D&N

Our cabin stewardess replenished ours free throughout the voyage. But much of what we drink is while eating or dancing so we were having water in restaurants and lounges through the drinks package.

I've no idea what your dance shoes are like. My wife's are lighter in weight than her other shoes. Heels are fractionally lower as she can't heel turn in anything over about 3". Provided they're not worn on wet decks they are fine for moving around a ship. And if the opportunity to dance arises you are fully prepared.

But hopefully not that short that we can't take some amusement from them. 😀

Sorry. Not for a wee while now. There is no #400. You need to get a train to Cagnes-sur-Mer, or a tram line #2 to Park Phoenix, then a #620 or #650 to Cagnes-sur-Mer SNCF station, then catch #655 to St Paul de Vence. Same in reverse on way back. You can buy a Ticket Azur that is valid on tram and the bus to Cagnes, but need another ticket for the #655. Or a train ticket to Cagnes and another ticket for the #655. That's "integrated transport" for you, so much better than a #400 all the way from Nice to St Paul (NOT). It will be more expensive but much easier by UBER! The Nice tram network has ruined bus services in other places along the coast.

I've really no idea. I thought perhaps to reduce risk of damage to rudder or screws? And nowadays the azipods on modern ships? I was thinking about it earlier when someone commented that QM2's bow would stick out into Hudson and thought she wouldn't be that way round.

Don't agree. That would mean the crew would need to work an extra hour westbound and would lose an hour's sleep eastbound. Do you think that's fair, or in some cases safe? To be fair to you; you may not be thinking in terms of crew rosters. It was a responsibility for much of my career. I'm an early riser, my wife would probably sleep until disturbed. In the absence of cat alarms she might sleep all day! 🐈 We think we may have a solution to the breakfast issue anyway. We keep our eating window to a minimum. Next time we plan to miss on breakfast other than some orange juice for the vitamin C. Our first food will be at elevenses with a small pastry, and hopefully have dinner finished by 8pm. That takes our eating window to eleven hours westbound and ten eastbound. Our norm at home is between five and seven hours except Saturdays, which is probably the main reason neither of us has a weight problem now.

I'm not saying anything of the sort. Did you read this?: "I confess that I've not really looked into the matter but had assumed". Does that not suggest to you that I have no idea?

We didn't notice any difference in food quality. We had fourteen different menus. There might have been the same meat e.g. lamb or pork, but offered as a different dish. The main thing we noticed was a lack of Grand Marnier and shortage of rosé and white wines by the glass in some lounges or the MDR. Hopefully those post pandemic supply problems have been resolved. I confess that I've not really looked into the matter but had assumed most produce was loaded at Southampton unless a Cunard ship was spending an extended period away from the UK.

We went to Mandelieu-la-Napoule for lunch yesterday. A restaurant we'd passed on a visit last October that had a Gault & Millau badge outside. It was very nice. I didn't take any food porn pics. We had planned to visit the château gardens but it was closed for an event. We'd expected bright sunshine and dressed accordingly but in practice it didn't break through the cloud until about 1pm. After lunch we had about an hour to waste as local trains west of Cannes don't run frequently. We went to a cafe to have some rosé while we waited. On leaving I noted they had a coffee machine like on QM2 but a model M39 DT/4 rather than the DT/3s on QM2. DT/3 or 4 seems to denote the number of coffee dosers.

The delivery delays didn't give much opportunity to sort things out. In contrast; Oceania Vista cruised around the med with agents on board for about ten days before it's maiden. I saw hundreds of photos of it on Facebook.

I've never doubted it! I still wear my 1997 black shoes, but don't wear them outdoors and keep them for dancing. They have a very thin leather sole that gives enough flexibility for dancing. I'm thinking of having my 1997 formal trousers professionally taken in as they're probably better quality than my newer stuff. And of course I still have ties dating back that far. I think my wife's oldest item is a silver Wallis skirt suit that I have a photo of her wearing to a christening in 2000. It went on QM2 last time and will likely be going again. We were close to throwing it out when it shrank 😀, but luckily didn't and now it fits better than ever.

If that was us; my wife would take ten dinner outfits for Cunard. If we had nights in Hamburg and Oslo or any other European cities, she would dress going out for dinner recycling what she wore on QM2. For Oceania she would recycle the ten outfits from QM2 and have another eight that she may have worn at lunch time on QM2. If we had a night in London before flying she'd wear something from the cruises. She might even use some separates and mix and match. I'd just need a few dinner and lounge suits, ties, and shirts and shoes that I'd need to wear anyway. We'd just travel with normal luggage to do that. Just a different approach. As you say you're: "not “into” the whole concept of dressing up.", so there's no reason to do something you don't want to. For all Oceania can be casual, I'm sure it doesn't need to be. Some of their interiors look very nice. I would hope that if I ever sailed with them that I wouldn't be turned away from the dining room for wearing a tie! 😀

You keep telling us that, and you have every right to feel that way. 😀 However Nora loves clothes, and shoes, and bags. So 26 outfits for lunch and dinner on QM2, one for lunch in New York, and one for pre cruise dinner in Southampton, and something to travel to and from Southampton in. 🤣

I took the "Dumbing Down" of the title and the original post to refer to Cunard's guidelines rather than a slight against passengers/customers. We need no reason to dress up. Unless we have visitors staying we only eat in the evening at weekends and then we dress for dinner. Not in formal wear but something dressier than we have worn during the day. If we're out to dinner or lunch we'll dress up as much as is reasonable depending on the temperature. Many of the restaurants we visit are within easy walking distance of our home, or a civilised bus ride away, and we rarely have wet weather to contend with. It would probably look a bit odd for me to stroll down to the marina some evening wearing a dinner suit, or for my wife in stilettos and a floor sweeping gown. I can get away with a lounge suit with tie and my wife anything between mini and ankle length. New Years Eve is about the only time we wouldn't look silly in formal dress, even then I'd probably be the only one. For us two weeks on QM2 is a chance to dress up more. We don't find gala menus that much more attractive than other nights and in BC we have the a la carte options as well. The other attraction for us is dancing. In terms of entertainment all we want is music that we can dance to and a floor of some sort to dance on. We do like musical shows but much prefer to be dancing to any music that is playing and wouldn't bother going to any show, presentation or talk on a cruise. We just don't like sitting watching anything when we could be up doing something ourselves. So without dancing we wouldn't be booking, and it doesn't really matter how many galas are scheduled, we'll just dress for that every night.

There are several YouTube videos from vloggers of the various grades of cabin/suite. They all show US, UK and EU power sockets, plus USB-A and USB-C outlets. The USBs are usually either side of bed and above the desk.

Don't Apple quote that in your phone manual/specification? GSM Arena quote for a standard iPhone 15: Wired: PD2.0, 50% in 30 min (I've no idea what PD2.0 means) Wireless: 15W For comparison the latest Moto Edge 50 range that I've been looking at they quote: Wired: 125W, 100% in 18 min Wireless: 50W Our current Motos clearly state if it's; Slow charging, Charging (standard), or Turbo-Power Connected. Sometimes the cable isn't rated for fast charging even if both charger and phone are.

Don't know exactly when Godiva went, but thought it was during 2023. Some of the recent pics of cakes and pastries in Sir Samuel's look lovely but not as chocolatey as before. Edit: Perhaps the November dry dock.

@Winifred 22 Was your last trip on QM2 perhaps before Godiva was removed? All the Godiva cakes and chocolates were chargeable. I suspect you won't find that chocolate cake again!

My needs are the opposite in that almost all our chargers are EU and QM2 doesn't have EU sockets. I have an EU adaptor that takes both our fast phone chargers and also has two standard USBs sharing a 2.4A output. That covers everything we need. If I need to charge the toothbrush (we take one handle and swap heads) I unplug a phone charger briefly while the brush charges. I have some very small but sturdy UK to EU adaptors. As you can see in the photos, the assembly can be plugged in either way up. I wouldn't travel anywhere I wasn't certain of finding multiple EU sockets without these anyway, so I'm not taking anything extra.

This is a bit off topic and better discussed elsewhere, but the ships you mention usually cross far further south where the weather is better, take longer so they have time to avoid such weather, and yes disasters are sometimes narrowly avoided. Search for Viking Sky.

Wouldn't make much sense. It's market segmentation, and allows them to sell a range of products to people with different tastes. Procurement and admin are the areas where efficiencies are best made, but given their global operation that might be limited.

You might do better than I did, but suggest asking ASAP. My waiter could only get me from the day I asked, so I didn't get our first week other than the special Jubilee Gala menu.

Open on deck 3 has the benefit of the 2Tops near balcony rail shown in photo Pushpit posted on link below. Not sure you can be guaranteed to get one of them though. With fixed if you can get a table that suits to start with then it's yours for trip and you'll always be same distance from others (unless they move the tables!). It may be that if you have same staff who get to know your likes they may be more attentive as many folk are more likely to give additional tips to staff that have served them well at end of cruise/crossing. With different staff each night the standards might vary.

If you hadn't already figured it out the reason you'd get fixed staff is because you'd have a fixed table. Pushpit has covered this, but; If you had early or late sitting and on a particular night you knew you would want to change that, you could book one of the pop-ups or Verandah for the time you require.

I am not trying to affect your decision, please do as you think fit. But you would expect EU policies to be very similar. The Allianz France version quotes this: "Medical assistance Actual costs (emergency evacuation, medical repatriation, bedside transport, return of dependents, body repatriation)" In French of course. Does the Romanian version not have something similar? To me "Actual costs" are unlimited, although travelling in Europe/Mediterranean repatriation probably would be less than €50k. There's a problem just now with their French site and I can't access the conditions, which would probably give the maximum cover values for anything else.