LittleFish1976

As the young people say, 'Tell me you're from NSW without telling me you're from NSW'. 🤣

Peters of Kensington offers very good prices for all sorts of things including luggage on-line but they do have a physical store in Kensington and some other suburbs in Sydney. You could check them out.

@Bejay219 I think it would be a shame to miss out on the pleasure of dressing up and dining in the Princess Grill dining room on the gala nights you mention. My favoured option when under packing stress on the sort of lengthy European journey you've planned is to send a suitcase to or fro to enable you to have the correct attire and equipment. I've used Luggage Forward in the past. It would be easy for you to send a suitcase containing your husband's dinner suit and accessories and your dresses and shoes to meet you at the ship when you are boarding in Southampton. If you needed to, for timing issues, you could have the case picked up from a friend or family member if you're leaving home too far in advance to organise from your own address. You can feel very comfortable wearing that level of dress every night on board so the extra clothing wouldn't be just for those two nights.

What a frustration. I've been quite lucky with that part of the process I have to say. I do also copy in the address which I understand is the Cunard office in Sydney which is cunard.aspac@carnivalaustralia.com and it usually gets processed promptly. Not sure if I'm game to try the app given I've had plenty of other 'Call Centre/admin' headaches regarding my back-to-back voyages coming up soon so I might stick with emailing which I"ll be allowed to do in a couple of weeks. I'll let you know how it goes although hopefully by then you'll already have yours organised. At least we no longer have to fax the information and request!

Try using shareholderbenefit@carnivalaustralia.com. Cunard are not using the stockperks app in Australia apparently so it's not surprising you had no joy from them there. They're also suddenly fussy about only applying for shareholder benefit a maximum of 3 months prior to commencement of your journey. They were previously much more flexible.

I wish you the best of luck. They are very difficult to deal with although the call centres in some parts of the world are better than others.

Given the reasons for cancelling the booking (turmoil in that part of the world) surely Cunard could see their way to accomodating their customers by issuing a FCC which is money they still have and will have regardless - not much skin off their corporate nose. I've just spent an hour or so on the phone to Cunard sorting out using a FCC to pay off a cruise already booked which they refused to do yesterday when my travel agent rang them. I'm told it has now been done but why should it entail numerous phone calls and my having to express to them an unwillingness to get off the phone until the problem is resolved. Yesterday my TA was told the rest of the FCC had ceased to exist because I didn't use it all on the one booking which is not what I was told when the booking was made, nor is it their customary practice. Today they managed to find the FCC and apply it as requested. Their customer service landside is really frightful in my experience. I hope to find a cruise line I like as much so I can cease dealing with this nonsense.

Or more to the point (in my experience) you'll have to have the TA do the booking for you for your air component.

There is a qualifier to the 20% off - it does exclude some wines so some or all of them might be excluded. Just checked the T&Cs and surprisingly it doesn't say. I was sure they had some exclusions listed. I didn't test it last time I was on board for the Legendaries although I did order a glass of (French but not 'special') champagne which was processed according to the 20% rule. I've only ordered a glass from the Legendaries list when I've not had a drinks package.

The beds are all king size and so will fit at least two large suitcases underneath. If you can't get them underneath yourself, your steward would be happy to assist.

Thanks very much for your answer. Would you wear all of those layers at once for Antarctica - long underwear, sweat pants and golf pants witht he waterproofs over the top? I had thought long underwear plus a warm layer would suffice under the waterproofs, or to be honest just underwear and ski pants. I'm from a warm climate myself so it's a bit of a mystery to me.

For the 'Legendary Wines of the World' the glass sizes are 75ml and 150ml.

It was announced at the time of the marriage of Charles and Camilla that upon his ascending the throne she would be known as Princess Consort. That's just a fact. The Queen then announced in her speech during her jubilee year that it was her 'sincere wish that, when that time comes, Camilla will be known as Queen Consort as she continues her own loyal service.' (direct quote from her speech) I would assume the unusual circumstances of Camilla's history (having been divorced for a start) as the wife of the king would have been the reason for their nominating the lesser title of Princess Consort for her. You may recall that the Queen didn't even attend their wedding ceremony and refused to be seen with her for a very long time preceding that. 'The wife of a King is a Queen Consort' you said but I would respond that the wife of the king is not usually a divorced woman (if we wish to talk about 'hundreds of years of tradition' and an understanding 'of how ttles and styles work'). Charles would most probably not even be king if there had been a precedent for that (although Wallis Simpson would not have borne an heir to the throne so it's still likely that he might have been).

My experience with Cunard having to drop an embarkation or disembarkation port is that they just cancel your voyage. You'll get an email and an option probably of either a refund or a FCC. At least you'll get more than one day's notice which is what I got. I'm sorry for your disappointing outcome - hopefully they may offer a creative option regarding joining at a different port.

Actually, she was touted to be known as 'Princess Consort'. It was quite late in the life of QE (2022 I believe) that it was announced it was the Queen's dearest wish or words to that effect that Camilla be known as Queen Consort. The title of 'Queen' and its acceptance by the public has been a surprise to many.

I think it would be very appropriate to have the Princess Royal name the new ship, Queen Anne. If Cunard foresaw Camilla being queen they had access to a crystal ball that few people had. I think even the Queen (ER) didn't expect Camilla to be called 'queen' one day and certainly not in 2007.

There may be - I think Queens Grill cabins have umbrellas however I always pack a lightweight folding umbrella which is very easy to have with you in your handbag or backpack while you're touring.

Brilliant idea to visit the house of RLS. I'm adding a link to a very interesting radio interview I heard recently with a Samoan woman who has written a play about Stevenson's time in Samoa. She even took the play to Edinburgh where it was rapturously received. The link to the interview is about half way down the page which has a short article about the story. https://www.abc.net.au/pacific/sia-figiel-robert-louis-stevenson-and-the-word-tusitala/102940466

A deck of cards won't take up much room - why not take your own?

Yes, it is odd. I finally worked out that the $67.50 would be the correct price for 15-84 nights but it was also showing me that price (on and off) for two 9 night cruises until I went to check out at which point the price would change to the $72. I'm just accepting that it's all a bit wrong.

The website is now slipping between $67.50 and $72 per day even within the same transaction. One could speculate they are in the middle of altering the prices, perhaps but any reduction in price would be very surprising.

I've just had a most frustrating experience of logging in to three of my current bookings to find the drinks package being offerred to me for $67.50 per day. That unexpected price caused me to do some calculations, give things some thought and wonder if I shouldn't perhaps take the package for a couple of shortish voyages I wasn't planning on doing so for, and cancel and re-purchase the quite long voyage's package I bought months ago. Half an hour or so later, after I'd been timed out, I logged back in only to find the prices had miraculously and frustratingly risen again to $72 per day! All very odd.

Having dipped an optimistic toe in the Princess waters myself just recently, I'm glad to hear you're not primarily choosing them for the food! I hope the itinerary is very compelling. I shan't be patronising them again; I'm trying Ponant in a few weeks (itinerary driven) and looking further afield also despite being a committed fan of Cunard. Re princess: make sure you use your allowance for bringing a bottle of wine on board with you - it will be much better than anything you'll find on board.

Generally speaking, Cunard are very good with supplying shuttles at all the ports I've been to with them in other countries. I've made all the excursion reservations I need for my April-May Japan cruises but plan to use the shuttles in the ones at which I'll be doing self-directed wandering. I suspect there may be more excursions added to the Japan cruises for the coming season. I'm taking slightly later cruises than you are but mine has many excursions for which descriptions are not even available but they are able to be booked which seems odd - a computer glitch perhaps? I don't know if you've joined a roll call for your cruise but some of them have people on them who are actively recruiting for privately organised port excursions (even some who are openly travel agents) if you don't manage to book the ship's tours you prefer.

These themes are just suggestions and no-one has to comply to the letter with them. For red and gold you could wear something red, or gold (or not follow the suggested theme at all and wear something totally different). In the past I've worn a red dress which has some crystal details on the sleeves. Simple enough.