D&N

Unusual cloud formations tonight just after sunset.

Thank you. Probably had an unfair advantage. Every March from 2005 to 2015 we took the ferries Pride of York or Pride of Bruges (originally Norsea and Norsun) from Hull to Zeebrugge on a Friday evening and returned the next night. That was our annual "Wine Run". It was an easy drive to the area NE of Lille where we called at a selection of hypermarkets. We would return with up to 180 litres of wine 30 bottles of brandy and Grand Marnier and a stock of Comté, duck, lamb and French fillet steak. That beach was sometimes covered in snow or sea foam depending what the weather was up to at the time.

My initial thought was it looked like Zeebrugge. Think this is a link to the webcam: https://www.feratel.com/fr/webcams/belgique/zeebruges.html

I'm not sure I quite understand the "winter" part of the question. Unless one plans to spend most of the evenings outdoors I can't see that it's any different from other times of year. QM2 has a fairly high space per passenger ratio and the climate control system doesn't generally struggle. Evening wear shouldn't really be any different no matter the season. Last time my wife wore spray on jeans once or twice during the day. I don't generally wear jeans unless I'm doing some work around the house. Next time for a round trip transatlantic I only plan to take dinner suits, a dark suit and wool trousers and blazer. I'll always wear a tie and jacket from lunch onwards. My wife will leave the jeans/jeggings/leggings at home and only take gowns, dresses, skirts and tops. We will also take gym and swim wear. I can't think of a way that any type of sweater could be regarded as suitable for evening wear on a Cunard ship other than perhaps a very delicate V neck or cardigan over a shirt and tie if someone is so infirm that their health would be at risk from the cold. Although they could equally wear one or more vests. I've never seen a man wearing jeans that wouldn't look out of place at night on QM2. In the south of France they seem to be acceptable with a jacket, collar and tie for daytime business wear. Having said all that; That's how we dress and we don't really care what others do, but dressing down will stand out more than dressing up.

I'm not sure we would use USB sockets much. Our current phones can charge at 30W & 33W respectively. Future replacements are likely to accept 58W or more. Most built in USB sockets offer much less so the charge would be quite slow. What was in deck 12 cabins on QM2 was perfectly adequate for us and I've since bought one adapter with 2 USB outlets, which will let us charge both phones and lower output articles at same time just using one UK socket. We don't take laptops or tablets since we can do everything we might want to do on a ship on the phones. If I want to do stuff like swapping faces between photos or other Photoshop type work I can wait until I get home. And if I really need to see a large version of a photo I view it on the cabin TV screen. The only other thing is my camera that I didn't have last time but it takes about 700 pics between charges and I have a spare battery. It backs up automatically to my phone, which then backs up to one of my cloud facilities. It can charge when the phones aren't plugged in.

This may be a more recent change. In June 2022 for 14 nights on QM2 we were never asked to sign for a drink. We didn't receive any chits. We were also told there was no way of obtaining a list of what we had received. The waiters that we dealt with most frequently either noted or remembered our details and didn't even want to see our cards. The only times we signed, and received chits, were for the 3 bottles of wine that we ordered outside the package.

You could have cats instead!

We don't see many Cadbury's products here, but these are very nice:

I couldn't contain my curiosity. I contacted a big US agency who's mailing list I was on about 20 years ago. I can't name them here but they claim to be very big in cruising. The price obtained for a cruise I know the UK price of and converted from USD to GBP at this evenings commercial exchange rate was 17.5% more than the UK price on September 25th. That takes account of differences in onboard credit and includes port taxes etc. Edit: Sorry I didn't specify the grade just the category and I note they've quoted the grade below the one I'm comparing so the percentage difference may be bigger.

If you follow the link in that article to: https://cruise-arabia.com/2021/05/08/new-dubai-harbour-cruise-terminal/ there is a note that suggests all Carnival ships will call at the new terminal in future. "The new Dubai Harbour Cruise Terminal is part of the new Dubai Harbour waterfront community between Dubai Marina, The Palm Jumeirah and Bluewaters Island. It will be used exclusively by cruise lines belonging to Carnival Corporation, the largest cruise company in the world, which owns nine cruise brands (Costa Cruises, P&O, Princess Cruises, AIDA, Cunard, Seabourn, and Holland America Line are the ones that cruise from Dubai)."

As long as they are high enough up that the dancing can continue underneath. And that they have safety equipment that prevents them hitting the dancers if they fall. 🤣🤣

Our local hypermarket's Christmas/New Year Comté offerings were published recently. We're looking forward to tasting a few of them. We get a chance with the 15 month next week albeit at a slightly higher offer price than what is advertised for the festive season.

What about the entry concerned you? I'm no expert on that site, but as far as I could see they don't seem to be behind in posting accounts. I've never used them and probably won't need their services. Just intrigued as to what you felt might be wrong.

"I don't think those of you in the UK should feel left out." From the figures quoted it certainly doesn't seem that those in North America are being offered a better deal than UK customers. Has anyone actually carried out a costed comparison between US and UK offers? I suspect that when you read of US offers with drinks and speciality dining included, that if you took the UK price and added in the cost of those 'perks' you might come up with a very similar total. I would only consider booking through the UK, but if it did bother me I would do the research.

The new carpets are nice. We didn't have any problem with the previous design. Biggest concern with corridor carpets is that they are in good condition and unlikely to be a trip risk. The starburst pattern carpets in the lift foyers were quite good for photos. I doubt we'd be taking many corridor portraits.

I see one of the contractors doing renovation work on the Spa Whirlpool has posted a video on YouTube.

It also appears on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cunard/videos/1040206767295744 It's an AVI file which can be downloaded with suitable software. Although I'm not sure what copyright issues there might be.

We normally watch Strictly live or on catch up if we've been out. We like to see couples perform dance steps that are actually recognisable to folk that take/have taken dance lessons. That means we rarely agree with judges scores, which seem to overmark showiness with little real content. We have no interest in the suspense of the results show. We still watch it but almost always know in advance who are in the bottom two and who has been eliminated. The Blackpool result should almost be available in real time as being an outside broadcast, the BBC send a satellite feed back to the studio. There are folk with sophisticated receivers who can pick that feed up and report it to a spoiler thread on Digital Spy.

We had booked Geppetto in Nice tonight. I knew the trains weren't running due to points replacement in the next town's station. I knew the buses were on a reduced holiday service for Armistice Day and the weekend night service wouldn't be on to get home, but hey what's Uber for? Despite my 40+ years in the transport industry I forgot that SNCF never put on replacement buses here and the holiday bus service would be full of train passengers. We waited 40 minutes with buses showing "Complet" passing us and decided to give up. We cancelled and rebooked for next Saturday. Luckily there's always a bottle of Cremant in the fridge and home made pizza in the freezer. And the girls were happy to have our company. Coco even purred when her Mum petted her a few minutes ago.

Photo from a bit over a day before their Mum returned from Scotland, they had realised that this was the best heat source in the house. Coco-Canel has been a bit puzzled by this woman who turned up on Friday night and goes about as if she owns the place. She wonders why Ursel is so happy to go to her to get petted. Next week she'll realise that her Mum spends hours and hours on a weekday afternoon sitting reading her Kobo. and that her lap is ideal for sleeping on.

My post didn't suggest there had been changes. Can you quote where I said that and I'll make a correction? Reports on this forum from the cruises affected last season indicated that measures were taken for a diving team to inspect and take any action required. I remember reading that there may have been delays to that being carried out due to unfavourable sea conditions. However even after it was carried out, QE's hull was still considered to be unacceptable. Unless paying to have that carried out can guarantee access then there is no point in doing it. As I suggested in my follow up post, maybe where there is concern for eco systems they would be best to restrict access to ships that only cruise in that area and don't have the opportunity to pick up foreign organisms that could modify or destroy the local eco system.

For part of the evening I was perched on the front half of my seat catching up on this forum. When I got up for something they extended their required area. To encourage the bonding process I opted to kneel on a cushion in front of my computer for about 40 minutes until they woke up and started to disagree about who should lick who and in which direction. Ursel then jumped down and I encouraged Coco-Canel to follow suit and reclaimed my chair.

I like TravelTouristVideos. Mainly because we're featured dancing for about 10 seconds in one of them.

Afraid not. Don't know anything about it. We're happy to drink Cava, Prosecco or French regional sparkling for a pre dinner drink if it is better value. And anything cold and sparkling in a spritz. But if I order Champagne I'd expect it to come from the Champagne Region. I imagine sparkling from other parts of the world would probably meet our pre dinner needs.

I know I'll be in the minority here, but I just think they are a waste of space. We never have any at home as the cats are likely to be too interested in them. I'm happy for them to remain in gardens or public areas. I'd probably place them under the bed to get them out of our way, along with the coffee machine and kettle that we don't use. We go to a lounge if we want tea, coffee or drinks.