sfred

FYI, on Friday 22 May Australia Border Force extended the current shutdown of cruise ships in Australia waters by a further three months, to 17 September.  The ban applies to any ship carrying more than 100 passengers.

Cunard had previously cancelled QE voyages through 8 September.  Currently, based only on a quick look at QE voyages for sale on the Cunard website (and with all the caveats that apply as a result), she does not appear to be back in Australia until mid-November (voyage Q030 arriving Darwin on 15 Nov). 

Cool, thanks very much.  I hadn't seen that button in the layers settings.  And the hover popup box is still available to see speed and heading of an individual ship if desired.

Thanks Bluemarble.  Just curious, does your AIS source display all the ships' names in the selected view, or did you manually add them into the graphic before posting to CC?  The source I use, marinetraffic.com, requires you to hover your cursor over each ship icon to display a popup box with the name/speed/heading/destination, and the box then disappears if you move off.. 

We've done Q4 on QV, QM2 and QE.

We've had a priority checkin queue only in Southampton or NY.  In other ports, typically a single queue for all passengers and no priority for grills.   Typically 12n assigned boarding time, although terminal checkin desks are not always ready at the start if there are IT or staff issues.  We've never had the butler meet us at the gangway.  We've made our own way to the cabin.  Bottle of real bubbly and chocolates waiting.  The butler and steward usualy come by sometime in the afternoon to introduce themselves, ask if any questions, and remind you to attend lifeboat drill. 

Q4 is certainly a nice time on Cunard.  We're very happy.  But the Q4 experience is not like the Bowette1981's description of MSC Yacht Club.

There's a great Youtube video documenting a QE-1 westbound transatlantic crossing in the 1950s.  I liked the evening "horse race" entertainment at around 29 minutes in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er9wOadvvCY

That must have been a great experience!  Unfortunately I was not lucky enough to take a voyage on QE-1, but I remember going aboard when she was briefly docked as a tourist attraction in Port Everglades FL, before her last ever voyage to Hong Kong.  My family had some photos, but they got thrown away one year in a too-thorough spring cleaning.  Sad that she could not have been saved like QM-1.

The bowcam shots I pasted in this morning look like they may be automatically refreshing as time progresses.  The Sea Princess image no longer shows Sun Princess off the starboard bow, and the GMT time at the top has updated.  I thought I was just pasting in a static graphic image.  Apologies.  Although we can apparently now watch the current bowcams when we refresh this Cruise Critic thread. 

Here is the Sea Princess bowcam, showing Sun Princess ahead and to starboard.  QE's cam is empty harbour.  Pacific Explorer would show QE, but appears to be out of service with last image from 12 Feb.  Looks like a sunny calm morning in Manila.

Manila anchorage has quite the collection of cruise ships.  The blue dots clockwise from lower left are Voyager of the Seas, Sun Princess, QE, Pacific Explorer, and Sea Princess.  Must be an impressive sight.  I looked around for a live webcam of Manila Bay, but no luck.   All five ships are pointing roughly northward at anchor, so QE's live bowcam on the sticky page shows just empty water.  Pacific Explorer is astern of QE, but unfortunately her bowcam appears to be out of service.

Spot on, bluemarble.  Copied below is AIS as at 8.00p AEST Sunday evening.  Pacific Explorer is at upper left heading 351, then from left to right below are Sea Princess heading 001, QE heading 093, and then Sun Princess heading 353.  All circling at steerageway outside of Manila Bay.

I just saw on Simon Palethorpe's latest status video that Chef Nick Oldroyd will be posting a recipe and how-to video for making Cunard scones.  Yum!  The wife and I will happily give it a go.  It might be hard to find Tiptree strawberry jam in Brisbane just at the moment, but I imagine we can make do with Beerenberg.

7 hours ago, bluemarble said:

 

A scan of Australian ports using marinetraffic shows only three foreign-registered cruise ships in port that I can see. Caledonian Sky (the vessel involved in the APT court case) is still anchored in Darwin Anchorage just outside the port of Darwin itself.

Some further info - the APT case is apparently adjourned until Friday, when APT and the government are supposed to report back to the court with detail of their settlement.  Australia Border Force has said it will not evict Caledonian Sky until Tuesday next week at the earliest. 

Just an update on the Australia APT federal court case mentioned in earlier posts.  On Wednesday, APT and the Australia federal government told the court that they had reached an in-principle settlement (terms not disclosed).  A settlement leaves the government order in place which requires all foreign-registered cruise ships to leave Australia waters. 

From bluemarble's post, it looks like most/all ships have already departed anyway.

Thanks bluemarble.  I did a google search this morning, but did not find any reports yet on an ourcome of the APT Travel Group's federal court action. 

Austcruiser84's post confirmed.  QE has been "kicked out of port".  (Apologies to fans, like me, of the movie "Mister Roberts".)   At 1.30p AEST, heading 007, 18.9 knots, departing Moreton Bay.  Destination "awaiting orders".

Kicked out of port: 

No, I have not heard anything further since your post on Sunday about it becoming a hospital ship, and bazzaw's post that he heard QE could be departing Australia waters in 3-4 days.   Not sure what correlation, if any, QE's relocation from Gladstone to Brisbane has with these rumours.  She is still here at Fisherman Island grain terminal this morning on Tuesday.

Apparently too the talks about Queen Mary (the first one) becoming a hospital ship in Long Beach CA are still ongoing.

EDIT - at 1.20p AEST, moored at the Brisbane grain terminal. 

As at 7am this morning, QE had departed Gladstone and was southbound off Noosa heads, heading 197 at 9.3 knots, reported destination Brisbane grain terminal.

We're booked on QM2's NY-Caribbean Christmas voyage this coming Dec-20/Jan-21.  If it still happens...  And if we can get to NY from Australia.  I think we should be okay, fingers crossed.

3 hours ago, rafinmd said:

Repatriation Merchant Ship Queen Mary 2 is just rounding Cape of Good at a nice 23kt (Does anyone know the maximum speed without the gas turbines, and how far the ship can go without refueling).  Soon she will be on a pretty straight forward course towards Southampton.

Hi Roy -- some numbers I've seen...

1)  Max speed on diesel:  between 23 - 24 knots.  Diesel-only max speed might be slightly greater at present with the hotel load power requirement likely below the normal of 15-16MW, with various passenger decks closed and unoccupied cabin lights switched off. 

2)  Max speed during sea trials with both diesels and gas turbines and with a clean hull was 29.62 knots.

3)  Maximum range.  According to Stephen Payne's "Owners Workshop Manual" book, page 168, QM2's fuel tank capacity of heavy fuel oil is 1,412,977 US gallons, or about 4,587 metric tonnes.  Fuel consumption is approximately 261 metric tonnes per day, giving around 17 days of range.  Of course, you wouldn't want to run the tanks all the way to empty (I don't imagine that Cunard can ring AAA for a topup), and fuel consumption will vary with wind, sea state, speed, power loads, etc.  But that is perhaps a rough guide.

Does anyone have better numbers than these?

EDIT - back at Gladstone anchorage at 5p AEST

QE is back within range of shore AIS, and as bluemarble and Canucker indicated, looks to be returning to Gladstone. 

heading 277 at 14.4 knots as at 2pm AEST.

As Littlefish1976 said, I recall reading about the Diamond Princess in Tokyo, and how the ship had to go to sea periodically to renew its supply of fresh water.  I think that diesel waste heat is needed for desalination.  Perhaps that was the reason for QE's jaunt.  Or maybe the captain just wanted to go fishing for the day.   

11 minutes ago, Matelot70 said:

Seems there are more crew on than you suggest. Marine traffic shows Queen Elizabeth set sail again at Midnight last night destination not specified. 

Yes, another mystery voyage.  Last info before going out of range of shore AIS was heading 096 at 14 knots, again "awaiting orders". 

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? 

Thanks Hattie for starting this thread.  We're in Brisbane Australia, and restrictions here increase almost daily.  Australia has  mandatory self-isolation for international arrivals, closed "non-essential" businesses, and restricted domestic travel across state borders.  Many people are out of work, particularly those in the travel or hospitality industries. 

We were on QV in February from Rio to Santiago, and thankfully got back home before all the stuff hit the fan.  No travel upcoming until the end of the year, on QM2 NY to NY Christmas and New Year.  Hopefully things will have been sorted by then.

QE is anchored just up the coast from us, in Gladstone (an industrial shipping port for the resources industry).  Hopefully she can be restarted quickly when conditions improve.

A fun ship movie to add to the list is 1948's "Luxury Liner" with George Brent, Jane Powell, and Frances Gifford.  QV played it on one of the sea days off Argentina.  It is about a cruise ship captain (Brent) and his daughter (Powell).  The daughter stows away onboard a voyage from New York to Rio.  There are some great ideas in the movie for Cunard's entertainment directors, particularly Xavier Cugat and his Cuban orchestra. 

Best wishes everyone!