mcloaked

It looks like it varies - I looked at Cadiz (not alphabetic possibly due to the accent over the 'a') and it did include beaches and parks. So maybe it just takes time for people to add in more of the individual data for some (or many) in the list? I checked Lisbon and although it does include some of the parks, it does not include Parque Eduardo VII which is very large.

I just tried it on my Firefox browser on my laptop and scrolling through the alphabetic list worked fine. As an extra test I tried the same on the Chrome browser and scrolling worked fine on that too.

We realised we might not get ours as the days rolled on - but a visit to the Purser's Desk established a date for when it would be put in our room - which turned out the last full day of the voyage - along with the complementary wine tasting that same afternoon - not that we would ever be likely to then buy wines with no time to enjoy them! 🤪

That may be so but it looks like the world is indeed moving towards increasingly relaxed protocols.

If there is a recommendation, but not a requirement, then everyone has the choice as to whether or not to wear a mask. So there is no arrogance if anyone does not choose to follow the recommendation. It is exactly equivalent to your waiter recommending a particular main course or dessert, but you choose to opt for a different dish. It does seem that little by little the Covid protocols are being relaxed on board, and hence the recent announcement that Cunard will not require certified LFT negative results ahead of embarkation from later this summer.

Just to add a little more info to that - when QM2 arrived in Civitavecchia, 250 passengers disembarked and 300 new passengers embarked, making the passenger count for the second half of the voyage back to Southampton total 2097. I also saw an additional passenger embarking with luggage in Lisbon which seemed rather unusual.

I guess most people who disembarked today are by now back home, apart from the lucky ones who are now heading across the Atlantic for a week of nice sea days. The captain did add a reminder at the end of various announcements, saying that wearing masks is still strongly recommended in places where there are large gatherings such as the theatre, and asked passengers to follow the advice in the welcome letter, that includes regular hand washing, since although the Covid situation continues to move in the right direction, it is still important to minimize the number of cases. There was a small number of people who were coughing regularly during the cruise, and I have no idea if they tested themselves. and continued to go to public places with no mask, despite having Covid-like symptoms, and it is always possible some may have had Covid, not been tested, and passed it on to others. However very few were in this position, and almost everyone who I saw looked happy and healthy (meaning no obvious cough or looking ill). Apart from almost everyone obeying the requirement to wear masks on the tenders, and shuttle buses, around the ship a few had masks, but the vast majority did not, and life on board was largely like before the pandemic, though all crew wore masks, without exception. It was really nice that even the maintenance crew passing in a corridor, or who were working hard to restore the paintwork on the outside in the deck areas, smiled and said good morning, or afternoon. The dining staff were friendly and worked hard to keep everyone happy. The bar staff were chirpy and did a great job too. The major let-down was the Queens Room orchestra, who were clearly inexperienced in playing and singing for ballroom and Latin dancing. This resulted in the ballroom floor being well filled during recorded music sessions, and as soon as the orchestra were back for their sets, the floor thinned out again. They played music that was quite difficult to dance to a lot of the time, and the dancers gave up on them, which was a real shame. Other than that a lovely two weeks on board.

Thank you for that reply and the pictures - really helpful to know.

Apart from the included trips the voyage sounds lovely - we have not ventured onto a Saga cruise yet but have loved ballroom dancing on many cruises on a certain other line. It does sound like ballroom and Latin dancing was indeed not only possible but a pleasure in the Britannia Lounge, and I would love to know approximately how much time there was each evening to participate in ballroom and Latin dancing, either to live music or recorded music in Britannia Lounge - was there dancing every night? I would appreciate your comments having been on a very recent Saga voyage that sounded lovely.

Aside from dressing to impress, is there any opportunity for couples to do ballroom/Latin dancing on formal nights? If so are there any times on non-formal nights when couples can dance, and if so roughly how much time each evening, and is there a dance floor that isn't so small on board, so that couples can dance ballroom? Thanks for any replies.

The ship and the food look fabulous. Can you tell me how much, if any ballroom dancing, is possible on the Regent voyages, and if so how much time each evening couples have the opportunity to dance ballroom and Latin, and whether the dance floors are small or allow room to dance. Thanks for any replies.

and the option of lamb cutlets grilled to perfection for breakfast (not every day!)

There were no dance hosts on QM2 at the end of May when we were on board. I guess that the risks of a dance host being in close proximity with multiple partners during an activity that is moderate exercise may be deemed still to much risk of potential transmission of Covid at the current time. Groups of friends who danced with each other seemed to be accepted though so the best bet if you are single might be to see if you can join a group in the Queen's Room and see if someone is happy to dance with you. Of course asking Cunard directly would also be worth it to get the latest plans from them ahead of a planned or booked cruise.

Perhaps I would add that since you mentioned Olden, we have taken the BriskdalsBreen (Briksdal Glacier) excursion from Olden previously as a Cunard booked trip, and found it was a very nice tour, good coach trip, to join a land train that goes up some impressive mountain switchback roads, past lovely waterfalls that are impressive, and the glacier was nice to see too - though from year to year glaciers are losing quite a lot of ice. That excursion included at the time a stop at a lake with a lot of floating ice blocks, a snowfield about 5 feet deep, and a lunch stop with Norwegian coffee. We were very happy with it at the time (pre-pandemic), and if it is the same trip for forthcoming Cunard voyages then I would be happy to recommend it - but also in the event of any delay during the excursion the ship would not leave port without you. We have also done the Cunard excursion from Stavanger in the past, with a boat trip on the fjord to see Pulpit Rock from fjord level, which was again a nice day trip. Of course people will have different ideas about what they are happy with, but again we were happy with that trip too, and it included a stop to a fjord-side cafe for waffles and coffee on the way back which was lovely.

Sure - we enjoy both land-based ballroom holidays as well as Cunard voyages and we used to enjoy P&O voyages too until they started using the Crystal Room ballroom for events like jazz evenings or quizzes - once they did that we never booked another P&O cruise - and various friends of ours booked more P&O cruises and realised that dancing was being eroded, and they too stopped booking P&O. Several of our friends were on a QE cruise in April to the Canaries, and they found the ballroom dancing being diluted and didn't book more cruises, and are still now not of a mind to do so. Yes of course experienced and less experienced or beginners can certainly share a ballroom floor, but the main issue that is now becoming a factor in at least 7 or 8 couples we know who haven't booked more cruises has been the management decision to use the Queen's Room for events other than ballroom and Latin dancing - including tribute bands, musical recitals during prime time in the evenings, and so on. Of course there were always some events such as receptions in the Queen's Room, but they were always finished for around 8.30pm, so that ballroom dancing could then take place the rest of the evening. So long as the floor is available and suitable ballroom or Latin dancing is playing, preferably with an orchestra rather than recorded, then dancers will be happy. If Cunard feels that our custom is no longer wanted, then that is a shame, but without ballroom dancing during prime time each evening, then we will not book in future no matter how nice the decor, the dining rooms, or the decks, because there are other luxury lines where the food is better than Cunard so if there is no dancing we may as well go to other lines where they do the non-dancing things better than Cunard! We have shared a dance floor with all levels of dance ability but provided it is good ballroom and Latin music, and a decent sized floor we can still enjoy ourselves. Maybe Cunard prefers to encourage 200 people to pack onto the dance floor for a disco, and hope they will be downing gallons of beer whilst they are at it. But if so then that is not the classic elegance of a voyage that we would wish to participate in.

That is interesting about the book Orchésographie and indeed having optimal harmony of all members of a group takes both skill, training, and an innate musicality that cannot be learned. However it does take additional skill to dance as a couple in close hold, where the two bodies are in physical contact and being able to move with complex figures and still keep that close physical contact without losing frame and also move fluidly as a single unit is where all the years of learning and training show to the best of what is possible, and much more so than a group all dancing the same way but not in physical contact. Not infrequently you will see couples moving with a gap developing between their torsos, some dance with a gap all the time, and others may have a gap part of the time, but some are able to dance through an entire piece of music or an entire evening, and never lose that close contact - and that takes real skill and is a pleasure to see.

Yes our lunch in the Verandah was also a highlight of our voyage - especially as it was a day when looking out on deck from the lunch table was a view of a blue sky, people enjoying the sun on sunbeds, and a few in the hot tub! The food was superb and waiters did a fabulous job so we took our time and enjoyed every aspect of that meal. Yes, it would not have been the same having the same food off a paper plate in your room! Hopefully regarding Covid things will continue to improve, especially as we go through the summer months when case rates should generally be low.

That is true - though having said that, the experience of dining, shipboard life in general (apart from some major quibbles we had with using the Queens room as a concert hall on 4 days out of 7 at prime times in the evening), good food quality, and excellent waiters, lovely food in The Verandah, nice ports of call, and generally calm seas, all made for an enjoyable voyage (pursers desk was not so good though, and they had some trainees on the staff who could not perform some basic functions such as exchanging currency for example.)

A week ago on the Norway cruise unfortunately the outside of QM2 was looking a bit on the shabby side with rusty dribble lines down the side of the hull, from the window edges, the areas where the tie ropes emerge and other sections of the ship which looks shabby. Looking at window edges in the Britannia dining room was again marred by rusty edges. The maintenance crew do what they can, and teams do paint the deck rails which is often happening when walking round the promenade deck but it doesn't get the ship looking spick and span unfortunately. It would seem that there are genuinely a lot less cases of Covid around, possibly as more people are both fully vaccinated (they have to be to get on board), but also a lot of people have already had Covid despite the jabs, so they are extra boosted and unlikely to get it again within some months. On the other hand there was a long Saga cruise thread where passengers were constantly bombarded by Covid case news, and many passengers (hundreds!) were quarantined on board, as well as large numbers of crew, and passengers on back to backs had to quarantine on board irrespective of Covid test status before they could continue in the public areas of the ship on the second leg. So by comparison Cunard are doing very well at the moment, and the past several voyages seems to have had really pretty low case numbers. So on the Covid front at least Cunard are managing things pretty well.

It is also the case that since this cruise protocols have changed significantly and in very recent weeks life on board Cunard ships has been largely with Covid very much absent and not in the forefront of operations except for those unfortunate enough to become infected and thankfully very small numbers compared to what happened a few months ago.

Great review and album.

What makes a skilled ballroom dancer different to someone who is 'doing a dance' is the ability to let the couple, as a single harmonised unit, to move continuously in an elegant and body beautiful way, to the music, and express the musicality to the maximum as a couple - and that leads to a pleasure for the dancers that has no equal in any other sport or activity in life - but at the same time gives spectators a level of enjoyment watching the couple that is captivating, and the one reason why so many people come to the Queens Room to watch that beautiful way of moving to the music, and the same reason why people don't come to watch disco dancing.Only a fraction of those on the dance floor will be dancing like that on any cruise, but that does make the evenings, and the Gala evenings special. Some musical expression is of course also present in top Flamenco dancers, Irish jigs, or modern jive, but none is at the most sophisticated and magnificent level as is possible in ballroom and Latin dancing, and is one reason why ballroom and Latin dancing is loved by so many from almost all countries of the world. This is what has distinguished Cunard from all other cruise lines, in that this very best of the world's dancing is available every evening on every cruise, and is why there is a loyal core of Cunard ballroom passengers - though the recent changes to the way the Queen's Room is scheduled may dilute the passenger base for both true ballroom dancers and spectator passengers, and make Cunard less special than has been the case, sadly, even if the dining, the theatre, the speakers, and the ships are still very good..

Probably they were only able to do what we call 'belt buckle rubbing' rather than full dancing! Like Tonopah said as the floor gets more crowded you have to adapt what you do, and yes the majority of ballroom dancers are considerate to new beginners, as well as other dancers to the best of their ability.

Disco dance floors need to be big enough to accommodate a lot of people jiggling more or less on the spot, whereas a ballroom dance floor needs to be big enough for a smaller number of couples to move around the floor for the classic ballroom dances (foxtrot, waltz, quickstep, tango, Viennese waltz). It is not possible to dance ballroom if couples are shoulder to shoulder, whereas it is not a problem at all jiggling to disco music on a packed floor. So for different reasons both ballroom floors and disco floors need to be a reasonable sensible size. Also disco dancers will want to dance whenever possible, as will ballroom dancers - so the optimal solution is a separate ballroom and 'disco'. G32 is available but the dance floor isn't that big - and similarly the Yacht Club floor is quite small. Shame the 'need' for two decent sized dance floors to satisfy both groups was apparently not taken into account on Queen Anne unless the managers and designers have been able to change things as the ship's interior is being built and after the deck plans were revealed.

One can but hope that the deck plans are not the final layout in terms of the first guess at the dance floor shape and size, and that common sense will prevail when the designers and managers who actually do know something about dancing and the likely impact on the paying passengers in their decision to book voyages on Queen Anne for the future. In the case of a ballroom floor size matters!