We have been on 5 cruises, until last week every ship had small dance floors and sporadic music. Some you could dance to, but not real ballroom dance music. I had been led to believe that was the best you could hope for on cruise.
Last week we went on a 7 day cruise on the Costa Magica. First surprise was a large unobstructed dance floor, definitely big enough for smooth dances like Foxtrot, waltz, tango etc.. Ship had been constructed so they could offset 2 of the support pillars to provide a large dance floor with no pillars. 2 piano bars and a latin lounge had smaller dance floors. Fifth lounge also had a small dance floor and the ships band played there a few nights.
Second big surprise was that had over 6 hours of music in each of the 4 lounges each night.
Normally we scramble to find a place to dance and organize our schedule to get some dancing in. On Magica we ran out of gas long before the music stopped.
Grand ballrrom salento with the large wood dance floor, had 2 groups who alternated and played excellent ballroom music. Lot's of Foxtrots, tangos, rumbas, cha chas, swing and a bit of everything else.
If you like Ballroom dancing and cruising, defintely look into Costa. Food was not the best, but everything else was fine and dance options were wonderful.
2 piano bars would frequently play dance music, particularily when they noticed someone who danced was in the lounge.
They had 2 or 3 sets of musicians in the 4 venues and they would get hooked up and ready to go, while other group was still playing, so there would not be any break in the music for switches. Frequently we did not even notice they had switched in the large ballroom.
