Then everyone mysteriously vanished. I wondered where they went and got my answer quickly. The foghorn bellowed which signaled the start of the mandatory evacuation drill. This is where everyone learns how to put on their orange life vests and finds out where the emergency lifeboats are kept.

Marla and I stared at each other and by mutual tacit agreement refused to move from those chairs until some made us do it. Selfish?  Yes.  But we were so tired we could barely move.  We expected someone to come around and bust us. That's when we would summon the reserves and go do our duty.

Guess what?  No one busted us.  Several crew members came by and looked at us suspiciously, but said nothing. What a delightful break!  This hiding-in-plain-sight was kind of fun.  With our tux and gown, we looked like maybe we were important.  (Psst - don't tell anyone that normally we are normal!) 

Marla and I thoroughly basked in our star treatment.  We just sat there for half an hour as if we owned the place. 

Don Schmidt and Center of Attention

I have never before so openly flaunted a rule as serious as the lifeboat drill before, but you know something, it was fun!

Marla recovered before I did. She actually got out of her chair and managed to go sit with Roz where they began some serious girl talk. Meanwhile I continued to sit with Lynn and Mary.  

After the "Fire Drill" as I called it ended, the most amazing thing happened. Two couples about Lynn's age walked past us and came to a sudden halt. One of the ladies stared at Lynn in open-mouthed shock.

The lady exclaimed, "You look just like my sister Lynn. Lynn, is that you?  That's you, isn't it?  Lynn, ohmigod, what are you doing here!?!"  The lady stopped to get her breath. Then she stared for a moment at my mother. "Mary? Is that you, Mary? I don't believe this!"

Judy Jo Baiamonte and Gina Garza
 

I had no idea what was going on or who this woman was, but she got the names right so I kept paying attention. I thought maybe she was a friend of the family.

It turned out this was my Aunt Ginnie, my long-lost aunt from Chicago and Arkansas.  My mother Mary had two brothers and a sister. At this point, Mary is the only one of the four siblings still alive (and doing fine, thank you!)

Lynn is Mary's sister-in-law by her marriage to Richard, my favorite uncle.  Ginnie is also Mary's sister-in-law by her marriage to Bill, an uncle I had only met perhaps twice in my adult life. Since Mom and I were lost way down in Texas, we never saw Bill and Ginnie.  But here she was out of nowhere.

Small world, isn't it?

C.A. Riser and Cathy Bryant
 

My Uncle Bill died perhaps 8 years ago. Ginnie had recently remarried to Jack. Jack and Ginnie had their two best friends along, Tom and Lynn, from Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Ginnie was overcome by the surprise and started crying. I was really touched!  What a sweetheart my missing aunt was! 

After the introductions, the three sisters chatted up a storm.  After we all promised to have lunch together soon, they took their leave and away they went. What a day!

A couple hours later, it was time for the 7:30 pm Wedding Reception in the Shall We Dance Lounge.  This beautiful dance facility is the room that Marla had to fight like a banshee to obtain. If you remember, as close as just ten days from the trip this room was still assigned to a children's orientation meeting!

Tonight the gorgeous facility operated just as it was meant to.  Gary Richardson had been reunited with his missing speaker so he hooked up his computer and had the dance music playing as everyone arrived.

Mara, Nancy Schweinle, Nancy Edelman,
 

There so many people!  We had close to 100 guests at the reception. Some of them dressed up, some of them barely dressed, but everyone wore a smile. 

Marla and I went straight to the front where we could welcome everyone. I nearly went blind from all the pictures being snapped. The energy was amazingly high. Everyone started dancing immediately.

There were three highlights at the hour-long reception.  Aisha Currie kept asking me when we were going to dance.  This puzzled me since I had danced already once that day.  Aisha wasn't the only person to ask us to dance.  She was the first and most persistent.  Other people kept coming up to me or Marla to ask us to dance.

Ron Fiske, Jim Sloan
 

Odd as it seems in retrospect, I was thinking, "Am I allowed to dance twice?"  So I asked the wedding traditionalist for an interpretation of the rules.  Marla said that was a new one for her too.  She thought long and hard. Finally she said she couldn't think of any reason why not. So out on the floor we went for our second Waltz of the day.

Marla and I were given so much affection.  I considered it an actual honor to be asked to dance.  I haven't been much of a show-off in my dance career, preferring more to teach.  However with all this support, I was very pleased to be asked to perform.

With my lovely bride, we got out on the most magnificent dance floor and prepared to waltz to the beautiful strains of "A Time for Us" for the second time that day.

We didn't have a routine. With all the pressure we had been going through, I preferred to simply wing it. Marla is a good follower, so what was the point of taking the chance of freezing up because one of us couldn't remember the next step in the pattern? 

So once a week for a couple months, Marla took the studio's "Dancing in the Moonlight" class to work on her Waltz. Then she and I would stay after class and practice at the regular Monday Night Ballroom Practice Night. We definitely did not wait until the last minute like most people do.

As a result of our preparation, our dance was fluid and very  spontaneous. Marla was floating out there. I can honestly say I felt just like I was dancing with my very own Cinderella. She was beautiful, the music was lovely, the room was elegant, and the floor was spacious and grand. Best of all, we were dancing for our friends who really wanted to see us put on a show. Our Waltz became our very own fairy tale dance. What fun!

This moment was one of my personal highlights on the trip.

After the intense drama of the the bouquet and garter toss, it was time to complete the evening with some light-hearted dancing.

Marla and I were starting to operate on fumes. We were pretty tired, so we found two comfy seats and sat down to watch the dancing.

And boy, did we dance!  Our group was incredible.  Whip, Waltz, Western Swing, Cha-Cha, Swing, you name it!   Within our group of 120, there were many awesome dancers aboard the cruise.

You and I may be used to seeing dancing like this on a regular basis back at Wild West and at SSQQ, but there were people on this trip who watched our group in absolute awe. 

Lost in our little world at the studio, we always know a dozen people who are easily better than we are, but here on the ship practically everyone in our group was an Olympic-caliber Dancer.

Doesn't Steve look nice?? 
It seems to fit him perfectly.

Did our group enjoy its status as Dance Gods and Goddesses?  You betcha.

It was a wonderful guilty pleasure to show off each and every single day and night of the trip.

We showed off in the Shall We Dance Lounge. We showed off to the Ballroom music in the Centrum.  We showed off on the dance floor beside the pool.  Wherever there was music, you were bound to see SSQQ dancers strutting their stuff while amazed passengers watched in admiration.

This first night was simply a warm-up for a week of dancing that absolutely thrilled the Rhapsody staff members as well as members of the bands we danced to and the other 2,000 passengers.

We may have only been 1/20th of the population, but our dancers were treated like Rock Stars all week long by our fellow passengers.

CA Riser and Stephani Callihan

A very interesting event occurred later in week after this party. The Crown and Anchor Reception was being held in this same room.  We danced to the Ballroom music of a live band.  It was a Formal Night, so all of us looked terrific in dresses and coats and tie.  We were there in force and we danced to anything.  At any given moment we might put as many as 20 couples on the floor. 

Once in a while I would take a back seat and just watch the dancers go to town. That evening during the Crown and Anchor Party, I overheard a curious conversation from a couple sitting nearby.

They were a couple in their 40s dressed attractively in a tux and gown. I had the feeling they were new to their relationship.

Tom Berwick and Mara Rivas

The lady said, "Frank, let's get out there and dance like everyone else!"

The man said, "I don't know how to dance like that! There's no way I'm getting out there."

The lady replied, "Well, there have to be at least twenty men out there dancing. Why are you practically the only man in this room who isn't dancing?"

The man looked very uncomfortable. He said, "I wish I knew the answer to that. This is my third cruise and I've never seen dancing like that before."

Penney Goodwin and Gary Tradd

"Well, how did those guys learn? It can't be that hard if everyone in the room knows how!  Just get up there and copy them!"

"There is no way I am going to figure out what they are doing. If you want to dance, go ask one of them!"

"Thanks. I think I will do just that."

At that point she got up and asked one of the men in our group to dance the next song. As they danced, her Left-Behind friend just shook his head in consternation the entire time.

Who are these guys?

Watching the perplexed expression on his face, I had to laugh at his plight. But you know me, I can't just see something on a superficial level. So I started to think about his situation.

Leroy Ginzel and Nancy Edelman

It is true that Social Dancing as a part of American life is in serious decline. The Art of Formal Dance has indeed become 'a Lost Art' for the majority of our population.

It dawned on me that there isn't a dance studio like my own in every Texas town. That made me sad. 

Then as I stared at the beautiful dance murals in the Lounge which depicted Ballroom Dancing from the Fred and Ginger era, I felt even more sad that the days of fancy night clubs and dancing to live Big Band music was a thing of the past and not the present. 

Maureen and Steve

Gary and Marla

Not only is there not an SSQQ in every Texas town, an even more serious barrier to widespread dance participation in America is the fact that many people have very little free time.

Most people work so hard that they barely have time for a recreational activity like social dancing. Many people tell me they would love to learn to dance, but they just don't have the time!

However once these same people are on board the Rhapsody, they are on vacation. I would imagine aboard the ship would be a terrific time to learn to dance!

Although it is true there is never a dull moment on a cruise ship if you look hard enough, I think social dance lessons would be a huge hit if approached properly.

For example, during the day before the Captain's Reception that evening, I held a Foxtrot lesson.  Many people had never danced the Foxtrot in their lives, but thanks to our class they were out there that same night dancing to their heart's content. 

There were Box Steps everywhere you looked!!  Such a tableau I have wrought!  I felt very flattered by the excellence of our entire group.  They were beautiful to watch in action. 

Don Schmidt and Gina Lollobridgida

Many times the panorama was so lovely it seemed to be taken from a scene in a movie.

The gorgeous Shall We Dance Lounge had all the trappings of splendor - wonderful music played by the ship's orchestra, a beautifully decorated room with murals depicting a Big Band Dance Scene, a lavish buffet, and a beautiful dance floor.

It is my impression that many of the people who watched us dominate the dance floors strongly wanted to join us, but stopped because they didn't have a clue what to do.

I hope someday the Rhapsody will invite our instructors aboard on a weekly basis to prepare any and all passengers for each of their dance events. 

I think they might discover that it isn't just people from SSQQ who like to dance, but lots of people would take them up on the offer to learn.

Sherry Andrus and Iqbal Nagji