Page 42 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL WINTER SPRING 2022

Nightlife
Evenings shipboard are festive and
fun - a chance to dress up and join friends
for happy hour, dinner and maybe live
music or a show. In our experience,
Holland America’s approach to
entertainment, with live performances in
several intimate venues, was refreshing
and unique in the industry.
Scheduling entertainment during a
pandemic surge can be a tricky business.
On our sailing, a few scheduled acts were
canceled for reasons not shared with
passengers. Perhaps the fact that the ship
was sailing with about a third of the
normal number of passengers played a
role in the changed lineup. One evening,
we gathered for happy hour to watch a
program on favorite Mexican love songs.
It was almost embarrassing to watch this
wonderful soloist - one of the Mexican
Cultural Ambassadors on board - play to a
mostly empty house.
The Koningsdam’s center of
entertainment is Music Walk: a collection
of performance venues on decks three
and four. The largest and perhaps the
most comfortable is the lounge hosting
both the Lincoln Center Stage and B.B.
King’s Blues Club.
Performances produced for Lincoln
Center Stage are in partnership with the
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in
New York. The classical quartet we
watched was professional and passionate
as they performed contemporary
renditions of familiar classics and pop
favorites, including the Beatles’ Black
Bird. On another evening, the room
morphed into the popular B.B. King’s
Blues Club featuring the B.B. King’s All-
Stars belting out the best of Memphis

42 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2022