D&N

In case the tag gets ripped off, I also put a printed sheet in each bag with contact details and cabin number. Since we have to check some bags on a flight to Heathrow, I also include details of the address at Red Hook and the time/date QM2 will be docked there in case a bag is lost on the flight and can hopefully catch us up in New York for the return trip.

Given where we live, we normally only drink French wine. Although there is a local deli with an eat in facility that serves Basque cured meats and cheeses and does have a nice Rioja. And we'll consider a few Italian wines, although I'm only confident in my knowledge of a few of them. That might change in May when we visit Rome for several days. The other couple we're meeting there are looking forward to visiting all the old relics, and I just want the food and wine! 🙂 I would only drink New World wines in exceptional circumstances. The Sancerre was just within the package when the limit was $12. I don't think they are likely to price it above the package. We'd be very happy if the Chablis was included.

British tabloids are generally only negative towards the odd one that carries a massive piece of King Edward potato about on their shoulder. There are very few republican tabloids in the UK, and any US perspective of UK tabloids is probably influenced by a very twisted view of events pedalled by one couple.

And of course we all know that $53,999 is much less than £32,849. 🤣🤣 Sorry, couldn't resist.

This might be the Chart Room menu rakkor was looking for. I found it a few weeks ago. It claims to be May 2023. It doesn't list the Cunard own label wines, which are fine for refreshments. I don't know if the Chart Room stocks them. We'll drink the white and rose over an evening of dancing, alternated with gulps of still water. We drink lots of similar wine in France (mainly red) on a daily basis poured from boxes. The Pinot Grigio and Sancerre were ok as well. For dinner we're looking for decent Burgundy Chardonnay or Bordeaux reds and you probably need to be looking at between $60 and $90 for them. We had a Paulliac over two nights that was delicious. qm_chart_room_menu_may_23.pdf

I'm seeing £32,849 pp That's for M603H

Shipyard availability? I don't think we know where the work is taking place yet. Perhaps when that is known it will be clearer. You'd imagine it'll probably be Hamburg, Rotterdam or North West France. Any of them will have nice long daylight working days at that time of year.

Thanks. I think Victoria has mentioned Camilla in the past. I'm sure they are very well made, but they're not really her style, and they are pricey on their French site as well. And of course she doesn't need any more. That won't stop her buying of course! Biggest problem is choosing. We think there's about forty evening outfits we would take and fifty daytime, before she starts looking at different options for coordinating skirts and tops. Some of those certain to go next time are pieces she's had for years and had been on the point of being given away had she not lost weight. But when they went last time they could have been accessorised better than they were and our camera gear and photography skills were lacking. Next time they'll be more sparkly, we'll make sure the right heels are on for photos (dance heels are slightly lower), and we've upgraded to a full frame camera and I'm teaching myself which lenses are best for portraits. Here's a collage of what might have gone, but it's been overtaken by acquisitions. Some will be relegated to make room for dressier sparklier items. And we don't have any problem packing that lot, and if we did we'd just pay for another case.

It's a wee bit more than that. You do have the same table with same waiters and Maître d at every meal. It might be a substitute sommelier at lunchtime. You can walk in anytime that suits within opening hours. You also have the à la carte menu in evening if the main menu doesn't inspire, although some might need to be ordered at lunchtime. There were several dishes on that we rather liked. You do get a full bottle of sparkling in cabin and daily replenished bottled water. We like deck 12 for the cabin. We never use pubs, buffets or specialist dining so quite like the dining situation. I've no idea what the price difference would be for our bookings but if you don't think it's worth £2,900 to you I'm sure you'll enjoy the MD just as much. As you say the main menu is just the same.

If you can! I'm told that this time there isn't one A1 cabin being offered for our itinerary. The option seems to be to book an A2 then hope the agent can persuade them to release one of the A1s we'd like to our itinerary and pay the small difference.

Underneath the Useful Information section about bringing your own onboard on the US site is a statement: "Any wines purchased via the Little Luxuries Collection are not subject to the on board $25 corkage fee". I assume therefore that the fee is still $25. That may be subject to the 15% service charge. In turn it might attract the 20% discount from the package. From a response point of view a problem may be that there aren't many folk who take or are given the package, who then order a bottle of wine at $80 or $150 or even pay corkage on their own wine.

Do you mind explaining where about on the website you found the link to that? I can only see links to the brochure up to Jan 26 on https://www.cunard.com/en-gb

We don't really care what others pay either. We ended up in Britannia Club the first time because the obstructed balconies we wanted were no longer available and we had more FCC than expected. Having discovered that the MDR for BC, and the cabin location were to our liking, that's what we have and will book. I know roughly what the price will be, but my instructions to our agent are to book what I have specified. If those in the next cabin pay less than us, good luck to them. I know BC is by no means the most expensive grade on the ship. Our costs are about £10k including flights, hotel and onboard spend. I'm not really bothered that it might be possible for someone to do the trip for 10% less. For me the more likely future scenario is that we may eventually get fed up and decide to spend that money on something else, probably high end restaurants around this region with overnight stays. That would avoid the trauma of leaving home (and cats) for two weeks.

I found this brochure on Calameo. The link leading to it appeared to be in Italian. CUN-Brochure_Aug24–Jan27.pdf

Since cruise ships have been banned from Venice that might be difficult! 🙂 Sorry.

If you decide to do that, I recommend that you take two leakproof sturdy carrier bags. Put one inside the other and get them filled with ice. Put the bottle in the ice and the glasses bowl down in the ice. You can carry it on deck like that. Your wine will taste much better served chilled.

Charlie obviously knows where it's sensible to be at this time of year!

I'm not sure that "clean" and "pristine" are the best words to use. I know they have previously been used by others regarding this subject. Probably originally by politicians and ecologists to drum up public support for their stance. What is a harmful bug to one ecosystem is probably native and perfectly acceptable to another. If they've got round to thinking about it, the authorities in Alaska might not want New Zealand's bugs invading their ecosystem. QE's itineraries for the past few years have effectively been lengthy world cruises, passing through both major canals and several oceans and seas. Helpfully to marine life that would like to cling on, she docks or drops anchor for ten hours at a time in various places giving them ample opportunity to get a good grip of her hull. It doesn't seem ideal to allow a ship following that sort of itinerary access to an area they want to protect. Perhaps it's only a matter of time before ships are restricted to operate within set regions to try and limit any cross contamination.

It's much the same on the Cote d'Azur. The local press (Nice Matin, Var Matin & Monaco Matin) have reported repeatedly over the last few years on a desire to limit mass tourism from cruise ships. Monaco are quite clear that they don't want mega cruise ships. They have stated that they only want ships carrying high net worth individuals that will spend a fortune in their boutiques. In Marseilles there have been incidents where flottillas of canoes have blocked cruise ships from moving. In Toulon there are complaints about pollution from cruise ships. Residents around the Port of Nice would even prefer that the Corsica Ferries are banned due to the soot they claim lands on their balconies. A phrase that has cropped up several times is that they want quality rather than mass tourism.

It's not something I follow closely. If I want to see New Zealand, I go to the dentist! They often have a National Geographic video of South Island playing on a big screen in the waiting room 🙂. I was under the impression there were cruise lines other than Cunard that had fallen foul of this. I'd be surprised if the companies providing the cleaning service operate on a "no clean, no fee basis", so I don't understand how Cunard's decision is in preference to spending copious funds. They appear to be spending those sums on a service that often can't deliver and they then end up disappointing and compensating passengers. If the authorities actually want cruise ships with clean hulls to visit these regions, I'd have thought it would be helpful for a facility to be provided, which cruise lines would pay for, in a sheltered harbour where there was a high chance that the cleaning could be successfully completed. It's possible that they would prefer them not to visit in the first place as that would result in less environmental risk. It might be better that visits to the region are restricted to ships that never leave the region and can't pick up contamination elsewhere. To me it makes good business sense to scrap the itineraries since despite planning for cleaning, they seem to repeatedly be disappointing passengers. In the absence of a reliable facility I don't understand how they are supposed to comply with the regulations.

We intend to have our agent book a 2026 trip on March 6th. But I'm not sure I like this change to release dates. If Cunard release 2027 itineraries at same time next year, by the time we sail on our next crossings in June 2025 we'll have 2026 and 2027 booked as well. When June sailings were released in September we would only ever have another one booked when sailing and if circumstances changed and we decided we were no longer interested there would only be one more to take. When booking between 27 and 30 months in advance it would certainly be a benefit if deposits were refundable for an initial period. It could cause insurance issues as well. As French residents, Holiday Extras won't cover us. The few companies who offer suitable insurance won't issue cover that far in advance. The deposit may be at our own risk until about a year before travel. That is of course already the case but the longer time increases the risk of changes in health etc. I can see from Carnival's point of view that they want to get as much cash in the bank as early as possible to speed up the reduction of the huge debt incurred during the pandemic.

We're all different. We know that we're unusual compared with friends and family. We've been joined at the hip for nearly 36 years and always been happy with that. I'm sure we must have argued about something over the years but I can't think what it was, probably something to do with relatives! Lockdown was easy for us because nothing really changed other than how much time we could spend outdoors and some restrictions where we could go. Just about the only thing I didn't have input to was my wife's wedding dress. She invariably asks my opinion on outfits knowing she'll get an honest and objective opinion. e.g. Dark colours or mixes rather than cream when going for a curry or if she's likely to feel too hot or cold in something. And when we were fat I'd tell her if one outfit made her look slimmer than another. She'll spot things on her phone then it's up to me to look for it on the big screen and check sizes, see if a discount can be obtained or find something similar of a better cut or fabric. For us a QM2 crossing is not a holiday. It's a dressing up and dancing ocean voyage experience. If we want a holiday we just stay right here, it's much more relaxing, we know the food, drink and climate suits us and we don't have the trauma of leaving our cats. It would be much cheaper as well! I'm sure you dress very elegantly, but Nora likes light colours and glitzy dresses and heels, as long as she can walk in them, and mainly keeps trousers for casual wear. As long as she's happy, I'm happy.

In addition to bluemarble's comments, you can probably make a reasonable guess at what they will eventually post by looking at voyages V428 and V431 on the schedule attached to this thread, which are quite similar to your cruise. Going by that you can probably expect three on sea days. I'd guess one on either 4th, 5th or 6th, and the others on 11th and 13th. You'll need to wait for them to confirm but they tend to follow a general pattern.

That didn't go down well. I suggested that for some future two week trip on QM2 we try reducing our clothing to a minimum and try and travel on hand baggage only (just to prove we could do it), while still dressing formally every night. I'd half the number of suits I took and use the cleaning services as required. Nora would go for mainly blue and brown separates on a mix and match basis. I'd rather NOT! was the response. However she did welcome the revelation that for €80 each way we could check another 23kg case. I'm now tasked with planning a future trip where she has specific outfits for breakfast and afternoon tea in addition to what we have had before and plan for 2025. 🤣

Four carry-ons! The backpacks are almost max cabin size, hold about 40 litres, are very light, and go in the overheads. We are also allowed two small bags that must go under the aircraft seat in front of our feet. The black one holds 15 litres, the Radley is smaller but we've since bought a bigger version. All bags, from 80 litre checked cases, to smallest carry-on can weigh 23kg. We make best use of the cabin bags by putting the heaviest stuff in them first. The small black bag takes all the camera gear, electricals, magnetic hooks, washing line, and anything with a battery. If there's space one or both pairs of my leather shoes go in as well. The Radley bag gets jewellery, non liquid make up, medications, anything else heavy and possibly a pair of Nora's heels. For the big backpacks; the heaviest garments are laid out on top of each other, most likely to crease at bottom to lace and knits at top. The bundles are then rolled and put in the backpack with most of remaining shoes and stuff to pad out the corners. That leaves all the lightweight stuff and any liquids to jam into the suitcases and should leave enough weight to spare in case we discover that Cunard are still having Grand Marnier supply problems, if so we can put a bottle in each case. We have bought one bigger case, but the trade off is that the extra 31 litres space we gain loses us 800g weight. Following the swimming luggage debacle, we'll pack anything hard to replace in the cabin bags. All the gowns are easy to replace online, but some stuff bought up to 25 years ago would need to be made from photos we have of them. You've probably seen the photo before. The setup is also really easy to manoeuvre through airports and on public transit if we need to, and all fits in the boot/trunk of an average saloon car.