OzKiwiJJ

I managed to get a shot of the Queens Room when it wasn't crowded - they were setting up for a presentation at the time.

Day 2 - At Sea enroute to Burnie I'd slept very well but it was lucky I'd set my alarm as otherwise we would have missed breakfast. The Princess Grills breakfast menu didn't have any daily specials but it was extensive. Freshly squeezed OJ and other juices, several fruit options - the fresh fruit salad was huge, cereals, eggs every which way including Benedict, Florentine, Royale (salmon) and possibly one other fancy form of poached eggs. There were grilled kippers and a smoked fish option (haddock?), plus all the extras. I stuck with my usual breakfast of fried eggs, crispy bacon, and hash brown. Sadly the bacon wasn't the greatest. It was cut a bit too thick for proper crispness but, surprisingly, had very little flavour. We had been invited to a "Welcome to Cunard" event at 10am in the beautiful Queens Room. At first I thought it was just going to be a sales pitch, especially as a lot of the onboard shops etc had tables showcasing some of the products. But, in fact, it really was a welcome to Cunard explaining where things were around the ship, the various bars/lounges, dining areas, shops, etc. I wish all cruise lines would do this. After this finished we had a look in the Port Shop, where the Cunard branded products are sold plus snack food, and basic essentials that people may have forgotten to pack. Then we tried the espresso at Cafe Carinthia. Excellent coffee, each served on a tray with a glass of chilled water and a biscotti. Then we poked our noses into the Golden Lion pub, which even has a dart board, and into the theatre. We went up a deck and had a good look at the shops on that deck. I spotted a lovely earrings and bracelet set on sale so treated myself. During the night the detachable shower head fitting, which was only held onto the wall by suction, had fallen off. When we went back to the cabin to drop off my jewellery it had not been fixed although our cabin had been serviced. Rolf spotted our cabin steward and asked him to arrange for it to be fixed. We had another delicious lunch - salt and pepper squid which, sadly, wasn't quite crispy enough, a huge tuna poke bowl (I only managed about half of it), and a wicked chocolate expresso roulade. By now we'd sailed clear of the clouds and mist so it was warm and sunny on deck. We went out onto the Grills Terrace and enjoyed a short rest on the very comfortable sun-loungers there. We were too lazy to go down and get our sunscreen so only stayed outside for about 15 minutes. It was 2:45pm, almost time for the famous afternoon tea in the Queens Room. Hmmm, so much for that idea! By the time we got down there all the tables were taken and the queue stretched all the way back past the pub and almost to the theatre. So we went back up and had afternoon tea in Princess Grills. We went back to the cabin. The shower hadn't been fixed so Rolf rang the Purser's desk and asked for it to be fixed quickly as it was our first Gala night so showers would have been nice. We waited 90 minutes with no action, then tried to fix it ourselves. I cleaned and dried the tile and managed to get it to stick for a few minutes after three attempts. Rolf tried and it stayed up longer but just as I was about to risk having a shower it fell off again. So we ended up just having to have a quick freshen-up before getting dressed. We had a quick pre-dinner drink in the Grills Lounge. In both the Grills Lounge and the Commodore's Club nuts and canapes are served with your drinks. We were very impressed when we went in for dinner. The formal theme was Black and White and everyone was beautifully dressed. All the men wore dinner suits and almost all the women had outfits in some combination of black and/or white. One lady seated near us hadn't known about the Gala night themes but managed something suitable. Luckily I'd been checking something online just before Christmas and spotted the themes. I didn't have a suitable dress (I wear silk kaftans for formal nights) but there was an online warehouse sale on my favourite brand so I was able to pick up a gorgeous one at a bargain price (I love a good bargain!). I was chuffed to receive a couple of compliments on my outfit. We started dinner with the twice-baked goat cheese souffle, familiar to us from Princess cruises, It was equally delicious on Cunard but seemed to be a much bigger portion - we could only eat half of it. The menu offered "New England Half Split Lobster and Mornay Sauce". We decided to risk it. As soon as it was served I knew it wasn't New England lobster. I didn't even have to taste it. It was the same tiny warm water lobsters that Princess used to serve. We did get two halves though but it was a bit of a disappointment. I finished with a light dessert of rum roasted pineapple and passionfruit sorbet which nicely refreshed my palate. Every night the dinner finished with petit fours, usually a few chocolates and a couple of pieces of crystallised ginger. One night there was a lovely orange jelly - we agreed to share that as we both wanted it. I wish they'd had that every night, it was very refreshing. We had a cognac in the Grills Lounge before retiring for the night. We had really enjoyed our first Gala night on Cunard.

I'm doing a trip report here rather than a review.

Day 1 - Embarkation We'd had heavy rain in the morning, and our documentation said "Do not arrive before 1pm" (yeah, sure!) so, just in case, we delayed leaving home until midday hoping we wouldn't end up standing in rain for too long. We live close to the OPT so were there by 12:20pm and check-in had already started. We had priority boarding so whizzed through check-in and were onboard by 12:35pm. Actually this is one cruise line that you don’t need to rush to embark – Lunch in the MDRs didn’t start until 1pm. Cunard is one of those cruise lines which puts your Voyage Cards in an envelope by your cabin door rather than giving them to you during check-in. When we arrived onboard we were told our cabin would be ready by 1pm so decided to go up to the Grills Lounge to wait. But we couldn't figure out how to get up there! The lift wouldn't let us select that deck. Finally we found someone who told us we needed our Voyage Card to access the Grills levels. Duh! Anyway it was close to 1pm so we went up to our cabin and picked up our Voyage Cards. Our cabin was ready and some of our luggage had already arrived so we decided to do some unpacking before lunch. I opened the cabin door, took a couple of steps inside and started laughing. Our Cunard mini-suite is virtually identical to the mini-suite we had on Diamond Princess. The decor is slightly lighter, the TVs are in different places and there are a few enhancements not found on Princess but the basic design is identical. We felt quite at home and unpacking was a breeze as we already knew where to put everything in that style of cabin. After unpacking our two main suitcases we decided to take a break for lunch. Back in the lift we finally found the discreet slot to insert our Voyage Card to get access to the Grills floors. Phew! The main Grills area consists of the Princess Grills MDR, The Queens Grills MDR, The Grills Courtyard, the Grills Lounge, and the lower level of the Grills Terrace - the upper level was on the next deck. The Princess Grills dining room is lovely, very elegant with large panoramic windows facing starboard. We were allocated a table for two near the middle of the dining room, with two two-top tables between us and the window, and a four-top on the other side. The setup is very flexible with most of the tables being two tops that can easily be moved together to make four tops. There were a few larger round tables as well. Even though we weren't right by the window we still had great views. The Grills MDRs are open dining with your allocated table always ready for you whenever you choose to arrive. We really enjoyed this aspect, especially having the same waiters for every meal. They were wonderful. The lunch menu changed daily, as did one part of the dinner menu. There was another section of always available dishes for dinner which didn't change, plus a few special dishes that had to be pre-ordered at lunch time - rack of lamb, roast duck, beef wellington - and these were carved at your table. The one secret item that was never on any of the menus was crepes suzette - these had to be ordered the previous day. Luckily we found that out before the cruise ended. I mentioned my fresh coriander intolerance and was given the dinner menus ahead of time to choose from. We had a delicious lunch then went back to our cabin to finish our unpacking. I hadn't slept well the night before so decided to have a short nap, then we showered and changed for dinner. Queen Elizabeth has the Commodore's Club, a lovely bar on deck 10 forward with large viewing windows over the bow. The ship was just starting to leave Circular Quay as we worked our way up to this bar. We were very lucky as a table for two right by the windows came free just as we got there. We enjoyed the Sydney sailaway from this vantage point, usually we've been on one side or other on various ships, or in Skywalkers aft on Princess. I was in soup heaven on Cunard. I love consommes and there was one every night except one - and that night it was French onion soup. I had an appetiser off the specials list - a wonderful shredded pork croquette. I'd love to know how they kept the meat so soft and juicy inside the croquette as it was just meat without any sauce or bechamel. We'd pre-ordered the rack of lamb. It was beautifully cooked but it was a huge serving. I did manage to fit in dessert but it was a struggle. After dinner we waddled into the Grills Lounge for a digestive to settle our tummies, then retired to our cabin.

Well not really POSH because, of course we were in the same cabin for the whole cruise so it's actually Port Out Port Home (POPH). But it is Cunard and we were in Princess Grills, Cunard's mini-suite class, so posh in other ways. 😊 We were on a 7 night cruise to Tasmania on Queen Elizabeth with one day in Burnie and two days in Hobart. We had been trying to do a Cunard cruise for a few years but the pandemic saw two bookings cancelled and we had to cancel another one for personal reasons. Those were much longer cruises but we weren't booked in Princess Grills for any of them. Since it looked like we wouldn't be able to do a similar cruise to those we decided to upgrade our experience on a shorter cruise. We departed from Sydney Monday 15th January. Note: I haven’t got many photos this time, especially of the meals, as I kept forgetting to take them! But here's one of the QE Grand Lobby, taken from Deck 2.

I suspect the slowest part is getting through Saigon itself to the drop-off point.

There were very few people wearing masks on our recent Cunard cruise.

@Tranquility Base the best estimate I can get for Saigon is 60-90 minutes due to the traffic.

It sounds like Princess is on a downwards slide to mediocrity. What a shame! It used to be at the upper level of the mass market ships.

The same menu every day for lunch? That would get very boring very quickly. I hope they don't try that on the world cruise. Did it have more choices on it than usual?

And I got to enjoy the Princess Japanese toilet seat on our Diamond cruise. 😊 I think they've installed newer ones since your review as they now have the control panel attached on one side rather than a separate remote. She's still a lovely ship and we really enjoyed our Japan cruise on her, particularly the Japanese dishes on the dinner menu and in the buffet. We were just starting to cruise back then. We've done over 25 cruises since then.

Yes, those staying on after our cruise ended got a letter outlining the posdible new itinerary which was confirmed later that day. Sad for them but I doubt QE would have been able to get to many, if any, of its original Queensland port stops.

Gratuities aren't included in the packages for overseas cruises bought in Australia. We had to pay them as extra on our Japan cruise last year. However the US package costs US$60 which is around AU$91 at the current exchange rate. Our Plus package costs AU$65 so even adding on the daily gratuity you're winning on the deal. Also you should get a prepayment option for the gratuities and that usually works out a bit cheaper as well.

I'm an expert at deciphering typos! 🤣

Yes, it was. Sad to hear it is closed.

I can't recall exactly how long it took to get into Saigon, traffic is horrible there so it may have taken up to an hour. I'll see if I can find out for you. It took about 2.5 hours to get to the Sheraton in Bangkok and that's quite close to the Shangri-La. We had a short comfort stop along the way, about 10-15 mins.

No, we did Lakes Entrance to Bateman's Bay easily in one day, and we had a later start than expected that day. We stayed at a place called Bellevue on the Lakes which was quite nice. There are plenty of places to eat there - we went to the local pub, The Central, which had great food. Melbourne is a big city so I'm sure you'll be able to find suitable accommodation if you book early enough but maybe not right near Albert Park.

They used to drop off at the i-Site but some old guy complained bitterly that all the buses going past his place were too noisy and smelly so he couldn't enjoy sitting on his verandah. I guess the squeaky wheel got the oil!

I guess they've been lucky so far. Our Round Australia cruise in 2022 only stopped at Cairns between Brisbane and Darwin although they did do the Willis Island sail-by. So I guess they have the option to go further out to sea to go behind a cyclone even if it means missing Cairns. We were on a Diamond Princess repositioning cruise up to Japan in 2018. We were heading up the coast of Queensland while a cyclone was heading down the Queensland side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. We experienced slightly rougher than usual seas and a couple of windy, rainy days even at that distance but it wasn't enough to divert from our course.

The sad thing is that overseas visitors and locals don't get much choice of cruising Queensland outside of the cyclone season. One Carnival ship (I think) and the P&O Australia ships. It was wonderful in 2022 when Coral Princess came out for the restart after the pandemic. We did three Queensland cruises and the Round Australia cruise that year. It was so nice to be up in warm Queensland instead of cool and wet Sydney.

That's because things like internet and other prepayments go through the Australian office but Princess excursions work differently - the payment you make actually becomes OBC as the excursion isn't charged to your account until the tickets are issued onboard. It's a bit confusing.

Sometimes cyclone tracks are very hard to predict from what I've read. I guess there are many different factors involved that could affect it's movement in one direction or another. I recall one a few years ago that did a 180 degree turn and headed off parallel to it's initial track.

And by that time they'll be getting close to luxury line prices but with smaller cabins, lower quality food, the same ridiculously cheap quality wines provided for the package, and they'll probably have cut back on service as well.

Yes, that's what happened to us on HAL. I think we just put the wine through the xray as usual then told them we'd done the wine tour.

I hope they get gorgeous weather for their port stops to make up for it. Sunny, not too hot, not too humid.