sfred

It is a rainy Sunday here in Brisbane, and @Essiesmom freed up time that otherwise was going towards researching @bluemarble's recent Puerto Quetzal photo. So I've gone ahead and added "Language" as a field in the Cunard ports dataset. Not surprisingly, English dominates as the most frequent primary language of our 593 seen ports, at 204 (34.4 percent). The top 10 languages are shown in the below graph: These top 10 languages cover a total of 470 ports, or 79 percent of the current total of 593. There are 51 unique primary languages across all of the seen Cunard ports and cruise-bys. To identify the Language field, I used the following guidelines: Google was my reference source for the official primary language(s) of each country. Where a country spoke multiple languages, I used the official language that Google reported as currently spoken by a majority of the population. Where different parts of a country spoke different official languages, I used the relevant language for that specific port. For example, Quebec ports in Canada are classified as French and other Canadian ports as English. Flemish ports in Belgium are classified as Dutch, others French. Greek ports in Cyprus are Greek, others Turkish. China ports are either Mandarin, Hainanese, or Cantonese. etc. I did not attempt to distinguish between smaller dialect differences. For example, all dialects of Arabic are combined into Arabic, French and French Creole are all French. Spanish and Catalan are Spanish. Australian, Scottish, Geordie, Cornish, and English are all English (🙂). I hope I have not offended anyone in the process! Questions or comments?

Well spotted @Essiesmom!! Very impressive. One of the searches I tried yesterday was for "Central America flying bird" but I guess that wasn't specific enough to bring up any images of the Quetzal. There are several photos on wikimedia commons - here's one of them. There have been a few changes to the other clues in @bluemarble's photo. Looks like the pilot boat got replaced with a newer version, and moved into the water from off the pier. The cargo cranes got replaced to a different shape and colour in a newer container facility. But the silos are still there, as are the cargo warehouses. Good challenge, thanks @bluemarble.

This search has given me the idea to add "Language" as a field in the dataset of our seen port list. A task for our next rainy day in Brisbane, or an upcoming long airplane trip.

That's a good thought @North West Newbie. I thought the logo looked vaguely Mexican / Aztec also. But yesterday I looked at all the Mexico ports on our seen list (there are 10) and couldn't find a match. Of course I might have missed somewhere. I see that @Essiesmom has eliminated Costa Rica. The search continues....

There's a lot of good clues in this photo - the logo, the pilot boat, the silos, and the cargo cranes. But I haven't gotten a match on anything. The logo especially should have come up in a search, with its distinctive shape and colours. I'll keep trying later today, although I may need to wait for an additional clue.

I guess because the birds aren't flying "over" the shoreline, they can be ordinary seagulls. 🙂

Looks like Oslo to me also, concur with @North West Newbie. Perhaps a webcam on the roof of the Oslo Town Hall opposite the Rådhusplassen? Oslo is one of my favourite cities. I went there regularly for work when living in London in the early 90s. QV's refit makes it challenging to distinguish between QV/QE, and the photo resolution has blurred the name on the bow. But I think QV tends to go to to Oslo more frequently, so I'll play the odds and guess the ship is QV?

Ah yes, Pentland Skerries lighthouse does look like a better match than Pladda lighthouse. Pladda also has both high and low lights, but the low light of Pentland matches @sogne's photo much better.

Pladda lighthouse, Isle of Arran, Scotland?

Congratulations both! I didn't think that photo could be solved. @bluemarble, how are you counting this cruise-by? Is it new port number 591, or is it an alternative view of Corfu?

Wow - was I surprised this morning. Doing MyCunard checkin for our upcoming QM2 voyage. MyCunard prepopulated and accepted our passport details, no worries. MyCunard accepted our payment card, no worries. MyCunard accepted our uploaded photographs, no worries. Downloaded and printed our boarding passes, no worries. Downloaded and printed our luggage tags, no worries and no formatting issues. What was I doing so wrong to have this happen??? 😀

Nice photo @sogne, particularly with the colour of the sky reflected in the water. But the single lit habitation on the shoreline isn't enough for me to guess the location.

Thanks @sogne. This is the Helles Memorial in Gallipoli Turkey overlooking the Dardanelles Straight. Anzac day, on 25 April each year, is a very important day here in Australia, honoring the members of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps from WW1, and all service men and women. Mrs sfred and I go to the dawn service each year if we're in Australia on the day. What is the history of your photo? Was it taken on a Cunard voyage?

QG (and PG) coffee is definitely good by my taste, but as @exlondonerindicated there are many different preferences. Your waiters will definitely try their best to accommodate different requests, although the number of different combinations I sometimes hear at US Starbucks and similar venues will likely overwhelm them. They do a very good job with my coffee favourite, double espresso. Or what we call here in Australia a double short black.

Well spotted and good thinking, @bluemarble. I wasn't getting close with my research. I tried several google searches for "electricity pylon near ocean" and variations thereof. The closest match that came up for the pylon shape in @sogne's photo was in China, but I knew that was way off given the remainder of the photo clues. Now that you've identified it, I do recall seeing this location during our QV trip from Civitavecchia to Venice in 2016.

My numbers are much more modest. 42 total countries, 39 of which are on our seen list (the difference being Austria, Switzerland, and Czech Republic where Cunard is unlikely to visit). However, only 20 of the 39 have been by Cunard ship. That number will become 21 next month with the addition of Norway to the Cunard total, but I clearly have a long way to go -- time, funds, and border closure regulations permitting!

Apologies, there was an error in my formula that calculated the number of unique seen countries. The correct number is more impressive - 133 countries. Considering that there are only approximately 195 countries in total in the world, that means that we've "seen" approximately 68 percent of the world's countries here in this topic. Cunard's current and former ships, and her passengers here on Cruise Critic, certainly are well-traveled.

Another (potentially) interesting statistic is that the Cunard seen ports and cruise-bys list consists of 75 unique countries. The top 10 countries represent only 50.7% of the 588 total ports. Cunard certainly gets around in the world.

Concur with your port count @bluemarble. With the addition of Isle of Islay the UK is now at the milestone of 50 Cunard ports and cruise-bys, the second highest of any country and narrowly behind the US at 55 (21 of which are in Alaska).

Photo number two looks like Cape Wrath Scotland?

Very cute. Does the reindeer have a name (either Cunard named or @photosg named)? We'll look for one on our QM2 Norway voyage next month.

I have to admit I had a bit of an unfair advantage too. I've not been to Valencia in person, but I spent a good amount of time there in August on google maps, researching @bluemarble's contributed webcam image of the Valencia promenade at Patacona Beach. I recognised the marina and the pier configuration.

Thanks @Host Hattie and @carlmm. This is Valencia Spain at the Muelle Cruceros pier, adjacent to the Trans Base Soler container terminal. Looks like it was a very pleasant sunny day.

Oops - you are correct, @Colin_Cameron. The port (Port Chalmers) is listed in the "seen" list under the nearby city of Dunedin, New Zealand. I must have neglected to remove it from my unseen list. Sorry all, my mistake. I was there on a driving trip of the South Island many years ago.

Looking through the "unseen" ports list, I've realised that there is one remaining port that I've been to before, although by car and not by ship. Don't know how I missed this one. Lacking a photo of my own, here is a public domain photo. I managed to find a photo that includes cargo cranes! 🙂 Although this public photo dates from 2011, the 2019 google street view confirms that the various visible landmarks are still the same.