As a part of a multi-million pound upgrade over the next two years, Princess Cruises is adding Movies under the Stars to most of its fleet.

Currently installed aboard seven Princess vessels, this poolside outdoor movie screen is over 300 square feet in size boasting a 69,000-watt sound system. There’s sufficient power for the on-screen entertainment to be seen and heard clearly on a sunny day while the ship is moving at full speed.

The giant screen shows a variety of entertainment throughout the day, including up to seven feature length films. In addition to family cinema and first run movie hits, passengers can enjoy major sporting events, concerts, video game tournaments and other can’t miss programming – up to 50 different offerings per week.

It would be nice on balmy dry evenings if passengers could also watch classic films like A Night to Remember and Titanic as well as movie musicals such as Stephen Sondheim’s Gypsy, which was based on the life of the famous stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee. What a shame the 1962 musical produced by Warner Bros. doesn’t include a scene when Gypsy is said to have woken up fully dressed one morning and cried, “Good heavens. I’ve been draped!”

This would be the perfect opportunity for Princess to demonstrate some of the other new product enhancements it is now rolling out across its fleet, including chilled face cloths – which will be handed out to passengers when they return from a hot day ashore – or to cool them down after they’ve watched a particularly sizzling scene on the poolside screen. If that doesn’t work, the pool ‘misting stewards’ will be offering a quick refreshing ‘spritzer’ with Evian to cool off .

Which reminds me of the woman in the ship’s cinema who suddenly yelled, “Is there a doctor in the house?”

A man rushed over: “I’m a doctor.”

The woman said, “That’s nice. Would you like to meet my daughter?”

What some of us are now wondering is whether Princess’s Movies under the Stars could be described as a walk-in or a swim-in?

And if they ever get round to installing the latest 3-D technology and start showing science fiction movies, will they rename the event as Music IN the Stars?

Or if they show classic westerns in 3-D will the passengers form a circle in the pool?

While we’re at it, what would a drive-in be called if there was no film to watch?

And if they forget to run the projector will the passengers assume the stars in the night sky are the real stars of the film?

In case you’re wondering, I haven’t been overindulging in a drop or two of the hard stuff and I’m not, as far as I know, suffering from mental decline. I’ve just seen too many movies.

But I do fancy watching a film under the stars from the pool of a cruise ship while stewards bring round the drinks and food. Even if the water makes the popcorn soggy.

James Leavey

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