Just returned from 5 days on the Caribbean. On ship there were a few arranger musicians. One group called 'From Russia With Love' was a family trio of wife, husband and daughter. The woman played a G1000 and an E-36. She used the E mostly for piano intros and endings, but I was surprised just how well this older lower end keyboard sounded. She was very accomplished and seemed to be the musical leader. The husband was a sax/flute player and filled in with a PSR1500. He did some organ, strings and trumpet on it and it too sounded very good. The daughter sang and had a voice I would characterize as very much like Karen Carpenter with a slight Russian accent.

Their arrangements were right on and very polished. I asked how much of the arrangements were styles and how many were midi. She said they made their own styles, but a lot of stuff had very specific fills and background, so I think it may have been midi from a style or vice versa.

There was also a solo pianist in the lounge who played a grand along with SMF off a laptop with VanBasco midi player. He was much looser and I didn't care for his vocal style at all.

There was a modern band in another lounge, but the girl keyboardist played Roland RD700 & 300 and a Triton - heck of a player.

Lastly, there was a reggae band on the pool deck. They would play all afternoon. I guess that unless you're totally buzzed, constant reggae get too monotonous. The keyboardist played an XP50 and an M3.

There was a violin-guitar duo, but I only heard them for a minute.

The stage orchestra was very good (big Triton) and so were the 4 singers, but the 8 dancers were so-so at best.

We had a great time avoiding tropical storm Noel for 5 days. I got to meet Tony Rome in Cozumel and I heard a great piano player at Sloppy Joe's in Key West. Yeah, mon!