OffTheRails

A friend took his first (and last) coach transfer from St. Pancras to Southampton on 13th July. The coach was an hour and a half late arriving at St. Pancras to embark the passengers. This may have been caused by demonstrations due to the visit of the U.S. president. Although few demonstrations were in the vicinity of St. Pancras, there was considerable re-routing of traffic from central London.

 

 

 

There was a further delay of an hour and a half getting to Southampton, due partly to heavy traffic and the driver's extended smoke break en route. Arrival at the Ocean Terminal was about 4:00 p.m. At the time when all passengers should have been on board there was a huge crowd checking in, so there must have been other delays than this one coach. When our friend got on board the muster drill was taking place.

I was on an Intercruise transfer from Glasgow on the 13th which also arrived late, just before 4pm. And this was having left Glasgow early, at about 3.30am, before our scheduled time of 4am! There were major traffic problems throughout England, not sure if they were related to the visit or not as on our return journey on 10 August, we had another 12 hour trip, and that was with the drivers minimising our breaks as much as possible. For the price, I would use them again to get to the ship, as we had the reassurance on the way down that the ship would wait for us, within reason, but for coming home I'd be tempted to look into a train from Southampton to London and then train to Glasgow.

First of all, thank you to all the posters who've shared their insights and experiences on here, either directly when I asked questions, or in any of the multitudes of threads I've been dipping in and out of. I've just come back from my first ever trip on a ship and some of the info on here, as well as being exciting in the planning stage, made a definite difference!

And although one of the things I learned was that there's really no way to accurately predict the weather in any given timeframe (possibility of glass smooth sailings in winter, storms in summer, etc) I wondered if I could call on your collected experience again.

I absolutely loved my QM2 crossings (Southampton to NYC 13 - 20 July & back again 3 - 10 August) and as a non-flyer, I feel like a lot of different travel experiences are now re-opening to me. I did have a few times, however, when I noticed the motion of the boat more than I'd have liked to, although looking back on it now I'm sure I was overreacting - but who can help that?!

For the most part, the ship information channel on the TV showed that seas were slight. During the outbound voyage, we had a day or so when seas were moderate, with winds at force 7, which I have to confess I did not enjoy! Coming back seas seemed mostly to be slight, although we did have one rocky night (the purser told me seas were expected to get "rough with high winds" overnight), and often I seemed to notice more movement when the seas may have been slight but the winds were higher. Generally we were about force 4 or 5, although sometimes lower.

Based largely on advice on here, I had an inside cabin, midships, low deck, to try to minimise any movement. Coming home, we were almost exactly midships on deck 5 and beds were aligned toes to the front of the boat, heads to the back, which I felt better in than going out with cabin just behind stairway C and beds aligned left to right on deck 6. I almost never felt nauseous, although sometimes when I was very aware of movement I felt it creep up on me, mostly I think on account of the overactive nerves! I had seabands on at all times and gave in and took 2 Sturgeron on the way home when we had the worst night, having overheard staff tell another passenger it was "going to get worse".

There was also, apparently, some kind of rogue wave which slapped into the window of the Golden Lion just as I go up to leave, which the rest of my party made sure not to tell me about till much later, as I was the only one who didn't see it!

We were travelling with others who, on the way out, noted that there was more movement on the ship than they had experienced previously, but that it was nothing to worry about, so I just thought I'd ask (in an exceptionally long winded fashion as it turns out!) if anyone else was on either of those crossings and how they found it in comparison to usual, and if from your general experience, crossings tend to be around those measurements and feelings of movement, worse, better?

I've had labyrinthitis previously so it might just be that I'm sensitive to movement and need to update my perception of how risky that is to be less anxious about it when it does happen, but interested to hear your thoughts.

Thanks in advance for any advice. I might try to get round to posting a first timer review if anyone's interested, and if anyone is thinking of booking QM2 and has any questions, fire away!

thanks to you both - I'll head off to your blog now!

Hi all,

I'm getting uber excited about my first TA on QM2 in just over a fortnight! It's actually my first time on anything bigger/fancier than the Hull-Rotterdam ferry, so I've gleaned a lot of useful info as a newbie on this board.

I was hoping some of you kind souls might be able to help me out with some pretty specific questions please:

1) is there a face cloth/flannel included in the towel provision in the staterooms? I could bring from home but needing clean and dry ones each night would mean either packing lots of them or spending a lot more time washing and drying than I'd ideally like to! I'm in a standard class cabin if that makes a difference

2) we're due to board at 2.30pm, what will be our options for food when we board? We'll have boarded the shuttlebus in Glasgow at 3.45am that morning so I fully expect to be ravenous!

3) is there a housekeeping team looking after the cabin in addition to the steward? I want to leave thank you cards/tip/Scottish sweeties for anyone doing the room and don't want to miss them out if so

Any advice gratefully received - thanks and happy travels to all!

Sailing in to NY, what a fantastic way to start your birthday!

I'll also be celebrating a birthday on board this year, and it's a formal night so I'm looking forward to getting my glad rags on.

We really are lucky pups :)

I usually wear a shorter dress (20s style with fringe) for the roaring twenties ball. So do many others. In my experience this is one of the better followed themes and I have seen some lovely 20s style dresses, nearly all of which have been knee length.

great, thanks!

For Roaring 20s, will we still be expected to wear long dresses? Or will a 20s style shorter (knee length) dress be considered ok?

Thanks :)

Thanks for your advice, will do that!

Most hotels are generally happy to keep your luggage for a few hours on the day you check out, which gives you another suitcase free day in the city!

Hi there,

I wondered if anyone could share any experience of the NYC-DC Amtrak (non Acela) trains, specifically luggage capacity?

After arriving on the QM2 in Red Hook, I'll be transferring (planning to just grab a taxi at the terminal) to Penn Station for the train to DC. I'm booked on a 133 Northeast Regional, and something similar (another regional non-Acela) on the return leg. I notice they have no luggage car, could anyone tell me please if they have luggage racks at the end of the carriage, similar to UK long distance trains? I'm looking at the photos of the overhead racks, and I'm thinking about the luggage I'll have to have with me to be away for a month, and... :o

Thanks for any insight!

Are there any flight options from Ciampino?

I've used the rail system in Italy a lot & found it to be great, so that could be an option if you wanted to look at other cities & airports, but I know that doesn't appeal to everyone.

If none of these work out, hopefully your time allows for spending a night in Rome, there are worse places to be than the Eternal City!

Hope you get something sorted out.

Glad I stumbled onto this thread, as another first timer I'll be taking a note of all these great photo spots!

Getting on board in 86 days... :D

Without wanting to stir up any dress code dramas, can I ask how this works with changing etc? I have taken the dress code to mean gym wear only really to be worn in the gym (similar to swimwear only acceptable at pools), so do people change there before & after, or is it ok to be kitted out on the way to & from your cabin? And are the gym showers usable, or best to go straight back to your own in the cabin?

Not quite sure how I'll fit it in before breakfast, but looking at the food & drink offers I feel I'll need to make at least some sort of effort at exercise or I'll need a crane to get me off!

Thanks everyone, will be printing multiples & getting my glue on!

No flights to consider thankfully, as I gave up flying a few years ago - hence the ship to NYC! Hopefully re-opens some parts of the world I didn't think I'd get to :)

Mystery solved, thank you!

Hi all,

having lurked & read posts on the forum for a while, I'm finally taking the plunge and adding a post of my own!

I've found out so much handy info from these boards, so thank you all for that, but I still have one potentially silly question! Having logged in to the Voyage Personaliser, I see that closer to the date of my sailing, I'll be able to download & print luggage labels as well as my tickets. My question is: how do I attach these to the case?! I take it they're just to be printed on normal A4 paper, so should I be buying some kind of luggage tag holder to attach to the cases? Am I missing something confoundingly obvious? How do you experienced cruising types use them?! I'll be on the coach transfer from Scotland so won't see the cases from the bus station till the stateroom, so I'm keen the labels don't fall off!

If it helps, my voyages are Southampton - NYC and NYC - Southampton on QM2 this summer.

Thanks!