Aerial performers, Legend of the Seas

This week, our Travel pics series is C, for Cruise Ships.

For Tuesday, it’s an interior shot from on board the Royal Caribbean’s Legend Of The Seas.

Before we took our first cruise, we thought entertainment on board would be all shuffleboard, and bingo, and poker machines, and sitting on deck chairs reading Agatha Christie novels.

Well, there IS some of that but there are also live bands, and stage musicals – and in some cases, mid-ship aerial performance areas.

When we sailed on the Legend of the Seas early in 2016, our cabin was near the central atrium – which they called the Centrum – and as we passed, we often saw aerial performers practising for a show which involves a cross between rhythmic gymnastics and bungee jumping – all in a six-story space in the centre of a moving cruise ship.

In this particular show (“Seasons”), the aerialists ‘dance’ and sway, and gyrate to live versions of songs from U2 to Green Day, and from Procul Harum to Ann Peebles – all performed live by the entertainment crew’s singers.

Today’s TravelPic is from one of the final dress rehearsals.

The show had to be postponed a number of times, because our cruise was between two cyclones in the South Pacific, so the vessel was swaying too much for the performers’ safety but eventually it took place – and I’ve put a video of most of it on YouTube.