LittleFish1976

OP is asking about Cunard.

Which part are you having trouble with? Do your RAT and take a photo of the completed test with something that shows the time, your driver's licence or passport, and a piece of paper with the date written on it. Also, I would add on the piece of paper that you might want to write 'Brisbane' as the location of the photo as the time will be different from your boarding city. I'm sure you'll have a great trip.

I think the whole point of a lot of this discussion is talking about ways in which people *can* continue to cruise but to do so as safely as possible. I'm on a cruise in a few weeks and I'll be doing all I can to keep myself free of covid. I'd rather other people were doing the same to lower the risk for all of us.

What a brilliant captain, giving you full information! Just imagine if they hadn't tested on day 2 - how many orders of magnitude would those initial 12 cases have increased by?

I take your point but may I suggest that if ineffective masks are being used and the way they are being worn is ineffective then the 'masks-required' ships won't look any better than the no-masks ones. (People wearing them with enormous gaps or below the nose or even mouth). I suggest it would make a world of difference if effective masks were required and worn properly.

Hopefully someone flying with covid would wear an N95 mask at all times to protect other people. Renting a car and driving back to Brisbane would be a possibility that wouldn't expose other people as much.

Good on you for pressing the point. Given they (Princess) provide kettles to all cabins on all their UK based cruises, I don't think for a second that they would remove all the kettles and store them on land while they're not carrying UK passengers! If they can provide them to that market, they can provide them to the Australia/NZ market.

Surprised they do this with tea (vary for local market) but I do know they do that with soft drinks and chocolate bars and biscuits. I thought you might have meant that they were trying to pass off that awful powdered tea product on ships as real tea! Personally I reckon there's nothing like tea made in a pot with proper loose-leaf tea if you want a decent cuppa.

What on earth is 'American tea'? I'd need a dedicated steward if I had to get room service every time I wanted a cup of tea on board a ship! A kettle is an absolute must-have for me.

Pictures of the new desserts here in this article. Do people really think these things look appetising? https://cruiseradio.net/?p=151303

I've used this company between the UK and Australia. Very happy with the service.

Yes, that's right. They do apply an amount separately for 'gratuities' (although I think they've recently changed the name of it) per cabin, per day which can apparently be removed by a visit to the purser's desk. On a ship I would tip my steward and waiter if I felt they'd been particularly helpful but would not feel obliged to if the service had been anything other than exceptional. I've hated seeing American travellers pressing cash into the hand of the serving staff member showing them to their table even before they sat down (in the buffet area!). The whole message coming across as buying service and attention beyond what other passengers would be getting although they've paid the same amount to be on the cruise.

That depends. It's my understanding that in the contract of passage with certain (perhaps all) airlines here (i.e. Qantas), you are taken to have attested that you do not have the symptoms of covid. It's perhaps broader than that i.e. that you have not tested postitive but it would be worth checking.

I hope you discovered that you could have afternoon tea in the space set aside for Queens' Grill passengers instead of even contemplating lining up for the Queen's room afternoon tea? I wonder if it was a feature of the Christmas-y cruise you were on that they played music in all venues. The lack of that awful piped stuff is generally one of the advantages of Cunard where most of the music is either quality live music or recorded music suitable for dancing. They always like to start preparing the QG suites for the next guests before current ones depart which I agree does feel a little odd but I accept they are under a lot of pressure to get the cabins ready, especially as there seems to be increasing pressure from boarding passengers to come earlier and earlier.

If it weren't for the NSW system of assigning a category to each ship docking there, no-one would know the extent of the covid load on any of the ships. A minimum of 10% of passengers and crew infected is a significant amount. I wish we had the same system in Victoria.

It doesn't matter at all I suppose. It just means they have an awful lot of easily accessible granular data on the movements and decisions of all people on board. Same as using social media and the internet in general I guess. All the data tells them how to target you to influence your decisions on everything from your purchases to your voting intentions.

Very clever marketing on Princess's behalf though, to be able to convince all its passengers to wear a tracking device. Amazing, really.

Hope you start to see some progress or at least feel a bit better.

Not all companies sailing from Australia have gratuities included in the fare. Some add as a separate daily charge such as Cunard.

People booking from UK and USA seem to often get buckets of OBC. From what I gather, we're talking 4 figures. Here an expensive booking will often give you $20 OBC! Gets on my goat a bit reading about the discrepancy between our market and theirs.

According to the rescue services guy on the radio, the alarm was raised by a member of staff at around midnight (or by midnight it might have been).

It was served in the PG dining room last time I was on board, pre-pandemic. It's a shame as it's much nicer in the Grills' Lounge.

Hi Don and Magda. You're welcome to dine anytime in the Princess Grill during their opening hours for each meal. So they mean to indicate that 6pm is the start of dinner rather than it being your set time to arrive. Arrive at a time that suits you - I assume the latest arrival time for dinner would be something like 9pm but others can confirm. You will probably be on-board for lunch on embarkation day (your boarding time might depend on the covid caseload amongst the disembarking passengers and whether this causes a delay). The PG dining room will almost certainly be open for lunch. I would go to my cabin, drop the hand luggage and go to the dining room. There may be a card in the cabin with your table number or in any case the MD at the dining room will know where you're sitting. There's also the buffet where the food is very good. I'm not sure if the Golden Lion pub would be open on embarkation day but it may be. The Golden Lion has traditional English pub food - meals are included in your fare. A dark suit and tie would be perfectly acceptable for a Gala night. Do you have a Gala night during your 3 day voyage? Have you managed to log into the 'Manage My Booking' area of the Cunard website? That will tell you whether you have a Gala night and what the theme will be. There's also a spa on board (near the gym) which is rather nice if you like an indoor warm water spa and a place to relax. I understand since covid they may be taking timed bookings for this so check on board if it interests you. Make sure you go to the library as it's quite special. Cunard have lots of activities on board such as trivia, talks and musical performances as well as the shows in the evening in the theatre. There's also ballroom dancing in the Queen's room mainly at night, and including some dance classes during the day. I hear there's a nightclub somewhere on board where there's other sorts of dancing if that's of interest. There's a dedicated Grills lounge where they sometimes serve afternoon tea. If it's not there on your voyage it will be in the PG dining room. All ship's passengers may attend afternoon tea in the Queens room. Grills' Lounge also serves drinks. If there's a particular type of activity or area you'd like to know about, a more specific question would elicit lots of information from the very knowledgeable people here.

I heard one of the rescue aircraft people on the radio this morning; they seemed to know exactly when she went into the water and therefore the exact spot where the ship had been so had a fairly tight search area (as I understood what he said). I assumed someone must have witnessed her going overboard.

Make sure you enjoy your afternoon tea every day! Princess Grills has its own dining room. Food should be very good. Don't forget to ask what desserts they may be willing to do table side that don't appear on the menu.