We are very lucky to have had a LMAS member, Eileen, who was on the cruise with the WE men.
She emailed me a while back to let me know that we would have an informant on board! and now she is back with lots to tell but no time at the moment to write it all down for me. She has promised to tell all tomorrow night!
A little gem to keep us going......and I'll just copy what she wrote:

Only one thing I will say is that the boat was held up in Lisbon for an hour waiting for a certain Mr Mead who's passport was either missing or out of date. He arrived looking very anxious and apologetic for keeping the boat from sailing at the correct time.

Poor Lee!

Looking forward to reading the full trip report

Oh, dear! Well, when you're THAT gorgeous, you can get away with anything!

Thanks, Kirsten -- really looking forward to the report!

Poor Lee...it always seems to happen to him! *HUG*

Looking forward to the first hand WEM account!

Oops! Why am I not ENTIRELY surprised?! lol

They really wanted him on that ship!!!

Thanks for that snippet of info Kirsten. Oh dear, poor Lee.
Looking forward to hearing more about 'WEM at sea' from Eileen.

Bless him, makes me love him even more!!

How did he manage to get on the flight from London to Lisbon? Unless the check-in and security agents got Meadmushed?

I was wondering that!

Perhaps Lee will appear in the Portugese version of one of those 'fly on the wall' airport documentaries:-

"A passanger has just arrived from London and there's a problem with his passport..."

cue shot of a terrified Lee!

I used to love watching those!

Thank goodness they did not fling him into one of those dreadful foreign jails you hear about.Why did his management not check his passport?Lots of love Lee!

I am thinking he needs an efficient, very willing PA who could manage all these things so he didn't have to bother with them!! It would be a tough job but surely somebody would volunteer. Form an orderly queue!

It can happen. On my flight back from the UK last week I was sat in my seat after putting my bag under my seat and my tote in the overhead when suddenly the people in the seats in front of me said I just found a passport. It was mine it somehow fell out onto their seat. I got it right back but had it fallen on the floor I would not even have been aware until I got off the plane at JFK.

Oh no poor Lee LOL!! I can't wait to hear the full account!!

I could have so easily lost my passport, plane tickets and holiday spending money four years ago when my sister and brother-in-law took me on a cruise for my 60th birthday. We sailed from Barcelona and stayed overnight there, and someone stole my handbag on one of the Metros. Because my very streetwise sister had said she'd take care of everybody's passports, tickets and main spending money, all the thief got was 25 euros and a Boots Advantage card. So no harm done and we were making jokes about the incident by time we went out for the evening. A good wake-up call.

Ok, Eileen has emailed me this morning.
Bless her, she said it was the longest email she has ever written!
It seems that paper photos were taken which the men signed (the ones that have been seen on twitter and which I will be shortly loading up to Latest News) and Eileen has promised to get her daughter to scan hers and send it to me.
So these photos are what Eileen took (she apologises for the quality but we're happy to have anything, aren't we!!)
Thank you Eileen for writing your longest email ever! and for sending it in. We appreciate it.

The three singers, Lee, David and Glen came onto the stage on a platform from below the stage and looked spectacular. Lee in a black dress suit with white open neck shirt and David in a grey suit, white shirt and grey tie. Glen in black American type jacket and tight black trousers. They all started sing Some Enchanted Evening.
They then sang a medley of different musical songs and after that Lee sang Close any door and Fix You beautifully. The other two sang an individual song from one of their musical appearances. Glen's was from Jesus Christ Superstar.
Next there were songs together including Maria from West Side Story and Love Changes Everything ,Power of the Night from Phantom, and Bring him home from Les Mis.
I then cannot remember the names of anything else, however they did not sing Bohemian Rhapsody at the end as in the West End.
On the boat we were only supposed to have one ticket per person and they were doing three performances. My husband got a ticket for one and I got a ticket for another. We then realised that they were not checking anything so my husband went and got two more tickets for the last performance, so I was very lucky and saw all three performances.
On the last performance Lee had a problem with the mike and changed it several times with a little joke each time.
On the last day there was an hour where you could have a photograph with the West End Men. They all came into the room dressed very casually, Lee in a navy t-shirt and black tight trousers as you will see in the photos already on Twitter. I will get my daughter to scan mine and send you a copy by e-mail.
When I went up for the photo I straight away said to Lee I really loved Camberley and he said "Were you there? " and then I said "yes" and that I was the only one from the Appreciation Society on the boat. I would have liked to say that his performance of Bring him home was the best song I had ever heard him sing but you then had to let someone else go up. It left me with hundreds of things that I wanted to say. I took a few more photos and then left and I never saw him after that.

I have asked Eileen to confirm this, but I think this is the moment that Lee boarded the boat after keeping it waiting for an hour!

Thank you so much, Eileen, for given us such a detailed account! What luck that you were on the ship! And thanks to Kirsten for putting this on to the forum.

Great review and pics Eileen (and thanks for putting them up, Kirsten!)

Thanks Eileen and Kirsten much appreciated when you can't get there,

Many thanks Eileen. It was lovely to read about the WEM on the Ventura. I had thought this would be Lee's first experience of a fan free gig, but thanks to you, it wasn't! I hope he made many new fans too.

OMG I was on the edge of my seat reading that!! I loved to hear about the guys making their entrance on a lift in the floor! How exciting.

Thank you so so much Eileen and Kirsten for giving us this little snippet into the days they had on board, it sounds so exciting. So glad you managed to see all 3 shows Eileen!!

May I ask about the weather from Lisbon to Southampton? Did it start hot and deteoriate to gales? What was it like on board in the wind, was it very rocky?

If the boat's a rockin don't come knockin.....

ahem, sorry about that!

Thank you so much Eileen and Kirsten for posting! it's nice to have a report seeing as these concerts were not do-able for most of us.

Eekk that was a sync or swim. moment for Lee wasn't it.
He must have been very concerned about being holding up the ship.

I loved reading your review & I am so pleased that you managed to see all three shows. 'welldone
Thank you so much & I look forward to seeing your pic with him

Great!

Many thanks, Eileen, for your long email (and Kirsten for posting it) - well worth waiting for! It's amazing how someone, somewhere always seems to catch Lee's performances - and long may it continue (I wonder if we can manage to have a closet Loppy in the cast of Casualty ..... ?) Well done, Eileen, on managing to get to all three shows!

I couldn't help but laugh at Lee's passport incident, but in actual fact it must have been a nightmare for him. I can just imagine how I would have felt if it had been me.

A/Liz, I'm working on getting my daughter to be an extra! She loves drama and really wants to have a go. Its a long way for us to go though especially if she doesn't get chosen.

Thanks so much Eileen for taking the time to email Kirsten, and for the photos, so lovely to hear first hand from an LMAS member who was on the cruise, we get everywhere don't we . So pleased you managed to get to see all the shows, lucky lady . Hope you enjoyed the rest of the cruise.

Many thanks to Eileen & Kirsten for the detailed report! Relieved he got past the passport snafu somehow! How fab you got to see all the shows, Eileen!

Eileen, many thanks for report and pix.

What a wonderful review, thanks so much!

Thank you for the review and photos. I especially love the Lee fan ingenuity in going to all three concert, I would expect no less.

Many thanks Eileen (and Kirsten) for allowing us to share your lovely review, and photos from the Ventura.
Sounds like a wonderful cruise, and what a bonus being able to see Lee perform in all three shows...Fabulous!
So glad he managed to sort out all his earlier problems too. Bless him.

Thank you Eileen! How fantastic you got to see the shows, it sounds like a lovely format :)

I was on the Ventura a few months back, and sat at the back of the theatre, it is huge and I thought 'Lee would fill this'.... Spooky!

It was jammed packed on the West End night (with the cruise ship performers, who I thought were vocally really strong). So I can imagine it would have been stampeding if no tickets allotted.

I was in the very back row when I saw a show and people wanted to get in but no space, so I think they were wise to control it somehow.

I got an X factor contestant who came about 5th - Lloyd something? Very very below par, he just sang in the Jazz lounge, but people crammed in for a glance. It adds a bit of glitz when some one is interesting on the boat, so when Lee was on it must have created a real buzz!

Lloyd Daniels?

LINKY THING

I vaguely remember him from X-Factor - he was a pretty, boyband type.

Thank you so much for the review Eileen and for sending it to LMAS. I would love to know whether you were already booked on this cruise or managed to book because of Lee. Lee must be amazed at where his fans turn up and it must give him a boost. Let's hope he gained some new fans on this concert.

Many thanks for your lovely long review & photos Eileen & well done for getting tickets for all 3 shows.

Thanks to Elaine for writing the review and to Kirsten for posting it . It must have been quite a different WEM show with no female guest or choir.

I've been having some fun reading reviews of the Ventura's Canaries cruise on the cruise review sites. The food seems to be the major topic of interest for many cruisers but I've seen a few reviews which mention that the WEM were a highlight for them. However, I found one grouchy review where the reviewer said of the WEM "Did not enjoy any of the performances by any of the guys". I guess you can never please all of the people all of the time!!!

Pfft! Obviously a Philistine!

They should have gone to Specsavers . I think they do hearing aids as well!

I suspect that reviewer was a very inadequate male

Very possibly Joan!

On a more positive note, I also found a VERY long and detailed review of the cruise on a cruise discussion forum. The reviewer had quite a few moans about various aspects of her trip but had this to say about the WEM:

"We had tickets to see the 5:30 West End Men show. What a real treat this was. They were fantastic. Lee Mead, Glen Carter and David Thaxton. Just brilliant. They sang together and solo and kept the audience enthralled for an hour. By far the best ever entertainment we have ever seen on P & O. A fantastic ending to the cruise."

Interestingly, the reviewer also mentioned that there was an announcement on the ship in Lisbon that departure would be delayed because Lee Mead had just landed at the airport. I wonder if his passport problems actually happened in London and he ended up getting a later flight than Glenn and David? I suppose we'll never get the full story but at least he made it in the end.

I bet he got his leg pulled rotten by Glen & David!

Sorry to have taken so long to put up Eileen's WEM photo.

Eileen also said that "Lee had said on the first performance that he had to queue at Victoria Station that morning. As I said before one of the entertainment staff told me he was at the passport office at 6.30 that morning and I wondered if his passport was out of date."
Think this answers the question - passport problems on the London side!



Lovely photo Eileen!

Great photo!

They all look good, like Eileen's posh top.

Lovely! Lucky lady!