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From memory, in 2019 the shuttle drop off place in the city was the Historical Society/Museum/Public library.

This is Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Looks like it was a nice day.

No worries. Wales in back in the Roman port count, at least for now. Perhaps a deciding factor would be whether anyone ever wrote "Romani ite domum" on any Welsh walls? 🙂 Unfortunately, while I can make manual adjustments, the limitations of the model formulas require that for the UK, all of the modern borders of England, Scotland, Wales, or Norhern Ireland be included or excluded in a port count calculation.

🙂 I was just about to post that same reference! After finding that paragraph in the Shipping Wonders of the World site, I continued trying to find additional evidence of the Scythia or Ausonia in Cardiff. I didn't find anything on Ausonia, but for Scythia I found a genealogy page that mentions a passenger traveling to Cardiff on the Scythia: (http://www.chrisgrant.eu/genealogy/evans/evans/richard.html) "1928. Richard F Evans , 27, travelled from N Y to Cardiff , 30/7/1928, on the Scythia, Cunard"

Wikipedia's wording of the Roman presence in Wales as a military occupation, and the pages for the history of specific Welsh locations typically talk about a Roman "fort" or military "watchtower". A military presence is quite different to the governmental, economic, religious, and lifestyle integration that you point out was the case in other places. I've not read anything about Wales having Roman villas, baths, amphitheatres, basilicas, temples, etc., This does suggest that it might be a stretch to say that Wales was a part of the Roman Empire. I'm happy to take Wales out of my model formula, which reduces the Roman Empire port total to 186.

We did the Tokyo to Vancouver via Alaska voyage on QE in 2019, and had a wonderful time. It was a very memorable trip. Several other regulars here in the Cunard forum on Cruise Critic also did Alaska voyages that year. Below are my additions to @naturelovergirl's reply.. Others may have additional thoughts. 1) Are the pools heated? Yes 2)Can you bring on multiple bottles of wine, and soda, and god-forbid vodka? Yes. Cunard is very relaxed, and you can bring aboard whatever you want. Although there is an official policy restricting the amounts of grog to bring onboard, it is only enforced if they think someone is going to abuse the situation. Your cabin will have glasses and your steward can bring ice. Anything consumed in a restaurant has a corkage charge. 4) Food recommendations (aside from afternoon tea which looks amazing). Afternoon tea is a great occasion on Cunard. Definitely recommended to do it at least once. A tip for QE and QV: Prior to afternoon tea there is often another event happening in the Queens Room, usually a music concert. If you go to this event, you can then just stay at your table for tea. 5)What can you do with the Cunard app ? Is it anything like HAL which gives you access to multiple newspapers and magazines or Princess that has many many cool features, when they work . Not much at all, unfortunately, and it isn't even really an app. It is just an intranet site on the WiFi. One useful thing on the site is to check the charges on your onboard account, but you can do that at the purser's desk or the Grills concierge. You can also book onboard activities, but it is usually easier to just stop by in person. 6)Is there a way to book flights on-line or must you call Cunard . Not sure. We've always booked flights separately. 7)How's the steak restaurant ? Worth it ? The food in the main dining room is very good, and even more so in Grills. That said, Verandah is worth doing once. We often go on a formal night and make it a bit of an occasion. They serve lunch in Verandah too, but it can be too much food for midday. And most importantly 9)Any tips or advice to impart on food, entertainment, cabin info or anything else. Cunard usually does very well in providing excellent insight lectures. We had a great historian, a nature photographer, and an Alaska wildlife specialist, aboard in 2019. We've yet to be even the slightest bit bored on a Cunard trip. Our challenge is to decide what to do among so many choices, and to also find the time to just sit quietly in a deck chair and read or enjoy the scenery. Best wishes for a great voyage!

I found this for sale on ebay, a 1930 photo of the Mauritania at Cardiff. https://www.ebay.com/itm/174574414432

Ah I see that @ExArkie included a link to photos in his Dec 2020 post. @bluemarble, should we add Fishguard to the seen list?

I don't have Fishguard on either my seen or unseen lists. I might have missed including it? Was there a photo that @ExArkie was referring to? Yes a Cardiff photo would be great, particularly if it includes a Cunard ships.

The three "seen" Welsh ports in our game are Holyhead, Llandudno, and Milford Haven. We don't have Cardiff on either the seen or unseen lists. I guess Cunard has not been there?

Me too! 🙂

Thanks @exlondoner and @NE John for your questions and suggestions. For the UK, I included England, Wales, Isle of Man, Guernsey, and Gibraltar as being part of the former Roman Empire, and excluded Scotland and Northern Ireland. This was the easiest way to define the Microsoft PowerBI formula in my dataset, given the fields I had available to utilise. My (limited) knowledge of Welsh history, supplemented by Wikipedia, is that the Romans occupied a large portion of Wales. Wikipedia says that :"The Roman Empire held a military occupation in most of Wales, except for the southern coastal region of South Wales, east of the Gower Peninsula, and some southern sites such as Carmarthen, which was the civitas capital of the Demetae tribe." The Wikipedia entry for Holyhead says that "The town centre is built around St. Cybi's Church, which is built inside one of Europe's few three-walled Roman forts (the fourth boundary being the sea, which used to come up to the fort). The Romans also built a watchtower on the top of Holyhead Mountain inside Mynydd y Twr, a prehistoric hillfort." For Llandudno, I see a museum entry describing a nearby Roman fort Milford Haven is unclear, as it was only founded in 1793. So on balance, I (perhaps incorrectly?) included Wales. Happy to revisit that if needed? For the Middle East and Black Sea regions, I included Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Ukraine, Romania, and Bulgaria. The maps I found of the greatest extents of the Roman empire included these areas. Overall, there's probably some plus/minus inaccuracy in the calculation of the 189 Roman ports, depending on whether the Romans covered the entirety of modern country boundaries. Given the limitations of my model's formula, we'd have to make some manual adjustments for a more granular calculation.

What have the Romans ever done for us??? Well, in addition to the aqueduct, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, public baths, safety, order and peace... 🙂 ... we also know that numerous Cunard ships were named after provinces of the Roman Empire. Which got me to wondering how many of the seen Cunard ports in our game are in places that were formerly Roman? Turns out that of the 609 seen ports and cruise-bys so far, 189 or 31 percent, were in the former Roman Empire. Not too shabby. This compares to 226 or 37 percent that were in the former British Empire.

Yes, I understand. I was saying that you usually cannot even go to the viewing area during arrivals and departures, much less being in the bridge itself. As you say, a unique opportunity.

Wow - I'm very jealous! I think even QM2's bridge viewing window is closed during arrivals and departures. What a great opportunity.

It looks like you're at the level of deck 12, so that would make the photo from the starboard bridge wing. If correct, what a great place to be for departure! How were you able to be there?

Looks like QE is getting new launderette machines during the Singapore drydock. https://southerncontracts.co.uk/contract-for-southern-contracts-onboard-cunards-queen-elizabeth/

...and QM2 is departing from the Brooklyn terminal. You can make out the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges in the background at the left of the photo.

Congratulations @bluemarble. I never would have guessed. Even knowing the port, I can't find that specific building on google maps. Hopefully we won't need QM2/QV/QE to serve as troop ships!

Thanks @NE John for the contribution!! Unfortunately I'm 0 for 2 in port identification this Sunday morning. I tried many different searches for stone buildings with red brick arches, and also tried to identify the type of tree to see if that narrowed down the geography. I've looked at nearly as many arch shapes as I've seen cargo cranes, but have been unsuccessful.

@Host Hattie, not sure if you want to merge these two threads?

There was another thread about that in January: https://boards.cruisecritic.com.au/topic/2902110-queen-elizabeth-refit-2023/ Rumours at the time were: From 18 March to 2 April. Hull clean, inspection and repaint. Maintenance of engineering systems. Carpet cleaning and replacement of worn out bedding. Current AIS shows her in Sembawang dry dock, on the SIngapore side of the Malaysia border. .

This one is devious. Following your clues, I tried reversing the words and searching for "webcam east beach". Then, reversing the direction I tried "webcam west beach". However, I couldn't find any certain matches. The closest images that are vaguely similar are of Adelaide West Beach. Both QE and QM2 were at this port recently, and QE visits frequently, so I'll use my guess for the day and try Adelaide SA Australia?

Oh wait, wasn't there something about that being QM2's last call to Trondheim for several years? Or maybe it was first call to Trondheim for several years?

I think @bluemarble is correct that the photo is Trondheim. But I don't recall anything special about the port call from the captain. (Unless you count that Trondheim ended up being our final port in Norway, with Alesund and Stavanger being replaced with Zeebrugge due to weather.)