{"id":18378,"date":"2013-08-01T01:00:03","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T08:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=18378"},"modified":"2013-08-01T01:00:03","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T08:00:03","slug":"18378","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=18378","title":{"rendered":"Concerts and Cruises a Match"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, our soon-to-be nine-year-old granddaughter celebrated her birthday 10 days early when her parents treated her to a One Direction concert. This is not to be confused with Fifth Dimension, a band from her grandparents' era.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this age of inflated everything, tickets to One Direction<\/a> — or 1D — are right up there with weekly mortgage payments — even when the seats are up there where nosesbleed. So when you put famous bands on big cruise ships, the price understandably goes up.<\/p>\n

For the "concert" and the cruise.<\/p>\n

The latest such example is the Matchbox Twenty cruise<\/a> on the Carnival Imagination<\/a>. \"\"<\/a>This is a rock band that, oddly enough, is the same age as the ship (1995). Unlike the Imagination, Matchbox Twenty has not been performing non-stop for the last 18 years but when you've been nominated for Grammy Awards<\/a> and known around the world, the occasional hiatus is allowed.<\/p>\n

But we digress.<\/p>\n

Concert-goers on the Imagination the weekend of December 6-9 will pay $600 each to rub elbows with Matchbox Twenty and, as announced yesterday, the group's special guests. That would be the Goo Goo Dolls<\/a>, who aren't dolls at all but another well-known boy band (or man band). So that's $200 a night — plus taxes and gratuities — but it includes more than musical performances, autograph sessions, photo-ops and deck parties.<\/p>\n

It also includes three nights in a "floating hotel" and three days of meals and a trip to the Bahamas. They can squeeze 2,634 people onto the Imagination, and this to see bands that once filled arenas many times that size. Will Matchbox Twenty<\/a> and the Goo Goo Dolls fill it?<\/p>\n

It's hard to "imagine" otherwise.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Holland America Statendam<\/a>
\n\t7 nights<\/span>
\n\tSeptember 15, 2013<\/span>
\n\tAnchorage<\/a>, <\/span>Glacier Bay<\/a>, Haines, <\/span>Juneau<\/a>, <\/span>Ketchikan<\/a>, <\/span>Vancouver<\/a>
\n\tInside: $399<\/span>
\n\tCost per day: $57<\/strong><\/span>
\n\twww.hollandamerica.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last weekend, our soon-to-be nine-year-old granddaughter celebrated her birthday 10 days early when her parents treated her to a One Direction concert. This is not to be confused with Fifth Dimension, a band from her grandparents' era. In this age of inflated everything, tickets to One Direction — or 1D — are right up there… Continue reading Concerts and Cruises a Match<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,25,19,15],"tags":[45,170,154,681,912,72,35,1314,23,1315,839,321],"class_list":["post-18378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-people","category-ships","category-stories","tag-alaska","tag-bahamas","tag-carnival","tag-carnival-imagination","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruises","tag-goo-goo-dolls","tag-holland-america","tag-matchbox-twenty","tag-statendam","tag-theme-cruises","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}