mcloaked

Bluemarble: the anticipation of newly emerging information about dance floors from Cunard (directly) is almost unbearable - and we still have to wait ... but for how long!

It is nice to hear you enjoyed the company of some of the Strictly personalities as well as other passengers who dance. Ballroom dancing we were told early on is a 'journey' with no end. You can join that journey, and you can enjoy whatever part of that road you want to and you can keep travelling on it the rest of your life, or you can take an exit slip at any time you want to. Just like you can learn to drive, you can become a true motorist, or take an advanced driving course - and remain a driver as long as you are healthy and of sound mind. Either way there will always be ballroom dancers at various levels so long as there is a suitable dance floor, and appropriate music.

The only dance floor that seems visible is on the deck plans for the Queen's Room on Queen Anne, plus a couple of renderings of an image of that floor in the Queen's Room - however it looks quite a bit smaller than the Queen's Room dance floors on the other three ships, and a bit larger than the Yacht club on QV/QE - so it looks as though that single floor may be planned to be used for various kinds of dancing from ballroom dancing to disco dancing on Queen Anne, which means that all kinds of dancers may have a diminished experience of their dancing compared to what is currently available on QM2 as well as QE and QV. Also the shape of the floor being oval (sort of) is not ideal for ballroom dancing. No doubt more information about the dancing facilities on Queen Anne will emerge in the coming months - but do far it does look at all ideal from any dancer's viewpoint.

Yes you are quite right about the My Voyage being a relatively simple local-only web page that is served from the ship's computer (server) and not an App. It has no messaging capability between passengers' phones or tablets. However there are apps available that allow you to message(securely) between devices attached to a local area network such as the wireless system on board, with no need for any external internet connection. Two Android apps that seem to have good user feedback are: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.briarproject.briar.android&hl=en_GB&gl=US and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mesh_&hl=en_GB&gl=US that should allow you to communicate with your fellow passengers/spouse/SO etc whilst on board, with no need for the ship's satellite signal to be present. I haven't used either of those, and I communicate with my wife on board using audio voice only (!), but there may also be equivalent apps for Apple devices too. If anyone has used either of those I have referenced perhaps others might like to know if they work well, or not.

Far from dumbing down dancing so that others feel comfortable - if you are experienced and have consideration for others then you can dance nicely as well as not conflict with others, though if there are a lot of couples on the floor then you simply can't dance 'big' without being inconsiderate. Some beginners do not realise that an experienced couple can be coming towards them and look like there will be a collision but in fact the experienced couple will simply flow past even if they get quite close with no risk of any conflict.

Indeed it is certainly the case that the better (!) dancers can only be described as such if they have the ability to dance in a way that smoothly moves around less experienced dancers! An experienced dancer who intimidates less experienced dancers is by definition not a 'good' dancer! Yes people often feel more confident doing the same steps as others during a sequence dance, and it takes a lot more skill, training and experience to dance freestyle ballroom and Latin well, and also be considerate to others at the same time. It is certainly easier as an experienced and 'good' dancer to move around a floor full of other experienced dancers - and it takes extra skill and being considerate to dance well when there are more than a few less experienced dancers on the floor. However the best dancers will never cause a problem to others irrespective of who the others are. On last week's QM2 Norway cruise at one point the dance professional, Alex, was doing a private 45 minutes of dance experience in the evening as a private lesson with a lady - and throughout the entire 45 minutes he never let his partner down even once, and never conflicted with any other couple on the floor - and that makes him a really good dancer. Moving big and fast across the floor but barging into other couples makes for being a bad dancer!

The sequence dancing is simply not compatible with doing freestyle ballroom and Latin dancing at the same time. They have to be run as separate sessions. Also the sequence dancing is something that Brits and Australians do, but very few passengers from other countries do it or have much experience with it. So the sequence sessions are kept to specific set periods partly for that reason. The pattern of movement of a ring of sequence dancers going around the floor is very different from the movement pattern of freestyle ballroom dancers, as well as for those Latin dances that also move around the room such as samba and paso doble. Equally having someone do modern jive in the middle of the floor is also not compatible with couples dancing quickstep for example - so the dance has to be specific for a piece of music. On a large dance floor on land there may be room for people to do different dances at the same time but the size of the floor on Cunard ships does not allow that to work, despite being the largest dance floors afloat. It is also the case that the sequence dance enthusiasts often learn recent sets of steps that is often done in only a small region of the UK, and are dine for a short period only and then new ones replace them - so they put in a request for a new sequence dance called say "Queens Room Rumba" and the person hosting the session asks how many know that dance - and you get nobody else who knows that one so they find one that more people can do. It happens regularly unless the old favourites like the katherine Waltz, Cindy Swing, Rumba 1 etc are called.

True about jackets - I guess in the end some people have a dress 'sense' and others don't! Certainly there are some dreadful jackets around, but equally most people do tend to look nice in the evenings on the cruises we have been on. When everyone dresses nicely (whatever that means!) then it changes the whole ambience of the experience for the evening.

Some men were certainly not wearing jackets - but they did wear a nice looking long sleeved shirt and smart trousers - there are some though, who come into dinner with a short sleeved polo shirt and jeans - and that to many people simply is not smart in any sense. So no you don't need to spend a fortune to look smart - in fact in the UK there are some outlets where you can buy a very nice looking smart jacket for about £15 which is hardly going to break the bank. It is about how you look, not about how much money you spent.

For music streaming it takes less bandwidth than for video streaming, but it depends whether the standard package is built to filter music streaming or not if the service has the capacity. However the service needs to be reasonably decent to support it irrespective of which package you buy - the available bandwidth on the Norway cruise would not have supported any kind of streaming regardless of the package used.

nybumpkin: it is sad that you had a bunch of inconsiderate experienced dancers on that previous cruise - the best experienced dancers will maximise use of their own skill to make their own experience enjoyable, but at the same time dance considerately around less experienced dancers so that they enjoy their experience too. Last week on QM2 there were quite a few experienced dancers and there was really no conflict on the floor even when a few less experienced couples got up and felt brave enough to dance with small steps along the edges. In the past we have also been intimidated on the floor by a few couples who are arrogant and inconsiderate, but on any voyage it could be a nice crowd or a bunch of self-important inconsiderate couples. An occasional conflicting path leading to a gentle bump of shoulders should not be a major issue if people are being soft with their bodies and not forceful - however some years ago I did see a couple doing a cha cha flinging their arms out doing New Yorks, and hit an elderly couple that 'floored' the gentleman, who was stretchered off to the medical centre after being out cold on the floor - such actions should never happen if dancers are aware of those near them. I hope your 10 day cruise to Norway is an enjoyable one - there are so many lovely ports in Norway, and into June there should be more chance of pleasant dry weather. I hope that you do find you can enjoy dancing next time you are on QM2 - but yes, the chart room is great with the jazz trio, but equally a cocktail in the Commodore Club with the pianist playing and singing is also fabulous. Perhaps there will be a nice considerate bunch of ballroom dancers when you are on your westbound TA.

It does vary from voyage to voyage as to whether more or less passengers are dressing 'smartly, or not. On QM2 last week the vast majority of people were dressing smartly even on non-Gala evenings. A few interpreted 'smart casual' as 'casual' but they were a tiny minority.

On the QE cruise to Norway (Northern Lights) in March this year, the internet was occasionally erratic, but the service was way way superior to that experienced on QM2 last week - which tends to suggest that the IT hardware on QM2 is inferior to that on QE. Hopefully Cunard will take the time to get the internet connection on QM2 up to a better quality of service so that the connections are optimised even if some of the time there may be a loss of satellite signal due to 'geographic' location!

I note that you are from Bournemouth - quite a lot of ballroom dance holidays are available at hotels in Bournemmouth throughout the year - and we have been on some of those over the years - some are for beginners and others are for 'improvers' so you are lucky you are near those facilities - and also one of the big ballroom competitions (the British Open) is held in Bournemouth every year at the conference centre there ( https://uk-internationaldance.com/uk-championships/ ).... I envoy you having that nearby where you live!

On board ship it is certainly not for competition dancing at all, nor is it only for couples who want to dance at high level. There is a place for those who wish to express the music at the highest level, and just as much pleasure for beginner couples who only know three waltz figures to get around the dance floor - both give pleasure to those who are doing their own dancing. The inexperienced couples have limited ability to vary from their few steps that they have been taught, but the experienced couples should have enough ability and skill to move into the spaces between those couples who have limited ability. In fact that skill (called floorcraft) is an essential skill to learn - particularly for competition dancers and being flexible in where to move to whilst keeping to the music and still doing the figures of the dance is a pleasure in itself. Those who have the highest skill level will do that and make it look easy (it isn't easy!). The professional dance couple on board will be teaching beginner classes (usually around midday on sea days), but they will be just as happy to be booked for private lessons at any level, so that beginners can do more than is taught in the classes on board, and experienced dancers can take advantage of a teaching couple who are themselves usually at national champion level to take their dancing to the next level up. Ballroom and Latin dancing is a 'journey' that does not end. People can take their dancing to whatever level they feel comfortable with, whether to simply be with a partner and enjoy the music even if their technique is at beginner level, or whether they can work hard to develop to higher level skill (which takes years - many years - to get to professional standard) So yes, some can treat it like going for a swim once a week - but others do it every day as a key part of their lives. Young people also take up ballroom dancing - and in the UK of all the many clubs and societies that university students have available to join, it often surprises many, including university staff, to learn that the student societies across most universities in the UK with the highest number of members, are the student ballroom dancing societies - so yes it is certainly where young people still meet partners! At universities the main focus of ballroom and Latin dancing are competitions (in the UK) and there are a whole raft of ballroom competitions organised where universities send ballroom couples to compete and win to give kudos to their institution. Equally there are dance schools where kids as young as 5 or 6 start to learn ballroom and Latin dancing and those who really like it can continue to do so all the way through their school years - and some will become the champion ballroom dancers of the future - so yes it is something a lot of people do - one of the drivers in the UK for new attendees at ballroom classes is the TV series "Strictly" and when that starts in the autumn of each year, people of all ages register to start learning how to dance at many dance schools across the UK. Of course those same couples often don't have the money or time to go on a cruise until they are much older have the time and money to go on a Cunard cruise and enjoy the Queen's Room - so there are always new people coming in even if some of the dancers are getting older - something Cunard may well not have recognised!

I had a look at the New Vogue link you posted - and it seems a mix of American Smooth done as a standardised choreography that all contestants do simultaneously, a bit like a sequence dance. It would be a matter for personal taste whether any couple would like it or not. Our own preference is spending time to continuously develop the skill needed to dance in close hold for the International style ballroom dances, and also develop the skill to dance the five International Latin styles. We occasionally dip into other styles but it takes pretty much all our time honing those main ten dances so that we can enjoy the freedom of movement from having fluid choreography rather than fixed or pre-determined sets of steps (though some figure groups of course are done much the same but in different orders). Everyone has their own preferences.

Thank you for that link - which is indeed a lovely re-arrangement of the song (seems it might be this song ) - and of course many pieces of music can be re-arranged/remixed so that the rhythm is phrased to be suitable for particular dances - such as the waltz re-arrangement of Adele's song "Skyfall" which we love dancing to. Having said that what I meant was that many tribute bands will try to stick closely to the original sound if they are playing Beatles (and excuse the mis-spelling of the band's name in my original post! I was rather tired a few hours after getting back from the cruise!). It is also the case that orchestras and bands do their own re-arrangement of familiar and classic songs to fit particular dance rhythms, and whilst some orchestras understand ballroom and Latin dancing and can do that very successfully, there are certainly occasions when the resulting music is phrased wrongly for the intended dance rhythm and it simply fails to work. Musicians playing for ballroom and Latin dancers fall into two types - those who really do understand how the music needs to be phrased for dancing, and those who simply play the music with the rhythm structure that they like the feel of and that often doesn't work! Certainly on some Cunard cruises we have been on in the past, the Queen's Room orchestra has fallen into the latter category, which rather spoils the dancing.when that happens. On the other hand the Queen's Room orchestra on the cruise last week had an excellent orchestra, and the band leader, Brad, understood how the music needs to be phrased for the dancers - and they played some truly superb and memorable pieces for quite a few waltzes, foxtrots, rumbas, cha chas, quicksteps and tangos. However some of the 'old fashioned' pieces of music are still really beautiful and do not become stale - and we love to dance to many of the older songs that were sung by singers like Michael Buble in more recent years, as well classic quickstep music such as Sing Sing Sing and pieces from that era, but equally more modern songs such as the Genie song from the Disney Aladdin movie which works really well for a fun quickstep. Yes the Blackpool high level competitions often have less exciting music, but the Empress Orchestra are playing their own compositions quite often that are very strict tempo for the competition alone there and are not designed for maximum impact for a spectacular show dance, but there to test the metal of the contestants in outcompeting each other in fitting their choreography to the music, and with the necessary floorcraft when a lot of other couples are doing their best to win! So yes a song can be remixed with a suitable software application - but it takes a true ballroom dancer to know if the remix is not just strict tempo, but has the right phrasing to beautifully fit the way the body must move to the particular dance it is intended for. I would dread to release a piece of software to the entertainment manager or the orchestra on any Cunard ship unless they were working closely with a top level dancer so that any resulting re-arranged piece of music was produced in a way that really was best suited to the intended dance. Equally singers can either sing for the ballroom and Latin dancing or they can sing as a musician alone - which often then clashes with the dance structure of the underlying instrumental music. On the other hand we have been on cruises where Lisa Harman has sung gorgeous songs for dancing - such as "Sway" for a cha cha, or "New York New York" for a foxtrot and because she was at one time lead singer for the Empress Orchestra, when she sings the dancer can really feel their body connecting to the phrasing of the dance with true passion. American Smooth of course has a quite different feel to International Ballroom dances - and with a lot of figures out of hold it is quite different to dances where there is real skill needed to keep two bodies in perfect harmony in hold through the entire dance. I am not familiar with New Vogue but I will have to have a look to see how it differs in structure from the International Ballroom and Latin styles. However it is nice to have this discussion about real dancing! Let's hope that the quality and amount of time that dancers can utilise in the ballroom on all the Cunard ships, including the new ship, will remain the single niche difference that distinguishes Cunard cruises from all other lines. You can spend your money in the casino, drink in the bars, laze around on deck, or go swimming on any random cruise line ship, but it is only on Cunard that the classic elegance of the ballroom is there for passengers to enjoy every night all evening, whether a ballroom/Latin dancer, or a spectator, and long may that remain.

Yes - concerning wifi - it was very frustrating that if the satellite signal was lost, then the local wifi connection often went down as well - which meant having to log in again when the external link came back - but because it was so unstable it meant having to keep logging in multiple times per day, often then failing to connect because the satellite signal was weak, even if the wireless connection to the router was fine. It would be better if they allowed the local LAN connection to the routers via wireless to remain connected and simply re-establish the external internet link automatically when it returned - rather than forcing everyone to log in from scratch each time. One other thing is that if you were on a previous voyage and had been connected to My Voyage then returning to the ship on a different voyage and trying to connect to My Voyage seemed for our phones to require a clean connection - simply going to a home page icon previously used lead to no connection - so you had to clear the credentials first, then put in the new voyage info before it would connect - however on this voyage at least My Voyage did work (reasonably) consistently, even that would be disconnected if the phone was left in airplane mode overnight for example. However there appeared to be a reasonable wifi signal wherever we were around the ship, including in our room and there were routers on the ceiling with no areas with long gaps between physical wireless access points.

The only ballroom dancing sessions during the day were the dance classes on sea days, and the single afternoon tea dance on the last sea day before getting back to Southampton. We had a long discussion with the Assistant Entertainment Manager in the evening of the first curtailed ballroom dancing evening, at a time when there was a music duo playing, and the dance floor was empty, and many of the people who had been having a drink and watching the ballroom dancing earlier in the evening, had decided to leave when the Duo started playing. They seem to have the idea that they need to 'modernise' and bring in more 'modern' music - though it also seems that the managers don't have an understanding about what ballroom dancers can dance to in terms of music ( it is not possible to do a foxtrot to a Beetles song (any of them!), and a lot of people of all ages like the classic songs and music, even if they were created decades ago, and also don't appreciate the strength of feeling that ballroom dancers have about dancing - in that it is not something dancers like to do occasionally during a voyage, but that it is part and parcel of their lives every evening. So curtailing ballroom dancing means the dancers are less keen to book a voyage at all. However it does seem that at HQ there is a move towards modernising the dancing even if it is their intention not to take away ballroom dancing, but what they seem to be doing they do not understand is the kind of major change that many dancers feel is a step too far. It is oh so important that they get feedback about it. It also looks very much like they are 'trialling' changes that might be implemented for Queen Anne. So anyone who feels strongly about the dilution of ballroom dancing on voyages needs to let Cunard managers know - I get the feeling the standard questionnaire after a cruise doesn't get serious reading by managers at all - so only direct email to senior Cunard management has any chance at all of being heard at a level where changes might result. There were a few sequence dance sessions - as half hour periods during the evening but not more than twice. Also there was a session for sequence dancers at 5pm on a number of days. However the sequence dancers did not try to spoil the normal dancing by trying to do sequence dances during normal ballroom and Latin sessions in the evening. It seems to be the case that the managers don't understand that sequence dancing is only done in general by British, and some Australian passengers, and it is not done by most country's nationals. So Americans are generally closed out if there is a sequence dance session. In addition, it is not understood that sequence dances, are normally not actually danced at all, but people basically step around a set of 16 bar learned steps, with no musicality or real dancing at all. A ring of sequence dancers around the floor also prevents people who want to really dance to the music, with good technique, from doing it at all until the sequence dancers have left the floor. Part of the problem is that the entertainment managers don't talk to the real dancers, but make policy based on other criteria - so unless views are expressed directly to managers then decisions will likely get made that make proper ballroom dancing less available on Cunard voyages.

This is how Olden looked from deck 7 - such a lovely port.

Having just got home after the one week Norway voyage on QM2 from 22nd to 29th May I thought I would summarise our experience of that cruise. Embarkation was slick, quick, and efficient and a much better start to getting on board on day 1 - however that was marred by finding our cruise cards failed to open our stateroom door. Walking to reception gave the discovery that there were hundreds of other passengers in the same boat (excuse the pun)! There had been an IT technical issue that meant cruise cards had to be 'reactivated', as they had been erroneously 'expired' - but until the technical issue was resolved the cards could not be re-activated, so many, including us, had to find a crew member with a master key to let us into our room - when we ventured out to get a drink, and passed reception on the way back the queue was well back towards the lifts with most wanting a resolution of the key card problem, and then having to find a master key holder again to let us into our room again. Eventually two hours later I was able to collect our newly reactivated cards - but they failed again an hour later and we had new cards made and sent to our room. So a somewhat disappointing first few hours. Other than that things improved with a good dinner menu, and fabulous waiters in Britannia Dining Room. A nice slight sea state made for a decent passage to Norway, and the sea was pretty calm throughout apart from one evening and overnight when there was sufficient movement to make dancing tricky in the Queen's Room. The ship's wifi was very unstable - it would disconnect very frequently, and the satellite internet was more often not available than available. Luckily there were enough days in port that the 4G mobile phone signal gave a good fast data connection for the internet. The quality of internet service was explained as due to problematic geographic position but the real loss of stability of the ship's wifi suggested that loss of signal from the satellite was not the only problem and that really does need to be sorted out properly. The dining menus were a good range of dishes generally, and of those dishes we chose almost all were well presented, good flavours, and cooked really well from starters through entree to desserts. Since our main activity on any cruise is ballroom dancing the first few nights were lovely evenings with the orchestra playing early sets after dinner as well as 45 minute orchestra sets with recorded music between sets later in the evening, and that included pretty good music as well as some inspiring pieces of music, with some nice waltzes, foxtrots, quicksteps, rumbas and cha chas. Though a noticeable loss was almost no samba music. However the daily schedule after several days gave a potential evening with significantly reduced ballroom dancing, and it was through the effort of the professional dance couple that some recorded sets were added in twice in the main part of the evening in the half hour gaps. An evening with a 'duo' playing pop music which was mostly not dance music, other than disco, with an occasional jive or quickstep possible, and and a comedy pianist doing two performances in the Queen's Room (even though he was excellent with the piano and comedy) did not satisfy the group of dancers who wanted pure ballroom and Latin music to dance to, particularly when the comedy pianist could be better accommodated in the theatre, and the duo was OK to listen to rather more than to dance to, and would have been better suited to G32. Then an evening with a Beetles tribute band at both 9pmn and 11pm, looked like being a ballroom dancing disaster too - though again the professional ballroom couple stepped in and persuaded the managers to allow permission to get ballroom and Latin music played in the hour's gap between the tribute band performances, which at least allowed some time for the ballroom to be used properly for the ballroom dancers. There was a reasonable number of ladies who wanted to dance, but with no dance hosts, they were disappointed. Quite a lot of people came to the Queen's Room once the evening was under way, to have a drink and watch the ballroom dancing. There was certainly quite a lot of disappointment expressed by a number of the ballroom dancers that directives from the entertainment managers on shore to take away ballroom dancing for 4 nights out of seven was turning the ballroom dance passengers away, and some won't book a cruise at all if that continues to happen. Cunard's signature and unique level of quality ballroom dancing is what many passengers look for when booking their cruises, so if ballroom dancing is diluted further, Cunard could lose quite a significant number of bookings. The ports of call were nice - though rain did make for some wet tours and walks. However Olden was a delight - and there were sufficient gaps in the rain in Stavanger to make for nice port visits for many. The atmosphere on board was good, and masks were not required of passengers, though all crew wore masks all the time. Without the mask requirement it made for the nearest holiday to pre-covid conditions that we have experienced, and indeed we were not aware of any covid outbreaks, though the day before returning to Southampton, a series of urgent calls over the announcement system notifying specific passengers to return to their room and call the purser's desk immediately, did indicate that some cases were occurring. Disembarkation direct from staterooms, was excellent - quick, and efficient with no queues and easy collection of luggage in the baggage hall, and a quick exit to transport heading home or to onwards flights. Quite a few seemed to be on back to back too, and by now on their way on the westbound TA. Overall an excellent cruise, despite lack of warm weather - and the majority looked happy and seem to be having a great time. Perhaps others in this forum who were also on this cruise might add their commens to the thread.

It does not appear on My Cunard login. If you want an up to date statement that does include the OBS then you have to talk to a Cunard agent and ask them to send you a new one in email.

Great report - and hope the eastbound TA is just as good this week.

I believe you can't use 'on-board credit' until you are 'on-board'. So you can't book excursions using obc prior to embarkation. Once on board you can then use obc for booking excursions, but you do carry the risk that popular excursions might be fully booked by then.

One thing worth checking is your email spam folder - for various reasons sometimes genuine email ends up being marked as spam, and if it is in there usually you can mark it as 'not spam' and then next time mail from the same goes into your normal inbox.