sfred

Those custard doughnuts are wonderful. I have to avoid passing through Carinthia whenever they are on offer. Looks like you may encounter another bumpy area off the US east coast prior to arriving in NY.

The email acknowledgment reply is a good indication. It usually then takes them 2-3 days to process the request, and they'll send a new booking confirmation showing the onboard credit amount.

PPS Unlike the UK email which is plural shareholderbenefits@------, the Australia email address is singlular shareholderbenefit@carnivalaustralia.com

PS I never need to send anything besides the usual info (Name, Booking Reference, Ship name, Sailing Date, and Voyage:number), along with a pdf attachment of my shareholder statement dated within three months of sailing, with account information and other holdings redacted.

Hi @roscoe39. I've always used the Australia email for shareholder credit - shareholderbenefit@carnivalaustralia.com I presume they would also handle NZ requests? This Australia email seems to work reliably now. I just recently had a 12 December request for a February 2024 sailing approved. I previously had problems mid-last year with emails getting bounced to the US where they were ignored/rejected/filtered by the Carnival IT systems. Good luck - let me know if I can help further.

There's some buildings which might be the buildings in Alexandria Egypt. I'm far from certain, but I'll throw that out as my guess for the day.

Yum! Our last QE voyage had the goats cheese tart a few times. I found it very tasty. The Wellington also looks nicely done. I'm envious.

I had tried looking for the buildings also. No luck. I suppose it's possible that they no longer exist.

The North Atlantic does look a bit bumpy. Numbers are wave heights in meters. Thanks for your reports, @Pushpit.

I see this morning that an option has been added to the en-au Australia/NZ site under Support to Log In / register to My Account. I tried to register, but get an red colour text error message at Step 2 (where you enter name, address, DOB, and world club number) "Bad request. Mandatory parameters not passed". Same result in both Firefox and MS Edge. Has anyone else in Aus/NZ been successful?

I'm just catching up on the past few months of postings from this thread. Sympathies @Colin_Cameron on your dad's health and travel changes. Also @D&N on your loss of one of your companions. . And apologies to Biggles for missing "Black Cat Day". After the Barcelona finish of our recent QE adventure in September, we went by train to Madrid for a bit of business before returning to Australia. It wasn't all work, though, and we managed to fit in a day trip to Toledo. We had a very nice day, and lunch was delicious Iberian ham sandwiches from a local shop. While eating our lunch outside and enjoying the views out to the river, a local stray black kitten came by, hoping for us to share. It looked like it hadn't had anything to eat in several days, and we were happy to provide a few small pieces of ham and cheese for which it (couldn't tell he vs. she) seemed very grateful. I hope it found a home.

Cunard knows our birthdays when we enter it during the booking process, and also when logging into mycunard, so I guess the info would be passed along to the ship. The one time I was aboard on my birthday I received a card (not personalised) with pre-printed signatures from the captain, entertainment director, and hotel GM. There was nothing else, which was fine as I'm not a big birthday person. Although I wouldn't have said no to a free drink.

Interesting... I haven't heard that term "closed loop" before. Thanks @NE John and @Underwatr. To qualify as closed loop, do you know if it has to be the same port (eg, NY to NY) or can it be any two ports both in the US? When we did the QE SF to Barcelona tip in Aug/Sep, the only embarkation port between SF and Ft Lauderdale was LA. In LA we did not have to get off the ship (although we did) and the ship did not have to be zeroed out. In Ft Lauderdale, after calls in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Aruba (none of which was an embarkation port), we had to exit the ship in Ft Lauderdale (we planned to anyway), clear US immigration, and the ship had to be zeroed out.

No luck for me. I've tried to examine QM2's flags, and also the lettering on the sides of the two gangways, but the resolution isn't sufficient to make anything out.

Because of our Panama transit on our voyage, we were especially concerned about malaria. So much so that we took a preventative dose of G&T almost every day. It seemed the least we could do to maintain health. 🙂 Your future voyages sound wonderful. Best wishes! We loved our QV trip from Rio to Santiago in February 2020. We got home to Brisbane just a week or so before Australia's borders closed for the duration of covid. We're back on QE in February for a Sydney to South Pacific trip, and also a short QM2 trip in May Southampton-Hamburg-Southampton, conveniently adjacent to a work trip to London. Counting the days to February!

Excellent! - I'm so glad the Deck 2 Connexions coffee is back. It was a long walk from insight lectures to deck 7 to get coffee refills. QE had new coffee machines also when we were last aboard in August/September. QE's look similar but different. They seemed fairly reliable.

Thanks much for your photo updates, @Flickit. Appreciate you sharing your adventures. It looks like your weather has been a bit hazy/stormy. Or is it just my eyesight getting fuzzier with age? A little over two months to go for us to be back on QE again. Counting the days!

That would be the statue of Charles I of Austria, in the Monte gardens of Funchal, Madeira. Both QE and QV have been there this year, QV a bit more recently, so I'll guess QV. In your photo, the ship seems to be more to the left side of the Funchal pier, whereas QE was further to the right when we were there on 14 September.

The three towers of La Rochelle (Saint Nicholas, Lantern, and Chain) which guard the port entrance have a rich history, dating from 1384. A chain extending from Saint Nicolas to Chain was used to stop ships from entering the harbour. Presumably there were no barriers to @Lanky Lad's QV port call in 2018.

Correct! Webcam captured during QE's port call today 7 December 2023. https://www.portotago.co.nz/otago-harbour/webcams/

Here's a webcam for an already-seen port. I've cropped out the data/time banner. One of the port vehicles is just covering the ship's name on the stern, so bonus points for guessting the ship between QE/QV.

It will be a very close fit. The Bridge of the Americas clearance at high tide is 61.3 meters. QM2 from keel to funnel is 72.0 meters. At a typical draft of approximately 10.3 meters, that leaves an air draft of approximately 61.7 meters. I guess they are planning to go through at a lower tide. And maybe tell everyone out on deck to crouch down. It felt close even for QE during our August transit earlier this year. If it occurs, the Bridge of the Americas would replace the Askoy Bridge in Bergen Norway as the lowest bridge in the world that QM2 passes under. Askoy has a clearance of 62 meters.

Sounds like a very nice tradition. "Whatever he wants" might not be possible, although your waiters would probably try their best. A selection of any or all of the items on the dessert menu that day will definitely not be a problem.

We bought two plug adapters (adaptors? I think you are right @maggielou362) for our last QE voyage at one of the local Australian tech retailers, one for a UK plug and one for a Europe plug. They have two usb ports and an Australia socket. These, plus a few standard simple plug adapters for the US, are enough for all our devices. I've never been questioned about using these when aboard.

As you say, Cunard (and the world in general) tends not to provide a great deal of support for our somewhat unique Aus/NZ power needs. Plug adapters are needed. A typical QM2 Britannia cabin will have two UK plugs and two US plugs at the back of the desk. There are two more US plugs to the left of the below photo, near the kettle. QV and QE also offer a European plug, but QM2 does not. Power strips, particularly those containing circuit breakers/surge protection are not allowed, so we bring several adapters. Per the Cunard FAQ: