D&N

On an early June 2022 crossing, the Pavilion Pool was quite cold. We were happy to swim round in circles in it but started to shiver if we stood still for more than a few minutes. Someone else posted that it had been a bit warmer recently.

This isn't my photo. One of our town councillors posted it on the local Facebook site. It's yesterday morning's sunrise on the Med coast between Nice and Antibes.

I took 3 dinner suits and 3 dark suits for 14 nights, and my wife took 14 evening and 12 lunch outfits plus everything else we needed all within 58kg/128lbs. We need to fly Nice-Heathrow so we have airline baggage restrictions. As a minimum I would take a dinner suit and a dark suit. If one got damaged I'd have an acceptable backup. I'd wear the tux both gala nights and have the suit jacket for other nights in case I was anywhere cold or draughty.

If you have the time I would recommend that you take some basic lessons beforehand. I searched "ballroom dance class north carolina" and got lots of results. Of course they might not be anywhere near you. You get group classes and private lessons. You usually pick things up slower in a group but you do get a feel for moving round a floor (anti-clockwise) with others around you. With private lessons you do learn quicker with the individual attention but there may be a limit to what you can take in at one go and the higher price might not be justified. Initially you just want to learn some basic steps to allow you to move round the floor. You're best to ignore everyone else. Good dancers will spot you and dance round you. You should not be expected to get out of their way. Other than in sequence dancing where everyone should be doing the same thing copying others is not a good idea, they might be doing it wrong!

At time of typing the onboard credit would make the Cunard fare $12.37 cheaper! That's before you consider that you can choose a specific cabin away from noise sources or one without connecting doors, and choose guaranteed dining times etc. Then possible upgrades if you think you might like that. But be careful, check what the grades above might be, just in case the next grade up might take you to a part of the ship you wouldn't like. I can't see why you would consider the saver fare. We took the drinks package when it was $69/day/person. We certainly saved money at 6 to 8 alcoholic drinks per day plus coffees, teas, bottled water etc. You get a 20% discount on drinks over the $13 limit and bottles of wine. Problem for us was lack of choice in wines, and ended up buying 3 bottles over 2 weeks as the wines by glass were unsuitable for some of our meals. For that reason, rather than value for money, we won't take the package again.

Yes that's it. I'm guessing you get off at Red Hook. We were told 7am or 7.15am for Southampton. By time we called pursers desk we were given 7.15am. We saw a queue for 7am on way back from breakfast. When we got back down we had a clear walk off. Not sure how long you have after that but I get the impression they prefer those self-disembarking to be off before the main disembarkation starts.

I might walk round them clockwise but it's best going the other way with a car! 🚓 Funnily enough we've only seen trotting going clockwise at our local course (2nd clip), but I see from the 1st clip that jump races go anti-clockwise.

@rrunner @Pear Carr I doubt that blog will improve. It's not really there as a blog. It's main intention is to get folk to pre-order her forthcoming book. I wouldn't have considered doing so anyway and the blog certainly isn't selling it to me.

As a dancer I would go anti-clockwise. Direction on an athletics track, skating rink etc. would be anti-clockwise.

Sunrise this morning. It rises much further west at this time of year. I can't catch it emerging from the sea, only over a neighbouring property. Got a full frame camera last week and I'm learning how to use it. Hopefully it will be as much point and shoot as possible but it has just about every possible setting on it! I'll probably still take most pics with my phone, but I was quite disappointed with the results I got from what I thought was quite a good superzoom camera last year and eventually realised that the sensor size was too small to get decent detail.

Not sure I understand what you are asking. Our agent will only collect a deposit from us when she has made the confirmed booking on the day that Cunard releases it for sale. I'm not sure if our World Club status now entitles us to book on that first day rather than wait for day 2.

Some people like to have the information available as soon as possible to make decisions well before the actual release date. I've already sent my TA full details of what we want to book for travel in late May or early June 2025 so that she fully understands our requirements. She has been taking quite a few cruises herself recently so I'm not taking any chances in case she has less time to familiarise herself with the details. I don't expect her to be able to make the reservation before late September, and if it follows the same pattern as the previous year it might be mid December. The only thing I've still to inform her of is the actual cruise number.

I think If you are to make the most of your crossing you need to think creatively. You could get away with a dark suit with tie. The tie won't take up much space in Canada or leave it behind on ship. You can probably wear dark suit trousers with an open neck shirt on evenings in Canada and not feel too overdressed, and probably even the jacket if evenings are cold. Alternatively, and assuming you don't plan to return by QM2, you could take a section of wardrobe just for the crossing and post the stuff you wouldn't wear in Canada home to a friend or relative. One of the many parcel brokers was quoting about £75 for 1 Parcel, 5 kg, 40 x 30 x 20 cm. In that case you'd want the formal wear to be as light as possible, polyester rather than wool etc. Or depending on what you pay for the garments, again simply abandon them. You can just do the minimum to get by, but to really appreciate the ambiance of the ship you might regret not pulling out all the stops.

Going by your profile name; If you have any experience of the Lerwick-Aberdeen ferry you should not even be aware that Queen Mary 2 has left the berth. I only made that trip once in January 1958 in this: I have no memory of the sailing but was assured it was the worst my mother had ever encountered!

We were very pleased with this dress from JJ's House. It was 2 sizes too big having been bought before the decision to diet was taken. We would buy a similar replacement in a smaller size but will try to get it altered locally to fit before we do that. If you dance you might want to specify a shorter length. This was fine with the 4" heels in the picture but needed pegged up with 2½” dance shoes. This time the models are Arthur and Cindy, who were some of our previous owners.

@alibabacruisers I should also have said that even if the dress is cheaper on Ever-Pretty, the SHEIN site will give you a better view of sizing. Lets you compare the model's sizes against the garment size they are wearing. Plus you may find customer feedback that may show what real people look like wearing the item and their opinions of whether it is true to size. You can then order from the cheapest. When ordering from thousands of miles away it's best to have as much information as possible even if the supplier has good return policies.

In June 2022 on a Trans Atlantic, the Pavilion Pool on deck 12 was quite cold. We swam round in circles for a while and it was bearable for that. If we stopped and stood to the side we were shivering within a few minutes. The two jacuzzi pools beside it were nice and warm.

Has anyone established if there is a noticeable difference between Essential and Premium? We uploaded a few compressed photos with messages to various social media accounts each day and backed up all our photos and a couple of videos to cloud storage. I also used it to check online banking and have a quick look at news sites, and researched a few of the wines on specialist sites. We took Premium for the duration but wasn't sure we really needed it.

For the 14 nights we were on QM2 there were very few folk dancing in G32. 90% of the time we had the floor to ourselves. We mainly danced ballroom & latin in G32. With a bit of disco when the music wasn't suited to any particular dance. On Gala Nights in the Queens Room when the band was playing the floor was generally full. On other nights that ballroom/latin music was provided the floor was fairly well used, other than 2 dances where there was only one couple on the floor 😂. Once might have been down to a certain black sequined mini dress, I've no explanation for the other. But as has previously been stated; those that can't dance are often happy to watch those who can, we spoke to some that were doing just that. It's what spurred us to take lessons 30 years ago. We sat through a few latin numbers watching a couple who were on another level to us. There were a couple of nights where party bands or rock/swing music was played. We were able to fit ballroom/latin dances to much of that although there is a problem where untrained dancers position themselves so that ballroom dancers can't pass them. Youngsters should really be trained to dance disco, classes are available. We often mix; samba, cha cha & jive steps into disco. We don't really go in for "jiggling".

Many of their dresses are on SHEIN sites. Often cheaper and once you create an account you should find discount vouchers. We rarely buy without at least 20% off.

We're just back from a lovely meal at our local Chinese, 7 mins walk from our home. It was about 5C outside but felt more like -5C! Shivered all the way home to join Carmel and her heater. As usual meal was amazing value, 3 really tasty courses, 2 bottles of a very good house Rosé and a litre of San Pellegrino for 99€.

Just to complete the trio, and an excuse for a cat picture. The EverPretty dress arrived yesterday. It's a perfect length for my wife's dancing heels. It's an opaque fabric and the skirt section is unlined. We'll need to test it out dancing around the living room to check whether any static is generated and if it needs a lining. We brought Tina out to model it. We lost her to a feline coronavirus in March 2014, which prompted the adoption of Carmel and her sister. Her colouring suits blue.

An update for anyone interested in Carmel ...... She's doing very well. Has had quite a good appetite for several months and got back to a normal weight around Christmas. We're now going to gradually try weaning her off the mind bending gel that gets rubbed in her ears. Hopefully her brain will remain trained to be hungry and eat, but we'll monitor her weight as we do so to make sure. We're a bit scared that continuing at current dosage might make her obese, although we can of course refuse to give her food if eating too much. This was her 12 days ago.

The red dress turned up today and the purple last Saturday. The overlay on the red dress is 3 layers of soft net without a hem. We will carefully trim them to the level of the under lay (which is hemmed) and that will make it safe to dance in. My wife finds it difficult to make "heel turns" in heels of over 3". The purple will be a candidate for a smart night on our next QM2 crossing, but will probably get used going to restaurants here. We got our cyber girls to model them for us....

We found these to be very useful: They hold my napkin to my tie/shirt as a bib if I'm eating a sauce dish while wearing a light Tux or shirt. We use them with our bungee cord washing line on the balcony, and when we realised my wife's gown was too long for her dance heels they held the hem up several inches. They travelled around with us every evening.