sfred

FWIW, the Australia T&Cs (as of 6 June 2022) are similar to the US. (Bolding added by me). 12. Hotel and Dining Charges (Gratuities) During the cruise, guests will experience excellent service from members of Our crew in a variety of locations. In addition, many more crew behind the scenes support those who serve guests directly. For Our guest’s convenience, a Hotel and Dining charge will be automatically added to their shipboard account on a daily basis. Grill categories will be charged US$13.50 per guest per day and Britannia categories US$11.50 per guest per day. These amounts are subject to change and guests may choose to alter or remove these amounts at their discretion. A 15% charge is automatically added to a guest’s onboard account for Bar, Wine & Salon/Spa services for each purchase.

That's unfortunate. As you say, QM2 usually departs towards the Angus Macdonald bridge, does a turn, and then back along the Halifax waterfront. We've done this twice on QM2, and both times we've had a water salute from a harbour fireboat and QM2 gave the city a long horn blast. It makes for a very enjoyable sailaway. Two photos attached below from 11 July 2015. Best wishes to @rafinmd and others aboard for the remainder of your voyage.

Nice webcam photo, thanks @bluemarble. For a moment, I had hopes that Skjolden might be an unseen "where in the world" port, but it is in fact on the seen list, contributed by @Colin_Cameronand identified by yourself in July 2021. Looks like a beautiful location in Norway.

Best wishes for the 4th of July from us down here on the opposite and underneath side of the planet! (Wishing we were aboard QM2 for the 4th voyage.)

😃 I went for the internet!

I second what @neeuqdraziland @BklynBoy8have said. If not too far a walk for the OP, the waterfront is a great stroll. Here is a view of the area from QM2 Deck 11 on our 11 July 2015 sail away. The cruise pier is at the left, just prior to the cargo cranes.

Hi @Port Power. As you've found, the Australia site does not yet have the functionality for an online Cunard account. There are a few incorrect links scattered on various Australia pages which take you to the UK Login/Register page. One link is somewhere in the Manage my Booking process. Another link used to be on the World Club benefits page, but I think that one is gone now. However you might get to the UK login page, once there there's nothing that Aussies can do because the page does not recognise Australia World Club numbers, which are all numbers (no letters). It also used to want a UK format post code. Perhaps one day this functionality will be added to the Australia (and US) sites. *sigh*

The below Halifax tourist map might give you some ideas for places nearby to the cruise pier, as well as a sense of distances required. Mrs sfred and I have been to Halifax twice with Cunard, and had a very nice day each time. There's a Canadian chain of coffee shops called Tim Hortons that has free wifi if you're needing internet access.

Hello @VeesterG. This information assumes you are based in Australia and booked through the Cunard Australia website under Australia T&Cs. If you are from elsewhere, or booked through a travel agent, your conditions may be different. Standard final payment for Australia is indeed 90 days. But different fares and Cunard promotions may have different conditions. Also a while back Cunard was extending the final payment date to be closer to sailing date to ease traveler concerns about cancellation. Your final payment date is usually shown on page 2 of your booking confirmation email, in the section called "Payment details", which is between "Pricing details" and "Cancellation schedule". Usually, the wording is "Final payment of $xxx.xx is due by {date}". If these words are not shown, give the Cunard Australia call centre a bell on 13 24 41 and they can help. Final payments are typically done in one of three ways: During the booking process when you paid your deposit, you had a tick box option for Cunard to automatically charge the credit card you used for your deposit to pay the final amount. If you chose this option, you don't have to do anything on the final payment date. The Australia call centre will take your final payment over the phone on 13 24 41. You can use bank transfer to send final payment from your Australia bank account. Carnival's BSB and account number used to be on the Cunard Australia web site, but looking today I can't find them in the FAQ where they used to be, so perhaps this has changed. The call centre should be able to tell you the current BSB/account numbers. You specify your name and booking reference in the comments field on the transfer, and it used to go through smoothy. The advantage of this method is that you avoid Cunard's credit card surcharge, which in Australia is 1.1% for Visa and MasterCard, and 2.75% for American Express. It is not possible in Australia to pay through MyCunard Manage my Booking. Hope this helps, and best wishes for your voyage.

I kept three older QE deck plans in my computer, from 2017 2019 and 2020. None of them shows the Yen symbol in the "key to symbols" list, and none of the cabins has that symbol. As @bluemarble points out, the current 2022 QE plan does have the Yen symbol in the key list, but not by any cabin. The current QV 2022 plan has the Yen symbol in the key list, and also on cabins 7.150 and 7.171, the Aquitania and Berengaria suites aft on deck 7. On QE, these two cabins are 7.150 and 7.177, the Rostron and Bisset suites. I have old QV plans from 2015, 2019, and 2021. 2015 QV does not have the Yen symbol, and in 2015 (pre-QV refit) these aft deck 7 suites were 7.142 and 7.159, and have a + symbol indicating 3rd berth is a single sofabed. 2019 and 2021 are like 2022, with the Yen symbol. So perhaps during the QV refit when the aft cabins were added, Cunard added the 4th berth and the Yen symbol to the deck 7 aft suites. One possible explanation for why the current 2022 QE plans have the Yen symbol in the key list is that a Cunard deck plan PDF creator incorrectly cut and pasted the QV key list across to the QE plans, and forgot to delete the Yen symbol from the QE list. Another possible explanation is that these aft deck 7 QE suites should have a Yen symbil instead of a plus.

Welcome home QV. You look as good as when we last disembarked, in San Antonio Chile in February 2020. Thanks @Solent Richardfor the photos.

Thanks for your review @mcloaked. Very useful. I recently booked QM2 to Norway for the Northern Lights voyage later this year in November. Your review and photo further increases our enthusiasm. Your comment about wifi stability is similar to our experience on QE in Alaska. Transpacific from Japan the wifi was fine, but it was in&out in Alaska whenever the terrain blocked the sightline to the satellite.

Interesting, thanks @bluemarble. Looks like there is some secret perfect combination of keystrokes that open the magic doors of MyCunard. Unfortunately, as you point out, there isn't a way to re-enter the Emergency contact fields from the Insurance section. When attempted as the first step, the Emergency Contact section was quite happy with my "QLD" postal code in the state field (it didn't like "Queensland" and reported that as an error straight away). But then when I try to enter the Insurance information as a second step, the infinite spin and Invalid state error code appears. Worst of all, reloading the page to get around the infinte spin deletes everything, both Insurance and Emergency Contact, and you have to start all over again. In the end, I decided (hopefully correctly) that if I had to choose between the two sections, the Insurance information was more important than Emergency Contact. While the Australia T&Cs (like the US) don't mandate insurance, I would never do the voyage without it.

I was trying the same thing last night, for a QM2 voyage Southampton to Norway in November. (Let me start by saying we're very excited to be back on Cunard and QM2 again! It has been too long. While we did QV in South America just prior to covid, we haven't been on QM2 since 2018.) From my experience last night, on both Firefox and Edge on Windows 10... MyCunard accepted my Insurance information, with a brief spin of the Loading wheel. When I then tried to enter Emergency Contact information, I got the same infinite spin. In very faint grayscale type under the spinning wheel was a red error message for "Invalid phone format". Reloading the page deleted the Insurance information previously entered. I tried the sequence again with the different range of phone formats mentioned here in this thread, but each time got the infinite spin. I then tried to enter Emergency Contact info without first entering the Insurance. This was successful. The phone format was an Australia mobile, starting with 04 and then all numbers, without country code +61 or 61. But then if I tried to enter the Insurance info, the infinite spin returned, with a faint red "Invalid State format" error message, which is odd because there is no field in Insurance requesting State, only in the Emergency Contact section, and the site previously accepted the Emergency Contact state just before. A reload of the page to exit the Insurance infinite spin erased the Emergency contact info. At that point I gave up. It seems that MyCunard will take Insurance, or Emergency Contact, whichever you try entering first, but not both. Not sure if this helps to crack the code. (We're still excited to be back.)

Impressive. Thanks @bluemarble. I presume the shipyard remembered to close all the doors below the waterline at the open end. 🙂

And presumably, should Queen Anne encounter any trouble while on her maiden voyage, Arthur the 2022 Cunard Bear (pictured in a separate thread, and named after Captain Arthur Rostron of the Carpathia), would be able to render assistance. 🙂🐻 Best wishes to everyone who was able to book. Looks like it will be a while before QA appears in Australia waters.

With QE anchored in the Queensland industrial port of Gladstone to wait out the virus, and QV and QM2 about to lay up in the UK, I'm curious about the composition of the remaining caretaker crew aboard, and what sort of activities still get done. My guess would be that most hotel crew (restaurant, entertainment, housekeeping) have disembarked and the passenger areas closed off. Remaining crew might be a minimal number of engineering and deck crew for maintenance and security. Perhaps a bridge watch for security, ongoing painting, rotating operation of the diesels for electrical generation, routine maintenance, etc. Is this right? Anyone have any insights?