jburton59

Everything else being so close, I would think 14 days would beat 11.

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http://www.playbill.com/productions in another good site.

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Check for the book, Views from a Cruise: Solo around the world by Fabienne Wolf. She went solo on P&O I believe.

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This doesn't directly address your question, but I would recommend using different cards for settling the ship account and using ashore. On our first trip on Cunard a number of years ago, fraud alerts after using my card in port also froze my account on board ship creating an extra level of hassles to get everything put right again.

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My husband does a completely gluten free room service breakfast. Just write on the form gluten free for today etc. And it will come gluten free.

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On Cunard, I have full English breakfast from room service every morning, including vegetarian sausages.

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There's one on deck three between the Britannia dining room and the Queen's room.

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You can order a bottle of wine from the wine package at dinner, turn in the voucher to the wine steward, and the bottle will be delivered to your stateroom.

The shows for the second seating are usually at 10:30 but on occasion the show for the second seating will be at 7:00 BEFORE dinner. I've heard this can be due to a preference of the performers for an earlier show, it's the final night of the trip, or a competing event is later. The shows still run about 45 minutes

I'm big on remembering that time is relative. So it's not what the clock says (especially a clock that seems to be changing every day), but the pacing of my day. When on board, I sleep later than usual, have breakfast later, lunch later, and then 8:30 dinner doesn't seem out of place at all.

Here by the by is the description from the Carnival Corp & PLC website for their corporate description:

Headquartered in Miami, Florida, and London, England, Carnival Corporation’s stock is dually listed on both the New York Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange under the symbol CCL, and is the only group in the world to be included in both the S&P 500 and the FTSE 100 indices.

Technically, Carnival is a Anglo-American dual partnership made up of two firms, Carnival Corp. and Carnival plc, with a global headquarters in Miami in the US and a corporate headquarters in Southampton in the UK.

My husband is basically a vegan and has found eating in the main dining room very successful. In addition to the one or two vegetarian items on the regular menu, there's the separate vegetarian menu. As mentioned earlier, he gets the menu the night before to make choices for lunch and dinner, and items are adjusted to remove dairy, for example. If nothing seems to be quite right or of interest, he asks the chef to "surprise him"--and it's always been a PLEASANT surprise and it keeps his diet varied for the trip.

If you'd like a really detailed business history of Cunard, Francis Edwin Hyde, Cunard and the North Atlantic. I find the early chapters on the founding of Cunard, the personalities involved, and the government subsidy the most accessible and interesting.

I just checked the deck plan as well and noticed the room isn't currently a handicapped room. The video looks old and I wonder if this was some kind of earlier version of a "semi-handicapped" room? It really wouldn't be large enough for a regular wheel chair.

If you look closely at the video of the bathroom, you'll see a grab bar in the shower. It's a handicapped room and the bed has to be near the window because a wheelchair wouldn't be able to go around the bed to get to the desk or couch.

I'm amazed at what a simple inquiry can get even in the Britannia Dining Room. On the QM2 one of my table mates before Christmas asked if there would be Yorkshire pudding on Christmas eve, and was disappointed to hear no. Low and behold, a plate of Yorkshire pudding appeared for him the next day nevertheless. The "real" Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding appeared on the menu several days later.

As an American, trust me, I was taught to keep my elbows off the table and to finish my meals. But different utensil use has a long history in America. In the late seventeenth century, when the fork was becoming common in England and knives developed those round ends, we were sent the knives but not the forks. So we kept using our spoons. By the time the fork arrived in the eighteenth century, we just started using it like spoon. Our mothers (at least mine), did spend significant time teaching us "proper" table manners and such. They were just different! I have to admit I've since become "converted" and use my fork and knife as they were "originally" intended. At least on board Cunard.

There is this statement on the ask.cunard.com website:

A dining preference (preference of type e.g. first, second or freedom and time) for Early Saver bookings will be collected prior to sailing and will be allocated as 2nd priority to those booked under the Cunard Fare and be confirmed once onboard.

Since time is really relative, we just adjust all our meals to a bit later than we'd do at home and late seating is fine. Our usual breakfast moves from 7:00 to 8:30, lunch moves to 1:00 or 1:30 and then presto, our 7:00 dinner at home becomes 8:30. Normally we go to bed about 11:00 and we just move that too until about 12:30 a.m.

One advantage of a tender is if you have several tender ports on your itinerary, and don't plan to go ashore, you'll have an open view for the day you are in port!

Heading back to the ship earlier in the afternoon is a good idea if you are traveling by taxi. There's a major shift change plus rush hour begins by 4:00. So many of the taxis are heading back to their garages and the new shift is heading toward Wall Street to pick up fares. It can be extremely difficult to get a taxi in late afternoon if you aren't heading downtown. I've frequently ended up on long, unexpected walks back to my hotel at the end of the afternoon.

They are free and complementary detergent is provided.

I'm voting the last announcement will be about the Spa.

Thanks so much for this update. We're on the QM2 Christmas Cruise and normally I would have pulled our tags off as soon as we arrived.