{"id":21275,"date":"2014-07-21T01:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T08:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cruisingdoneright.com\/?p=21275"},"modified":"2014-07-21T01:00:16","modified_gmt":"2014-07-21T08:00:16","slug":"monday-21-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/?p=21275","title":{"rendered":"Carnival Live Surprising Performers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was Day 2 of an 8-day Carnival Freedom<\/a> cruise and Jim Berra, the line's Senior VP and Chief Marketing Officer, was talking about Jennifer Hudson<\/a>. It's entirely possible that Jim Berra never thought his name would be linked to Jennifer Hudson's, but this was that day.<\/p>\n

The reason was Carnival Live<\/i>, the concert series on ships in port, now just under halfway through its initial season. If there was a moment when Carnival realized its \"Jennifer<\/a>project was more than a one-off — as in one year — that moment was Jennifer Hudson.<\/p>\n

Berra explained it this way:<\/p>\n

"At first, the artists were asking: 'Are your guests really going to be into my performance, or is it just a cruise with a concert?' Once she — and we — found it was quite the contrary, that people were coming specifically to see the artist, we gained the confidence of the artists. Now they're calling us."<\/p>\n

Jennifer Hudson was the biggest name appearing in the early weeks of Carnival Live<\/i>. She did concerts on consecutive nights in Cozumel<\/a> for passengers on the Breeze<\/a> and the Ecstasy<\/a>. Concert goers were paying $20 to $40 to see her perform in a facility seating 1,100.<\/p>\n

On the shore, they might pay twice that and be in a much bigger venue.<\/p>\n

So far, the genres have been mostly rock 'n roll and country.<\/p>\n

"Rock 'n roll works everywhere," Berra said. "With country, we know it won't work as well in Miami<\/a> as it will in Galveston<\/a>. Pop is the toughest one — it's not as easy to slot."<\/p>\n

Maybe it doesn't matter.<\/p>\n

One passenger told the Miami Herald<\/a> that she and a friend flew from New Mexico to the Bahamas to see Olivia Newton-John<\/a> in concert. One Florida travel agent met people at a Chicago<\/i><\/a> concert who were there because it was Chicago<\/i>, not Carnival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In both cases, none of them had ever been on a cruise.<\/p>\n

Year One of Carnival Live <\/i>winds up in December. Any day now, Carnival will be making announcements for Year Two. That's how successful it has been.<\/p>\n

Today at Phil Reimer's <\/span><\/a>portsandbows.co<\/span><\/a>m: The new AmaSonata<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Caribbean Princess<\/a>
\n\t7 nights<\/span>
\n\tAugust 16, 2014<\/span>
\n\tFort Lauderdale<\/a> (return): <\/span>Princess Cays<\/a>, <\/span>St. Thomas<\/a>, <\/span>San Juan<\/a>, <\/span>Grand Turk<\/a>
\n\tInside: $449<\/span>
\n\tCost per day: $64<\/strong><\/span>
\n\twww.princess.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was Day 2 of an 8-day Carnival Freedom cruise and Jim Berra, the line's Senior VP and Chief Marketing Officer, was talking about Jennifer Hudson. It's entirely possible that Jim Berra never thought his name would be linked to Jennifer Hudson's, but this was that day. The reason was Carnival Live, the concert series… Continue reading Carnival Live Surprising Performers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,32,25,36,15],"tags":[137,154,782,390,965,1649,1233,873,912,72,35,481,1067,1524,26,27,957],"class_list":["post-21275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruise-industry-news","category-deals","category-people","category-reviews","category-stories","tag-caribbean-cruises","tag-carnival","tag-carnival-breeze","tag-carnival-ecstasy","tag-carnival-freedom","tag-carnival-live","tag-chicago","tag-concerts-on-ships","tag-cruise-bargains","tag-cruise-deals","tag-cruises","tag-jennifer-hudson","tag-miami-herald","tag-olivia-newton-john","tag-phil-reimer","tag-ports-and-bows","tag-princess-cruises","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21275","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=21275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vitaluna.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}