JaneGrey

Thank you for the clarification. But any way you slice it, I cannot imagine that they need DOZENS of cabins for quarantine purposes. And if they DO, I do NOT want to be on that ship! Reminds me of "plague ships" of the pre-modern period! I will wait until the color status drops back to Green, thank you very much!

I have said this on other threads, and it may bear repeating here: The QE Alaska cancellations have nothing to do with expanding "quarantine zones." Cunard is operating the QE at levels significantly (double-digit percentages) below maximum capacity, and DOZENS of cabins are deliberately remaining unsold simply because they cannot get enough staff in from Asia and the South Pacific (the main geographic sources for staff) who are fully documented as COVID vaccinated and who test negative within a day or so of joining the ship. The QE has ample quarantine space ... they just do not have enough bodies to operate at even the limited capacity, so they have reduced capacity still further. It is a personnel issue, not a quarantine issue. Per the CDC website, the QE is currently reporting less than 0.3% COVID rate, which means fewer than ten cases among both passengers and crew. Why would Cunard "expand the quarantine zones" if so few people on board require quarantine? Do they expect a mass outbreak that will require dozens of cabins for quarantine purposes? No!

I have sailed solo on the QM2 over a dozen times, all transatlantic. I never booked one of the single cabins, partly because I do not like where they are located and partly because they seem to sell out within minutes of posting. I always get a regular cabin (and pay the 100% single supplement). I have never felt socially isolated. But I make a positive effort to meet people. I encourage people to join me when I am seated alone at a table for four during afternoon tea in the Queen's Room, for example, or for Trivia in the Golden Lion Pub. And as a gay male, I attend the Friends of Dorothy group in the Commodore Club every day, which does facilitate social interaction. The gatherings have ranged from a handful of people to several dozen. And non-gay people are usually welcome. Quite often the celebrities on the ship will drop in on FoD, simply because it is a fun group! I have even stayed in touch with many people that I met through that particular group, including one very well-known British movie star. The one down-side (for me) of sailing solo on Cunard is the Britannia for dinner. With assigned seating, Cunard does like to put all of the solos at one or two tables. I have had several crossings during which I had to ask the maitre-d' to move me, simple because my table mates were intolerable. I always ask to be seated instead at a large table (8-10) that has one or two unassigned seats. And that has always worked out beautifully! The couples at those tables seem to like to "adopt" solo passengers!

Yes, it does appear that money counts. I bought my passage on the June 1 sailing of the QE out of San Francisco just 3 weeks ago as part of a "Sailing Soon" super-discounted deal, and I got canceled. Apparently the fact that I was paying double as a solo passenger did not make up for the difference. I got my notice yesterday, three weeks or 21 days before my scheduled sailing date. As for crewing the ships, I can see where Cunard would be having issues. The vast majority of the crews are from Asia and the South Pacific (India, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia). And because crew contracts are for six months, it is likely that many of the crew are rotating in June. And I am sure that it cannot be easy to get all of the necessary vaccination and testing documentation in those points of origin. Heck, it is difficult enough in the US and Canada! Imagine doing it in Asia! So I am not sure that it is an issue of finding personnel so much as it is an issue of getting them properly documented. I am convinced that the issue is based in very poor planning on Cunard's part for the normal crew rotations as 6-month contracts end. I don't think it has anything at all to do with "reclaiming cabin space for possible quarantines." The ships are already limiting capacity by double-digit percentages. How many quarantine cabins do they need if the ships are already deliberately operating 20%-30% below maximum? That's dozens of empty cabins! The QE is currently reporting Orange condition, or less than 0.3% of passengers and crew testing positive for COVID. That roughly correlates to less than 10 people (passengers and crew) who have tested positive. The reality is that Cunard is simply unable right now to get enough crew onto the ships to be able to operate even at limited capacity, so they have had to reduce the limitation to an even lower level or lower number of passengers. Nonetheless, I continue to maintain that this is an issue that Cunard should have anticipated and should have been prepared to handle more efficiently. Cunard has really screwed the pooch on this one, in my opinion!