LittleFish1976

I wonder if that time of 11am which you mentioned the other day was an error on Cunard's part. It seems awfully early for anyone, let alone everyone. I've never had a time earlier than 12.30pm and I've been sailing in the Grills. I didn't think they even had the ship ready for embarkation until after 12. My boarding in Melbourne this week was very smooth (12.45pm). Dropped cases at the kerb and walked up to the queue which I was in for about 30 seconds before being called over to be checked in. At lunch within minutes.

I'm on board Queen Elizabeth at the moment if anyone wants to ask anything about Cunard or this ship in particular. I like Cunard mainly because the ships look like ships (i.e. not LA hotels) and they're pretty traditional.

And if there's any cheesecake or rich chocolate cake in the house on a Sunday morning, that should always be eaten for breakfast (which, for the Americans & Canadians amongst us, is what we also call brekkie, not to be confused with bikkies).

Which cruise line will you be sailing on? As you would know, many of the lines have had issues with not being able to enter NZ ports or areas (such as the Fiordland NP) due to the biohazard from hull contamination. I shouldn't think Auckland as a port would be affected but then I don't know if there are supply issues or port damage. I know the island ferries are still running from the Port of Auckland. Wellington has just had an earthquake in the last couple of days but it sounds like there's not been much if any damage from it. The flooding is still continuing in some areas.

As an aside, the lack of the Gentlemen hosts on board QE at the moment is very apparent. It makes for a starkly different cruising experience for solo travellers and is much missed.

We were on the coast - it must have got really awful after we left. Terrible to be without power and internet and therefore without information. I wonder if NZ will have to look at the way it allows for development. Lack of vegetation and buffer zones might be adding to the landslips above and below the roads. I'm glad Australia has commited some resources to helping. It's going to be a huge job getting all those roads and houses up again. Was gutted to hear of the death of that emergency services fellow in the house at Murawai.

That's interesting, disturbing and sad that you say you NZ-ers are dismissive of warnings. I actually found the MetService website very conservative in its assessment of the situation. The winds where I was were gale-force beginning on the Friday early evening so we were being made aware of the severity of the weather while we were literally standing in it. The infrastructure in Singapore is probably designed to cope with massive tropical downpours whereas in AKL it was the volume that fell per hour that was the killer in the month-ago deluge. My daughter was shopping in town and within minutes was up to her knees in water! Cunard's communications for Australia/NZ are appalling. The call centre is useless. I'm a very understanding person but there's no other way of putting it. They don't have the information or the authority to do anything other than what you and I can do on the Cunard website. Lack of efficiency really riles me as does poor customer service. They will lose custom in the region (and beyond) because of this. I may just keep booking through the UK - it didn't seem to be a problem that I'm OOA. I've just learnt that some passengers on the shorter leg - Melb -Akl - were in fact offered the option of doing the longer cruise (at no extra charge?). I was just told I no longer had a holiday! Crazy! We'll be at sea on the date that the previous shorter leg would finish but it is in their financial interest to ask people if they wanted to have the longer cruise (means they didn't have to give a refund and passengers would be on board buying drinks etc). I've been given a web of stuff-ups which I'm still trying to untangle. Fortunately I think I've found a member of staff on board the ship who will look into it all for me so I can make sure I won't be paying for this cruise twice. 😂

I'm on the Queen Elizabeth at the moment. I had to call the UK call centre to organise my booking on the morning of the 13th Feb which was the day before sailing (it departed Melbourne on Tuesday 14th Feb). The assistant I was talking to was just having a quick look while she was talking to me at the bulletin they'd been given by management to explain the change in schedule for the QE. She didn't read it out to me but from the odd word and her reaction I believe the decision not to go to NZ was due in large part to the 'catastrophic' cyclone (catastrophic being one of the words she did read out). I was actually in NZ for a wedding last weekend, staying in the lower part of the Northland area. Looking at the weather satellite images we had decided that we would leave asap after the wedding and not wait for our Monday afternoon flight. I heard many people from amongst the wedding guests asking locals from amongst the wedding guests whether the cyclone was going to be a big deal. Most of the locals were scoffing at the danger warnings and saying it was all an 'overreaction to the underreaction towards the recent flooding'. I'm not sure why they were so dismissive. The ground was already sodden from the previous rain event; many roads were still either covered in landslip material or had fallen away underneath or had massive potholes. We drove the 2 hours directly from the wedding to the airport and waited a few hours for an early morning flight. Not sleeping that night was a price I was prepared to pay to get out of Auckland before the worst of it started. Eden was lovely today.

Thank you @sfred!!

If you like the idea of frocking-up and dancing then you would probably enjoy taking some dancing lessons before sailing. Dancing is addictive. It is brilliant exercise and very social. There's not a lot to be said against it and you'll at least know the 'road rules' when you're on a dance floor in future.

Update: Last night I waited until the Cunard UK call centre had opened and rang them directly. Oh joy! Immediately I was speaking with someone who understood my problem and who could straight away set about getting me a new booking. She was a bit concerned about me spending more money to make another booking just to get on this ship but I assured her I would at least get a refund of the funds already paid out to Cunard for the original booking. So I spent a similar amount of money to get a much lower-grade of cabin (not that I care but I had been looking forward very much to the other one) - such is the case with last-minute bookings. But I am on-board! My cruise card is NQR but I'll wait and see how that unfolds before going into specifics here. Suffice to say for the time being at least I am in my originally booked cabin and very comfortable.

You're very kind @sfred. I have had an exhausting afternoon - been on the phone for the last 6 hours trying to organise exactly that. Outcome - unsatisfactory. The call centre for Australia is off-shore, in the Phillipines apparently. One fellow I spoke with just after receiving the email fobbed me off that they would send me an email during the day - of course nothing has eventuated from that. Then I spoke with a brilliant woman in a travel agency who went in to bat for me but they told her (after 2 hours on the phone) that they couldn't complete the booking through her as I made the original booking directly with Cunard - no matter that it's a new booking. The second Cunard employee at the call centre I spoke with for the last hour and a half was well-meaning, I'm sure, but totally lacking in authority or ability to access information beyond what any of us can see on the public website, nor had he the ability to make this new booking. He has emailed the UK as I pressed him to resolve it and I will have to wait until Cunard Uk starts work in an hour and gets around to my problem, then emails Cunard in the Philiipines call centre who are now closed for the day. In 14 hours when Cunard call centre in the Phillipines re-opens it may be too late to make the booking and get me on the ship which sails in 22 hours from now. I haven't had a holiday in four years. I've got the dogs being cared for for a couple of weeks at the kennels at huge expense and a suitcase packed and ready to go. To think that the ship will sail tomorrow with empty cabins and I will miss this much-anticipated break just because the computer says 'no idea', is really so very disappointing. What is the point, seriously, of Cunard's direct sales centre for Australia if they are unable to make a booking? Anything simple we can all do ourselves on our home computers. The fact that the call centre can do those sorts of bookings ONLY is pathetic.

That approach is one businesses dislike intensely; those dissatisfied customers who tell their friends and their social media networks about poor performance from a company without telling the company directly and allowing them to make good the experience or allow some compensation. Giving your complaints directly to the company allows them to improve and actually shape their product to the customers' requirements.

No, they're not going to New Zealand now. Due back in Melbourne on the 27th February from the newly routed Q309 and I doubt will be back in NZ this season. Someone in the know said weeks ago they would do the hull cleaning in Singapore once they get there after the Australia and NZ season.

I was booked on Q309A which was the 8 night leg from Melbourne to Auckland. I have been totally cancelled as I was due to disembark in Auckland but Q309 - the full circuit Melb-Melb - has been re-routed to Queensland for 13 days in the sun. I've rung Cunard, and despite my absolutely knowing for certain that my Q3 cabin was not booked for the second leg of Q309 (AKL to MEL) they will not let me book the longer Q309 with the new itinerary. They're 'looking into it' for me which I think is call centre code for putting me off until it's too late to board at all. So I have a suitcase packed and nowhere to go. The irony is that I flew home yesterday from Auckland after a family wedding there over the weekend so I could join this long-ago booked and much-anticipated cruise, the product of a large credit from a cancelled cruise from February 2020. Drove to Auckland airport directly from the wedding (on the southern edge of Northland) to make a 6am flight so we wouldn't be trapped by the cyclone. So now I'm looking at all and sundry as I was so looking forward to re-starting cruising now. Maybe this will be what pushes me to try Princess cruises?

Thanks Kefalonia/Oracle. I could have counted - you are quite correct. I hadn't noticed that you had added the number of sea days.

You may not have this information as it's quite specific but can you see where the ship will be from 29th - 31th October? I'd appreciate the information so I can plan if this cruise might be possible for me.

What I would call a 'sun dress' is not smart attire. Too casual. Maybe okay for a restaurant in the evening in the topics but not on a ship.

Can confirm gale-force winds in that area. Have just this morning made an early retreat back to Australia from a weekend wedding in the Northland/Auckland region. Rain has started and Air New Zealand have been cancelling as many domestic flights as possible and also some international ones. The seas will be wild including, I should assume, as far south as the Sounds as the cyclone's effects wend their way south. I'm departing Melbourne on Tuesday on QE for Auckland, so am looking forward to seeing what itinerary we end up doing - could be quite the adventure! (My best guess at the moment is that we stay docked in Port Phillip Bay for a week!). I also notice Tropical Cyclone Freddie is swirling around to the west of Australia. An eventful end to our sumer season of cruising in the wider region!

Qantas does enforce weight limits on hand luggage including in business class with spot checks. They will always eyeball your hand luggage at check in of checked luggage and often insist on tagging everything they have viewed. Make your trip more pleasant - stick to the limit.

Crystal cruises used to offer 10% discount (from memory) for those who booked back-to-back cruises. But they went broke so...

Weather for the South Island was forecast to be bad this week (last looked at weather forecast end of last week). The system that caused so much grief in the North Island the week prior is travelling south or so I read. I've only been into the Sounds once in early 2019; the day/night before they had had ONE METRE of rain! Couldn't believe we got in although roads were apparently impassable on land and sadly one fatality. The waterfalls were running hard. I'm getting on board for our confirmed non-sighting of the fjords in 8 days. Not very excited. (Not much!!)

The 'sail-away' party! Those were the days!

It would be a good idea to let the ship know you weren't coming back though so they don't report you as missing.

But you knew it was almost a certainty, surely when you booked? Plus it was all over social media as soon as passengers started getting their emails from Cunard.