D&N

Nora has always felt that black didn't suit her complexion. We manage to get her wearing a fair amount of black by really glitzing it up with diamante, silver, white etc. But she'll narrow the wardrobe down to 26 different outfits to cover 14 nights and 12 daytimes, as she did last time. There won't be many colours left out, and there will be suitable shoes for each. What puzzles us is the difficulty folk have in fitting it in to their luggage. We need to fly to and from the UK but we could take nearly double the weight we do.

If you do want masks SHEIN have a large range: https://fr.shein.com/pdsearch/Masque Bal/?ici=s1`SuggestionSearch`Masque Bal`_fb`d0`PageCollection&search_source=2&search_type=all&src_identifier=st%3D4`sc%3DMasque Bal`sr%3D0`ps%3D17&src_module=search&src_tab_page_id=page_collection1707567630168 We're in France so use their French site. Change the site settings to your country and currency We (my wife) has lots, but these silver and gold ones, his & hers, or plain black fabric ones, are probably the best suited: https://fr.shein.com/2pack-Plain-Costume-Eye-Shield-p-9710597.html https://fr.shein.com/2pack-Zorro-Lace-Costume-Eyewear-p-9624162.html You'd probably need to make it part of a bigger order to avoid shipping fees, in which case you might be cheaper with Amazon.

@Winifred 22 I've seen hacks to open bottles before but not tried any. If wine is fairly young and cork in good condition (rosé usually is), a relatively safe way is to get a blunt handled spoon and push the cork all the way in, then use the spoon to hold the cork clear of flow while you pour the wine. There's videos online demonstrating that.

I had to check back the thread for that. Anywhere we go where we're buying/taking our own wine, we take a small lightweight waiters corkscrew. I was referring to if you'd ordered a bottle from room service and were paying for it.

Six colours for walking about the ship and photos. Three colours of dance shoes with suede soles and slightly lower heels (they're featherlight). I just need a couple of blacks and trainers for gym.

We don't drink in cabin but wouldn't room service bring a corkscrew to open the bottle for you? Regarding the original question; Cunard and P&O were always known to be relaxed about passengers bringing alcohol aboard for in cabin consumption. I believe most others are quite strict.

The ports don't have tenders. There is a company operating along the Cote d'Azur called: Trans Côte d’Azur https://www.trans-cote-azur.co.uk/ They provide ferry services to islands and sightseeing services. They also provide services to some cruise lines. They have a large fleet of boats that are generally bigger and faster than cruise ship tenders and have local crews that know the local ports and currents well. They may also supply direct excursions from ships. Certain cruise lines seem to use them at Cannes and Villefranche. We use them now and again to visit l’île Sainte-Marguerite for a swim and picnic.

I usually just stick to the Cunard boards, but thought I'd have a quick look here. I have to say that I find most of you incredibly adventurous and optimistic! We live halfway between Cannes and Nice. We visited Monaco in January. Including a 20 minute walk to the station (similar to port to station in Cannes), and the train running 12 minutes late, it took 1h30 to get to Monaco. We visited a men's outfitters to see if they had dress shirts I'd bought before in their sale. My wife tried on a pair of shoes to check she could walk in them in another shop. We went for a coffee and pastry. 1h40 later we were back at the station. By the time we waited for a train it took 37 minutes to get to Nice. Checked another branch of the men's outfitter leaving empty handed again, visited a few other stores to look at leather handbags in sales and headed for tram after about an hour. Took a tram to outskirts of Nice and transferred to bus, as that drops us nearer house than the train. Got home just over an hour later. So 6 shops and a coffee in 2 cities took over 6 hours. And we didn't buy anything other than the coffee/pastries. The coffee/hot chocolate and pastries were lovely. Some things to note: Trains can be disrupted for all sorts of things. People fall on tracks, illegal immigrants try to travel on roof from Italy and get grilled to top of train, rock falls, lineside fires, and various other things under control of the train operators. Until a bit over 4 years ago you could get a bus from Cannes to Nice and then change to another from Nice to Monaco and Menton. Once the trams were fully operational they stopped allowing regional buses into Nice. You need to get a bus to an interchange west of Nice, then a tram, then find the bus stop for the bus heading to Monaco (the terminus for that is not where the tram stops). The coastal road between Antibes and Villeneuve Loubet is closed to traffic and handed over to cyclists and pedestrians on the 1st Sunday of every month. The coastal road at Juan-Les-Pins is often closed at the same time. The coastal road at Cagnes-Sur-Mer closes on a variety of Sunday mornings between April and November for triathlons, marathons, fun days etc. Then there's Ironman in Nice, all sorts of cycle races, taxi drivers, farmers and others carrying out snail operations on motorways and blocking tollbooths. Having said all that we wouldn't live anywhere else, but we walk almost everywhere. I wish you all the best of luck!

Not exactly a private excursion. We were staying in Sorrento in late September of 2022 along with some friends. We had planned to take a day trip to Capri. There are several companies with a variety of boat sizes that operate the ferry crossings. There were huge queues/lines at the harbour and folk were being warned that they shouldn't expect to return that day as a squall was getting up and most of the boats would not be operating in the afternoon. If I was on a cruise I would not take the risk unless it was offered by the cruise line with a guarantee of re-joining the ship.

As does ours. I was quoting from the pdf copy. @Cathygh That's a Britannia Club and a Queens Grill booking with the same Main dining room shown in My Cunard.

They always describe it as Main Dining because the restaurant associated with the booked cabin grade is the main dining for that grade. Britannia Club can't pay extra to dine in Princess or Queens Grill. So anyone booked in Princess Grill must dine in the Princess Grill Restaurant unless they choose to go to the buffet, pub or pay extra for a speciality restaurant. Just checked ours, booked via agent, shows restaurant name. But it's not an error.

I'd be inclined to start by phoning some of the numbers at foot of this link to get their advice: http://www.immigration.gov.lk/pages_e.php?id=13

Provided that you are capable of carrying your own luggage off the ship and that you had arranged with immigration in Sri Lanka, I'm not sure how they could stop you. Other folk will be leaving the ship for tours and shore visits, so there must be a gangway.

I knew that was the case for UK, but no idea about all the other nationalities that typically form the hotel and catering staff on cruise lines. That's interesting about your daughter. Was she on one of Colorline's big ships (Magic or Fantasy)? Someday we might get round to trying them to compare with the Silja sisters.

I far preferred gym/sports periods when we had dance tuition for our year's annual dance. I hated sports at school, because you didn't get to choose and it was mainly team sports. Even back then it was best if you got to select a girl that was a good dancer.

The other thing that I've been thinking about on this topic is how gratuities are taxed. Whether Carnival Corp has to declare auto-gratuities as revenue? And whether the staff themselves have to pay income tax on them? I don't know the answers, I expect it varies depending on the tax jurisdiction that the company or staff are subject to. Possibly including them in the headline fare would have tax implications we haven't considered. Giving individuals cash tips could help them avoid tax, although tax evasion is probably not something one should condone.

For most of my life I've been bemused by a very quaint British disease that causes many people to believe that profit is evil. I've just had a look at a few independent analysis sites views on CCL. Yes they are back in profit, but debt is so high that it will likely take eight to ten years to pay down to sensible levels. That of course assumes that they don't run into another headwind like a pandemic or major war. Their last dividend was paid in March 2020 and I can't find any indication that it will resume soon. I might have been tempted to buy some stock for the OBC but we'll only be making one 14 night trip per year at most and gains on non European shares are not treated favourably by the tax authorities in France.

June 2022 there was no sign of them attempting to open on both legs of the TA. I don't think we'd have been tempted to sit out there anyway even when it was sunny. Unlike here in June where any meal Al Fresco is fine other than the rare occasion that it rains.

See if I can remember the points I picked up from recent posts..... I did not forget the 15% on drinks, coffees, hot chocolate and certain teas. If we go to a cafe for tea/coffee or we go to a lounge and we are served at a table we tip accordingly. It might not be 15% although when giving a round figure it could sometimes be more. I would agree with any move to have the gratuities included in the overall fare paid in advance and then it doesn't need to be included in the onboard spend bill. If you want to additionally reward excellent individual service that is totally your choice. What makes comparisons with land based holidays difficult is that most people wouldn't take a land based trip that resembles a cruise or crossing. Living in a seaside resort the only sort of land trip we might take is a city break, we're going to Rome with friends this year. We have a decent Airbnb near Trevi and will make our own breakfast in the apartment. Lunch is likely to be something quick in between sight seeing. Dinner probably somewhere different each night. The service in most places won't compare with Cunard, although I'm confident we'll enjoy the food. But overall we'll tip far less because the service won't warrant it.

Approaching the subject with a balanced view and taking into account different tipping customs in USA, UK and France, I think it's quite realistic for us. The cabin is serviced more frequently than we really need, and the steward/stewardess is usually very helpful in replacing water, biscuits etc, and taking/retrieving stuff from laundry. We don't use buffets or speciality restaurants so have 14 served breakfasts and dinners and 12 lunches in 14 days. There are always two waiters and several others topping up water and rolls etc in passing as we eat. It roughly equates to what we would tip if we stayed in a hotel and ate all those meals in restaurants. It may be more noticeable as a total charge at end of trip. In other scenarios it would be given in small amounts directly to members of staff over the fortnight.

Understand now. I have a button under each column leading to the screen I posted. It seems a bit unfair to force you to use your credits. Think that deserves a complaint!

We won't be Gold until 2026, so it doesn't apply yet. Is it not allowing you to select an option on this screen?:

Things have changed since my days. At 15, I was only interested in teenage activities if they involved young ladies. At 18, I was managing supermarkets. At those ages I preferred adult company to other teens. I took an almost 15 year old boy on a 3 night med tourist cruise in 1992 and he had a ball. His main interest was in members of the entertainments team.

Try searching Google Images for: queen mary 2 atrium view cabin It returns a number of pics on cruisedeckplans.com, Flickr.com and others. There's even supposed to be some on this site but I haven't found them yet. I read a comment about keeping the blind closed as you are looking directly into a cabin on opposite side.

I know you've commented before that you want to use OBC. The likelihood is you will be paying US$24 per day, against US$12.96 per day on this offer. Obviously it's your choice how you use your OBC, but you might get better value using it for something else.