mcloaked

The main evening dancing on Cunard cruises in the Queen's Room is primarily ballroom and Latin, with the occasional Argentine Tango and Salsa, and an occasional 'disco' party evening after 9.15pm.  On the cruises I have been on, during sea days there tends to be an hour of zumba and an hour of line-dancing on sea-day mornings - both of which can be quite energetic, especially the zumba. Both are run as a class, and on QV over the festive season this year hosted by the entertainment manager for the zumba, and the line-dancing one of the other entertainment personnel, and done in the Queen's Room. However there is no line dancing during the evening dancing in the ballroom - it would not be possible to run line-dancing at the same time as ballroom and Latin on a floor of that size on any of the Cunard ships, and the traditional ballroom atmosphere would be very different, as would the music.  A few people do also come to watch the line-dancing on mornings in the ballroom, but in the evenings there are significant numbers of people who enjoy having a drink whilst watching the dancing., and make it a part of their enjoyment of the cruise as an alternative to going to the theatre or sitting in one of the bars on board.

I seem to remember a latte is $4.20 - so if you have 4 a day it would be worth it....

The new coffee card I got wrong on the price - it's $15 per day per person (not $40 which is what I wrongly put above thinking it was for two people).  It covers other hot drinks too but for anyone who normally only has a single coffee per day it isn't good value.

Starting on the QV cruise as from 23rd December 2018 we were told that the coffee card that was available to prepay for a set of coffees, such as lattes, and get a small discount as a result, is no longer available - instead they now have a daily pre-pay coffee card costing around $40 which is fine if you consume large amounts of coffee on any one day, but is in no way comparable with the previous coffee card.

Shame that is has gone as we found it useful.

The dance hosts seem to vary quite a bit - though it should also be remembered that they have quite a tough job to do dancing with everyone of any experience or ability level who wants a partner, and have to attend singles meetings as well as dance at every class and every available dance in the Queen's Room or Yacht Club.  It also has to be remembered that most are not at the top level of the International Dance professionals who normally run the dance classes and do show dances on Gala evenings. So that needs to be taken into account if you are looking to dance - for many dancers in the Queen's Room it is social dancing for the most part, and only a few couples dance at top level in the evenings.

There was a change to the couple running the dance classes on QV over Christmas and New Year  December 2018 due apparently to an emergency just before the cruise sailed that meant the scheduled dance professionals were not able to get to the ship in time. So the dance classes were run by two members of the theatre dance group who stood in a short notice, so were not able to provide the normal top level of high quality teaching that usually happens on Cunard cruises. The dance pros of course are not dance hosts, and don't usually dance with passengers at the evening ballroom dances. For the dance hosts in general any one male or female host seems to do a few cruises per year at most, so it's likely that if you come across one particular dance host on a cruise it is more than likely you won't see the same dance host on your next cruise.

Hopefully Cunard will continue to give contracts to top level highly trained pro dancers for the role as International Ballroom and Latin dance teachers and show dancers for the Queens Room, which then gives the opportunity for passengers to get the very best dance instruction whilst on board whether at beginner level or for more advanced training. On the last QV cruise, with stand-in dance instructors, advanced training in the International style dances was not possible.

Although originally it seemed the dance hosts were American, in the past year or two the Cunard dance hosts on the cruises we have been on are a mix of American and British men, and more recently one British couple among them. So typically it might be 4 American men, one British man and a British lady.  It seems to work well - but given the mix it is possible they recruit both in the USA and in Britain.

From what I have seen there is a mix of American and British styles - and there is capability among the dance hosts to do both - having said that there is more International style dancing than American on those cruises that start in Europe - and more American style on the dance floor when the ship starts in the USA such as New York departures for Transatlantic or the Caribbean - though there are usually significant numbers of Americans on both east or westbound TA voyages. That said there are times when the Smooth dances aren't entirely easy to work with those dancing International styles because there is more time when Smooth dances are almost stationary compared to International styles in ballroom. A classic case is the Viennese Waltz when couples trying to keep the flow going anticlockwise around the floor can be blocked by a couple standing apart moving from side to side. 

From my experience it is often the case that Canadian dancers do the International style and not American.

1 hour ago, LittleFish1976 said:

I'm a single female dancer so therefore rely on gentlemen dancers inviting me to dance; what a shame if men feel it difficult to ask a woman to dance when we are there for that reason. I'm not averse to inviting a man to dance in certain circumstances (if everyone is clearly just there to dance) but I fear that some fellows might find this odd especially on a cruise where dancing is not the focus.

It  is usually fine if both parties are enjoying the dancing and the music as a pure social occasion. In some cases the invitation to dance can be interpreted as the beginning of a relationship, and some people of any gender can be concerned that is more than they want from purely enjoying the dancing. So for a few people there are anxieties around asking someone to dance. If everyone goes to a dance with the intention of enjoying the occasion it is fine. Of course not all men are confident in asking someone to dance either! However the dance hosts do make it much easier for solo passengers.

I guess that there are various reasons why single men often find it difficult to ask a lady to dance, but yes having a lady among the dance hosts is hopefully being accepted as the norm for the reason you suggest, and will help at least some fraction of men without a partner to get onto the dance floor and enjoy being able to dance to the music.

mef_57 I should have added about solo travellers.  The dance hosts on the Cunard ships come to all the dance sessions including the sequence dance sessions, and that is both the social dance slots as well as any teaching slots run by the entertainment team who will usually teach one or other of the popular set of sequence dances.  The dance hosts also come to the advertised dance classes, and will dance with any solo traveller who needs a partner.  In the past year or two there seems to have been a change from all male dance hosts, to one couple with a man and lady, and the others single men.  So the lady dance host will be happy to dance with any single men, or with any ladies, who want to dance with her. So there should be a pretty good availability of dance hosts to dance with you at either the teaching sessions or the social sessions, both for normal ballroom/Latin and the sequence sessions.

Of course single men may ask single ladies to dance as well if they are inclined to do so, though not all single  men are brave enough to do that. 

So hopefully you won't need to come to the sessions and just watch!

The majority of the dancing on the Queens remains International Ballroom and Latin, with an occasional Argentine Tango or Salsa. There are specific slots early evening and sometimes later in the evening when a few sequence dances are played - the most common are Square Tango, Rumba One, Mayfair Quickstep, Sally Ann Cha Cha Cha, Cindy Swing, Balmoral Blues, Saunter Together, and occasionally the Argentine Stroll if there are a few couples who can do that one - though it is a little more complex than some of the standard ones. Occasionally a couple will ask for one or other of the modern sequence dances - of which there are several thousand (!) but when that happens it is usually only one or two couples who can do those as they bring in several per month of new ones and most people don't keep up with the new varieties on a month by month basis! The majority of tea dances across the UK now are half ballroom/Latin and half sequence dancing, but there remain a number of afternoon and evening dances where traditional pure ballroom and Latin dances only are played.  There is a sense that traditional ballroom and Latin dancers will resist doing sequence dancing, and sequence dancers are sometimes sticklers for asking for numerous sequence dances to be played as they regularly seem not to want to dance the standard International 10 dances.  However although in recent years there has been a bit of time devoted to sequence dancing the majority of dancers on the ship are very happy to spend most of their time doing the 5 ballroom and 5 Latin dances - sequence dancing is a uniquely British phenomenon, and non-Brits find them bemusing though they will sometimes try their hand at it for a bit of a change and novelty value.

Hope that helps.

6 hours ago, CABINET said:

I'm sorry I am obviously not being very clear.

 

I realise we won't have to clear our cabin but what I am trying to find out is whether it is the same as a disembarkation day. 

 

Are you made to get out of your cabin by 8am?

No you don't have to be out of your cabin by 8am on arrival in New York if you are not disembarking. I seem to remember that we just had to make sure we were at the muster area for around 10.30am, or 11am, in time for the last call off to get through immigration.

If you are staying on the ship beyond New York then you do not have to clear your belongings from the stateroom, and it's just the occupants of the room that have to get off and go through immigration/customs before getting back on again. Once you are back on board then the facilities of the ship are all as normal, and all the time you are on board you have access to your room.  The crew all have to clear immigration too, but they do it in rotation so the ship isn't an empty shell at any time. Yes, we found it an irritation, but at least once we were back on the ship we could get on with the day just like any other cruise land day. You just have to accept that you have to do it if you are stopping at New York as part of a longer cruise. When we were on the return visit to New York, on the same cruise, there it was a snowy on and off day in New York but no significant wind so a decent coat kept us warm for a day out in the city - and the Brooklyn Ferry to Manhattan (and other parts of the city) was easy to use, low cost and very efficient which was a nice contrast to the tedium of the immigration rigmarole on first arrival in New York.

They gave us the option to stay on the ship until the last call out - which we did but we still queued for about an hour and a half in the customs hall once we got off the ship.  Once we got to the desks it was about 4 minutes to get our fingerprints, photo and deal with the passport check. About half an hour queuing again to get back on board in the entry area.  Some people a bit earlier queued for over two hours in the customs hall so we felt lucky on our time!

Having been on a Caribbean cruise with two Transatlantics as a single trip, even though it counted as three separate cruise sectors - what we found was that on first arrival in New York the entire ship had to be 'zeroed' - that meant that every human being on board, including every crew member had to get off the ship, and go into the USA customs hall to be cleared through immigration.  This means you can expect to be in the queue for processing for an hour to an hour and a half unless you are a US citizen when it is quicker. Also if you are out very early because you are on an excursion you may be lucky and have a shorter 'processing' time.  Once cleared if you are not heading into New York then you have to go back to queue to get back on board the ship.  However on the return to New York after the Caribbean you are regarded as having already been cleared as though part of a single visit to the USA, so you don't then need to clear immigration a second time. That makes the disembarkation much quicker and easier and gives a longer time in New York for that day. That was our experience about a year or so back - though things may have changed since then.

I have been reading a bit about the new LNG ships which are coming in to service, and for Cunard from 2022. It seems all to be due to new strict rules about low sulphur emissions for shipping from the beginning of 2020.  The question I wondered about is what will happen to the current Cunard fleet which are powered by diesel or light/heavy fuel oil at present when the new rules come into force?  Shipping operators will be heavily fined if their ships exceed the emissions limits, so to avoid those fines they will have to use low sulphur fuels or have sulphur scrubbers on the exhausts that cost quite a bit of money. Does that mean prices will rise to pay for fines or will the current three Queens be sold off?  Does anyone know?

It's a personal choice - though because on board the hard floors are generally clean and many areas are carpeted you don't generally damage dance shoes if you walk between your room, the dining rooms or the Queen's Room. My wife does wear dance shoes that match her evening outfits on board quite regularly, but I generally choose to change into dance shoes once in the ballroom.  You do have to be a bit careful walking into the toilets though as there are often wet spots around the facilities including the hand driers that blow drops of water around when drying hands. The suede soles work best when dry!

17 minutes ago, Monorail Orange said:

Oh if only they were to build another 'mid-size'. It's a shame they are (sort of) being phased out.

Cunard are building a mid-sized (around three thousand passengers) new ship due for 2022, and it will have a ballroom. I guess P&O are not interested in the same type of passenger that is attracted to Cunard.

I guess the only factor that would make a difference is if they feel the pain of being unable to fill the cabins - and need another 30 or 40 dancers, or people who love to watch dancing who decide not to book on the new ship.

1 hour ago, FangedRose said:

I know a lot of people will be disappointed about the lack of a ballroom. However professional instructors are only ever on longer cruises (according to a very experienced member of the Ents Team). So not surprising, given the itinerary, that they will not be on board. 

I am not sure what you mean by 'longer' cruises?  Mostly we have been on two-week or a bit longer voyages, but even some years ago on a one-week cruise on Ventura we had an experienced dance couple teaching ballroom and Latin dancing every sea day (he had been a dance pro who had taught the pros on Strictly for several years!), with ballroom dancing every evening, though on that ship it was (and still is) in the atrium, which was at least fun even if the atrium floor was not an ideal shape or size.  I guess 'professional' is interpreted differently on different cruise lines - but in general we have had reasonably competent dance instructors on all P&O ships who can teach basic introductory steps for the main ballroom and Latin dances, as well as the occasional salsa or Argentine tango, and who host the evening dancing in between sets of dance music played by the resident ballroom band every evening of the voyage. The dance instructors also are usually happy to dance with any single man or lady who hasn't got a dance partner.

In the case of Cunard there is a much bigger presence of a larger ballroom with a good sized dance floor on all their ships, and the dance couples on Cunard are generally at a level where they can teach not only basic classes every sea day but also in private lessons to competition standard, and who have had significant high level competition experience of their own previously.

Clearly when you look at what is provided by other cruise lines the availability of ballroom and Latin dancing is missing, and usually only a small dance floor with less frequent ballroom dancing than every night, and often more of the American style of dancing or party dancing, rather than the classic International ballroom and Latin styles, and often not for the entire evening. 

So Cunard and P&O have a captive audience of ballroom dancers - and having had conversations with quite a few dancers on cruises it seems that for those passengers a ship without ballroom facilities will not be on their list of cruise bookings - so it is possible that the loss of any ballroom opportunities on Iona will lead to an increase in bookings on the Cunard ships where ballroom dancing is a central attraction and a special part of the cruise for passengers who love to dance or who really enjoy watching the dancing. There is a huge following for ballroom dancing - the ten million or so TV viewers who follow Strictly are a testament to that!

One particular issue with Iona may concern anyone who feels that ballroom and Latin dancing are an integral part of their cruise. When we were last on Britannia a couple of months ago I had (finally) the chance to talk to one of the future cruises reps about the facilities on Iona.

There will be no ballroom on Iona, and they will generally not have professional ballroom instructors on her cruises. There will be no regular ballroom dancing, and they will only on a few occasions have ballroom dancing on that ship. So it certainly looks like the target audience will be families and younger people. 

Of course many passengers have no interest in dancing on a cruise - but on the ships we sail there has always been a regular core of couples, and singles, who dance every night, but in addition a much larger group of passengers who love watching the dancing over a cocktail or glass of wine, or several over the whole evening - and of course for them this particular form of entertainment will no longer be there on Iona - which seems a sad loss to me.

Maybe sufficient numbers of people won't miss the dancing on Iona - but we won't be there to find out as we have already booked on cruises where we will know we can dance.

Given that the first cruise bookings will go on sale in about three months I am really amazed that there is so little information released about the detail of the ship. I emailed P&O about three weeks ago asking if Iona has a ballroom, and got what looked like a generic reply saying they have only released the name of the ship and no other details other than the general outline published on the P&O web site. I know quite a few people have already booked their cruises for 2019, so it isn't long before people will start looking at 2020. However for ballroom dancers, not even knowing if the ship will have a dedicated ballroom, means people will book ships where they know they will be able to dance. It's pretty strange!

After all the shipbuilders must already have some plans so P&O must know whether or not there will be a ballroom on this ship, as well as its sister ship that will launch in 2022.

On the other hand if anyone has had any discussions with P&O officers or officials who might have indicated if it will have a ballroom like the Crystal Room on Britannia, or something a little better, then do let us know.

Even here in the US, on a couple occasions several years ago I was surprised to be presented with the login page to the P&O Cruise Personaliser instead of the Cunard Voyage Personaliser. Mix-ups between the two systems can occur although I haven't seen that here in the US recently. Hopefully it was just a temporary glitch you ran into this time.

 

Regards, John

It is possible that it is a browser cache problem - so clearing your browser cache might help?

Is it the case that Queen Mary 2 is too large to go in to the Manhattan terminal? It seems that only two ships berth in Brooklyn when in New York?

(The maximum ship length at Manhattan is 1000', but at Brooklyn it is 1135.2′, and QM2 has a length of 1132 feet )

It seems that the QM2 originally had three desalination plants, but a fourth was added during the 2016 refit. The potable water tanks each have a capacity of 3,830,000 litres (1,010,000 US gal), enough for more than three days of supply. If the engines are running on low load (when the ship is running at slow speed), or when it is in port, then the engine jacket cooling water temperature is insufficient to heat the seawater to run the desalination plants. In that situation steam from oil-fired boilers can be used to heat the sea water, but that is more expensive, so taking potable water on board from the shore can be cheaper than producing it on the ship. But I guess a decision is made for each shore stop as to whether it is optimal to use the on board stored water, whilst berthed, or buy in a supply.

I think summer service runs to Governor's Island but the service to & past Red Hook/Atlantic Basin runs all year.

We took the Redhook to Wall Street Ferry from the QM2 on the 8th December. One of the locals on the ferry told me that the service is now running continuously through the winter (he was a commuter from Brooklyn to Wall Street and will be using the ferry every day for the foreseeable future) and told me that this is the first winter that the service has run. As others have stated the destinations other than Wall Street may have different timetables but Brooklyn Redhook Atlantic Basin to Wall Street runs every day - during the mornings and afternoons midweek it is every half hour with slightly less frequent service at times outside of the peaks. Weekend schedules are slightly different.

The Cunard on-board tour office can print off the current ferry schedule and a map which you can take with you. It is a fast and efficient service with a good capacity for passenger numbers. There are two stops between Redhook and Wall Street with the stop just before Wall Street being the Brooklyn Bridge on the opposite side of the water to Manhatten. Even in choppy water conditions the gangway moves nicely with the ferry bobbing up and down so it is not hard to get on and off in almost all weathers.

I was very impressed with the service quality, and efficient crew, and for the price it is unbeatable, especially compared to any other means of getting from the ship to Manhatten.