remains a key entertainment venue. “The main shows are up in the Princess Theater. In the Caribbean season we have three [production] shows. When we are over in the Mediterranean or the Baltic, we have four shows.” “I think the production shows are very, very beautiful on this ship. One show in particular, Fierra, gets incredible reviews. Fierra is something that I have nerver seen before in my years on ships - - the love story, the incredible sets, the costumes, the song choice and the talent as well. Not every singer can do a show like Fierra.” In addition to production shows, the Princess Theater is used for shows by comedians, magicians and other visiting variety acts. “We have [one] set of variety acts onboard until mid-cruise. Then, mid-cruise we say farewell to them and we take on new variety acts.” |
At approximately 1,000 seats, the Princess Theater is larger than the theaters on previous Princess ships. It is also equipped with innovative features such as an LED video wall that can act as part of the background scenery for the shows. “The video wall really helps enhance our shows. We can do so much with that video wall. Obviously, we incorporate it into our production shows. The first time I saw a wall like that was in Celine Dion's show in Vegas, a New Day. It is on the Royal, it is on Regal and now I understand that it is being rolled out to many of the other ships in the Princess fleet because it is simply incredible. It just enhances your entertainment product.”
A very non-traditional entertainment venue on a cruise ship is Princess Live - - a working television studio. It is nonetheless familiar ground to Mr. Goodman who has acted in television shows in both the United States and the United Kingdom. “It is a non-stop entertainment venue. The quality of what we have in that room and what we are able to push out looks like it could be on network television. You have cameras pretty much all over the place to be able to capture the excitement. Those big cameras are something that ABC or NBC would use. They are state of the art. The equipment that we have in that room, between the cameras and the editing equipment and the programs that they use to put the [shows] together, it is just a beautiful product.” “We don't want to put fluff into that lounge. We want to put big excitement. We want to make grand shows in that lounge like the murder mystery. On our long cruises when we have more time at sea, we put the culinary academy in there. The deputy cruise director hosts and the chefs come in and they might be teaching you Asian dishes or dishes from India or Mediterranean cuisine.” “When there is an event underway, you have the boys in the booth right there. They are talking to the broadcast center on Deck Six forward. Those boys are watching the TVs and everything is being put together on the go. So within an hour after that event is over, they can push it out right onto the on-demand system.” Consequently, most “of the things that we put up in that room, have to be polished. They have to rehearsed, they have to be clean because we are going to push it out into the staterooms on the on-demand TV system. We are very protective about what we put out on that system because once it is out there thousands of people are going to be able to see it very, very quickly.” “It has taken the Wake Show [the cruise director's morning show] to a new level. When we invite the live audience to come down on the sea days, they love it. We have the warm up guy go out and we have lots of prize giveaways. People are excited to see it. We walk them through everything with the cameras and what not. Guests love it, absolutely love it.” A new entertainment concept that premiered on Regal Princess is the Night Sky Lounge. On certain evenings, the Retreat Pool area is transformed into a cutting edge open air lounge. It acts as a place to relax and unwind following an exciting evening. Say the guests have been to one of the ship's high energy deck parties. Rather than just go off to bed, they can unwind in the Night Sky Lounge. “You go from the big party and things are starting to calm down abit. You have the bar, the staff. The pool is open, the jacuzzis are open and you have all this really cool glo furniture out there as well. We have these celebrity DJs from Scratch DJs. These are big name DJs who travel around the country and who travel around the world. When you walk in there you go 'wow' this is pretty cool stuff. You have the nice relaxed music and the evening winds down nicely. It gets bigger and bigger every cruise that we do.” |
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Cruise ship interview - - Princess Cruises - - Regal Princess - - Cruise Director Ron Goodman