Tom Stieghorst
Skywalkers: Don't ever change.
I write in appreciation of
the Skywalkers Nightclub, one of the most unique spaces at sea. It is a
glorious throwback to the time when cruise lines were putting money and
imagination into discos on ships.
For better or worse, that era has
passed. But it lives on in the architecture of many ships designed in
the 1980s and 1990s where it would not be out of character to see Tony
Manero in his white suit and chest hair out on the dance floor.
On a
recent cruise aboard the Caribbean Princess, I visited Skywalkers when
it was jammin' -- a night when 50s and 60s music ruled the turntable,
decades in which most of the passengers on the ship were teenagers.
Everything about the room was in keeping with disco decor. There were
little brass, mushroom-shaped lamps on the table. There were optical-art
posters on the wall. There were wavy, curvy lines in the ceiling,
plexiglass panels in the dance floor covering lights that flashed and
chased. There were tons of cool lighting equipment that spun and
whirled. About the only thing I didn't see was an actual disco ball.
The Caribbean Princess, built in 2004, was the last of the Grand class
that was launched in 1998 with the Grand Princess. The distinguishing
feature of the class was the Skywalker's Nightclub, which forms Deck 19
and audaciously straddles the top back of the ship on two massive
supports.
To get to the
Skywalkers Nightclub, one takes an elevator that opens to a glass
enclosed escalator. I'm not sure, but it may be the only passenger
escalator at sea. The escalator is actually named The Skywalker. It is
sort of a stairway to heaven, taking passengers on a slow trip through
space to the dance club above.
The Caribbean Princess shows the design quirk that's unique to the Grand class: the elevated Skywalkers nigihtclub, which straddles the back of the ship.
After the completion of the
four-ship Grand class, no line ever came close to replicating those
ships' distinctive design. One of the problems with the design was the Skywalkers nightclub, which had to be removed from the Grand
Princess because it caused the ship to sail bow-up, reducing fuel
efficiency. (The other Grand class ships were built with more aluminum
up top and didn't have the same issue.)
But on the evening I was
there, the club shook and rattled like a 25-year-old school bus with bad
shocks. A ship's officer told me the captain suspects that a nicked
propeller blade was causing the vibration. The Caribbean Princess is
going into a drydock soon.
Vibration or not, I still love it. And I
love it in the morning too, where it gets good sunlight and hardly
anyone thinks to go there. It is a nice getaway place to read or do some
work.
Today's ships tend to have lounges for dancing, or throw
dance parties in the atriums, or in multipurpose flex spaces. Dancing is
part of the cruise package and it isn't going away. But if you get a
chance, take a spin on the Skywalkers dance floor. I think you'll agree
there's nothing quite like it.